Foo Fighters made their Tiny Desk Concert debut this week in Washington DC, the city where Dave Grohl took his first musical steps with early bands Mission Impossible and Dain Bramage.
The Los Angeles-based sextet opened their set with Spit Shine from their current album, Your Favorite Toy, before dipping back into 1999’s There is Nothing Left To Lose for fan favourite Learn to Fly.
Grohl then shared a vulnerable moment with those in attendance.
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“You know, one of the most challenging things in doing new music,” he said, “is that you spend a lot of time in the studio, and it’s months of recording, and then months of preparing, and then when you come out to perform, you realise that you haven’t had a haircut in a year. And it becomes really hard to see the fretboard. And not only seeing the fretboard, but inhaling hair.
“And so recently we did a a TV show where we did a version of this next song that we’re going to play. And in the last chorus, I’m screaming wildly, and I took this deep breath in right before the song kicks in, and I had to sing one more line and it sounded like… you know, the furball sound when your cat… yeah, got one of those moments. Let’s pray it doesn’t happen again.”
The band then performed Child Actor from their new album before closing out their short set with My Hero and Everlong, both from 1997’s The Colour and the Shape.
Recently, in an interview with The Irish Times, Dave Grohl acknowledged that there’s much about the political climate in his homeland that’s distressing at the present time.
Asked by journalist Lauren Murphy if it’s difficult not to feel angry and disillusioned when looking at America, Grohl said, “Yeah, of course. It’s hard not to feel political living in America, where we’re deeply divided. And there’s injustice, and there’s so much hate and fear, and it’s such a drag.”
“I try to love everyone,” he added, “because I think that’s what you’re supposed to do – and I do. But there needs to be change in that direction, and it’s been hard to find in the States.”
Grohl admitted that his band, and their music, serves as therapy for him in challenging times.
“I really do rely on it,” he said. “There are times where I’ll write something that I have a hard time saying in conversation, and the end result is something real that you wind up singing every night. It just feels good to fucking scream that shit sometimes, you know?”