When Dave Grohl and his Foo Fighters decided to record their upcoming album, Sonic Highways, in different studios across the country, there was almost a guarantee that the band would end up in Seattle. A song on the album was inspired by the end of Nirvana.
Grohl's musical journey began in Virginia and Washington, D.C., but his road to fame started in Seattle with Nirvana. Each track on his band's new album was written in a different city and highlighted in an HBO documentary series. Track 7, "Subterranean," was written in Seattle when the band visited Robert Lang Studios, the same place Nirvana recorded in 1994.
"Seattle is where my life changed with Nirvana, and then my life started over with the Foo Fighters," Grohl told Studio Brussel during a recent interview. "I would use Seattle as an example — I tell the story of the city and this crazy studio. The studio is the last place where Nirvana recorded, it's this strange underground studio north of the city, that was right down the street from my house. Not long after we recorded there, Kurt [Cobain] died."
Following Nirvana's dissolution, Grohl found himself at a crossroads.
"I didn't want to make music anymore after Nirvana, then time went on and I thought, 'Wait a minute, music is the one thing that's going to help me start over, it's going to heal me, so that's what I have to keep doing,'" he added.
The singer returned to Robert Lang Studios to record the self-titled debut of his new band's 1995 album, and that sense of starting anew became a theme for "Subterranean."
Grohl and Co. visit Seattle on the Nov. 28 episode of Sonic Highways. Their album comes out Nov. 10 via RCA.
© 2024 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
