Foo For Thought

For the Foo Fighters, it all started out with Dave writing songs during his spare time while in Nirvana. Pretty quickly after Nirvana's demise, he took the time to take his material to the studio and recorded the entire thing, calling the project "Foo Fighters," by himself, save for a single guitar solo on "Exhausted" from the Afghan Whigs' Greg Dulli. On July 4, 1995, the record was released, simply titled "Foo Fighters." (For those not in the know, near the end of WWII, the U.S. Air Force patrolling German airspace encountered highly maneuverable balls of light in the area between Hagenau in Alsace-Lorraine and Neustadt an der Weinstrasse in the Rhine Valley. These unidentified flying objects came to be referred to as "Foo Fighters" by those who believed the objects were a secret German weapon.) Pretty soon, he had to find a lineup to go on tour. So he put together a lineup featuring:

(L-R) himself, Pat Smear, Nate Mendel, and William Goldsmith

Dave recruited Pat from the final days of Nirvana. Before his stint in Nirvana, Pat was previously in the immensely popular L.A. punk outfit The Germs. Dave got drummer William and bassist Nate after their band Sunny Day Real Estate broke up. And for a while, that was it.

In early 1996, the band hit it big with the release of "Big Me," an astonishingly simple song which, for the most part, repeats itself continually. The band rode its' newfound success to a few million album sales. Then, during the recording of the follow-up, entitled "The Colour and the Shape," the band lost Goldsmith due to his inability to adapt himself to his surroundings in the studio. The band regrouped after Grohl recorded most of the drums by his lonesome. They soon went out on tour with new drummer Taylor Hawkins, of (gasp!) Alanis Morisette fame.

(L-R) Pat, Nate, Dave, and Taylor

Foo trudged on with the new lineup until an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards. After performing the first single from "The Colour and the Shape," "Monkeywrench," Pat announced, after many weeks of rumors, that he was leaving the band, effective immediately. But, don't fear. For their second song, as well as the second single, "Everlong," Pat came out and introduced the Foo Fighter's new guitar player, Franz Stahl, Dave's former band member in Scream and ex-Wool guitarist. The Foo Fighters have been on a role ever since with the release of a 3rd single, "My Hero," and a European tour. The Foo's are prepared for a North American tour in the summer of '98 with Rocket From the Crypt opening some dates.

(L-R) Franz Stahl, Nate, Taylor, Dave

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