Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters is an American rock band, formed in Seattle in 1994. It was founded by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the death of Kurt Cobain and the resulting dissolution of his previous band. The group got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II, which were known collectively as foo fighters.

Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album Foo Fighters, which featured Grohl as the only official member, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear to complete the lineup. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon. Goldsmith quit during the recording of the group's second album, The Colour and the Shape (1997), when most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl himself. Smear's departure followed soon afterward.

Foo Fighters (album)

Foo Fighters is the debut studio album by American alternative rock band Foo Fighters, released on July 4, 1995, by Capitol Records through Dave Grohl's label Roswell. Grohl wrote and recorded the entire album himself – with the exception of a guest guitar spot by Greg Dulli – with the assistance of producer Barrett Jones at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle, Washington, in 1994. Grohl claimed he recorded the album just for fun, describing it as a cathartic experience to recover from the death of his Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain.

After Grohl completed the recordings, he chose the name "Foo Fighters" for the project to hide his identity and passed cassettes copies of the sessions to personal friends. After said tapes attracted record label interest, Grohl signed with Capitol and recruited a full band to perform the songs live. The album was promoted through extensive tours and six singles, two of which received music videos. Foo Fighters earned positive reviews praising the songwriting and performances, and was also a commercial success, becoming the band's second-best-selling album in the United States and reaching the top five in the charts of United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways

Sonic Highways is a 2014 American documentary miniseries directed by Dave Grohl and written by Mark Monroe. The documentary was made concurrently with Foo Fighters' eighth album, Sonic Highways, and was broadcast on HBO. Grohl described the project as "a love letter to the history of American music". Each of the eight episodes is presented as an exploration of the musical history of a different American city through a series of interviews by Grohl. The group is also shown incorporating what they learned from the interviews into the writing and recording of a new song in or near that city. The series debuted on October 17, 2014.

Development

After the success of Grohl's 2013 documentary film Sound City, he expressed interest to Billboard of doing something similar. According to Grohl,

On May 15, 2014, it was announced that Foo Fighters' eighth album would be released in the fall of 2014, and that Foo Fighters would commemorate the album and 20th anniversary with the TV series. Each song on the new album was recorded in a different city, featuring “local legends” on each song and lyrics inspired by the ”experiences, interviews and personalities that became part of the process.”