{"id":545717,"date":"2026-03-19T01:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545717\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T01:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:12:23","slug":"my-life-was-going-down-the-toilet-i-was-trying-to-stay-out-of-everybodys-way-just-to-finish-what-id-started-the-story-behind-the-troubled-birth-of-foo-fighters-second-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545717\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMy life was going down the toilet. I was trying to stay out of everybody\u2019s way, just to finish what I\u2019d started.” The story behind the troubled birth of Foo Fighters’ second album, The Colour And The Shape"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the success of the self-titled Foo Fighters<\/a>\u2019 debut album \u2013 written and recorded by Dave Grohl, save for a guest cameo from The Afghan Whigs\u2019 Greg Dulli \u2013 the frontman had big plans for his next full-length. <\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve made punk rock records, and they\u2019re fun and great and it\u2019s quick and there\u2019s passion,\u201d said Grohl. \u201cBut I did that with the first record. I\u2019ve never made a big, proper rock record before, so why not? People just don’t seem to do it anymore, so we might as well take a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

To tour Foo Fighters’ 1995 debut, Grohl had assembled a full band: his former Nirvana bandmate, ex-Germs guitarist Pat Smear, and the rhythm section from the recently-disbanded Sunny Day Real Estate, bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith. By the time they arrived at Bear Creek Studios \u2013 a residential facility on a sprawling 10-acre plot in Woodinville, Washington \u2013 in November 1996, the quartet had been bonded by 15 months of touring and were excited at the prospect of committing their new songs to tape: tracks Enough Space, Up In Arms, My Poor Brain and My Hero were already firmly bedded into their setlist, hinting at a bigger, more expansive palette.<\/p>\n

Foo Fighters – Monkey Wrench (Demo – 1996 w\/ William Goldsmith) – YouTube
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To help realise his vision, Grohl enlisted Gil Norton, the Liverpool-born producer who\u2019d worked with Echo & The Bunnymen and Pixies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI’ve admired Gil for a while,\u201d Grohl told German magazine Visions. \u201cI thought he’d be the right man for these songs because they’ve got potential to be great pop songs, and a little polish can do no harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

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But Norton was a perfectionist in the studio, and clashed almost immediately with his new charges, who’d received their musical education from attitude-over-precision punk rock. As the producer captured then deleted take after take, tensions rose and the band\u2019s morale dipped, as it became achingly apparent that their efforts were simply not up to scratch. Goldsmith and Mendel were particularly frustrated, not least when Norton’s cutting Scouse wit saw them dubbed \u201cthe rhythmless section\u201d.<\/p>\n

The duo weren’t alone in feeling the pressure. Grohl, who has described the words which informed the first Foo’s album as \u201cdumb\u201d, was finding lyric writing for the new material a challenging process, more so with Norton breathing down his neck.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wouldn\u2019t let me have dinner until I\u2019d written some lyrics,\u201d Grohl joked. \u201cEvery time I wrote a bad line I\u2019d get 40 lashes. In no way do I consider myself a clever lyricist, or even a lyricist. I can’t even write fucking postcards. How am I going to write songs that really grab someone?\u201d<\/p>\n

Where nonsensical, vague phrases were deemed suitable for Foo Fighters \u2013 name another song which references the acne medication Minicyn as on This Is A Call? \u2013 Grohl looked inward and wrote about things closer to home for album two, choosing to draw on his crumbling relationship with Jennifer Youngblood, his wife of just three years.<\/p>\n

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In no way do I consider myself a clever lyricist, or even a lyricist. I can’t even write fucking postcards. <\/p>\n

Dave Grohl<\/p>\n

Indeed, the frontman\u2019s stress during the initial recording sessions was further compacted a couple of weeks before Christmas, when he was served divorce papers by a legal courier.<\/p>\n

\u201cDave didn’t get overly emotional about it with me, and I didn’t see him crying or anything, but obviously it was a big part of his life and a concern at the time,\u201d remembers Norton.<\/p>\n

Licking his wounds, Grohl spent the holidays at his mother\u2019s home in Virginia. Here he would pore over the recordings to figure out why their efforts were falling short of his expectations. During his stay, he asked his friend, Gray Matter frontman Geoff Turner, to give him the use of his WGNS studio to work on a couple of freshly-penned songs, Walking After You and Everlong.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was sort of in the middle of this intense emotional period,” he revealed 24 years later, during a set recorded Studio 606 in Northridge, California. \u201cAnd for whatever reason, the emotion or the feeling I got when I would play [Everlong\u2019s] succession of chords sort of touched on whatever emotion that was.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout having it fully-formed, I put down a drum track, the guitars and the bass, and sang it into a microphone for the first time. The lyric and the melody, and where I was emotionally, it all made sense. I played the demo for Thurston [Moore] and Kim [Gordon] from Sonic Youth, because I was deathly afraid that I\u2019d ripped [off] a Sonic Youth song somehow. They were like, \u2018Why is that a demo? Why is it not on the album?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Foo Fighters – Everlong (January 1997 Rough Mix) [Unreleased Louise Post Vocals] – YouTube
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Beginning the new year with a change of scenery, the band and producer headed some 1140 miles south down the Pacific coast from Bear Creek Studios to Hollywood\u2019s Grandmaster Recorders to continue the album.<\/p>\n

The former cinema was used by Stevie Wonder<\/a> as he prepped his classic 1976 album, Songs In The Key Of Life, and it was here that the Foo’s second album truly began to take shape. Don\u2019t go looking for it now, btw, as it\u2019s since been redeveloped into an Italian restaurant.<\/p>\n

With the clock ticking at this expensive facility, Grohl, losing patience with Goldsmith\u2019s efforts, began to re-record some drum tracks. Goldsmith \u2013 who says he recorded 96 takes for one song, and spent 13 hours working on another \u2013 would end up with just two credits on the final recording: album opener Doll and Up in Arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had this idea that I was going to play drums because we were running out of time and William was having difficulty recording,\u201d Grohl explained to writer Paul Brannigan in his book, This is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl. \u201cI thought \u2018OK, well, just to save time, I\u2019m going to record these new songs, and then we\u2019ll have Will re-do the other stuff.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWilliam caught wind that I was going to do drums and basically just said, \u2018Well, I don\u2019t agree and I don\u2019t want to be in the band. Most people are under the impression that I kicked him out of the band, but he absolutely quit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave everything I could,\u201d counters Goldsmith. \u201cI couldn’t believe at the end of it everything was done and I had got through it. But I just knew something wasn’t right. Apparently Dave was going to re-record a few of the songs. I don’t know if the producer told him to keep going, or what, but the next thing you know all of the work I had done was gone except for one or two of the tracks. It was brutal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reeling from his perceived sense of betrayal, Goldsmith turned down the offer of remaining on board as the band\u2019s live drummer, and shortly afterwards, Pat Smear walked too, citing the rigours of touring and press obligations as his reasons for his resignation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had known for almost four months that Pat was going to leave the band,\u201d Grohl later told iD. \u201cHe told us early on that he didn’t want to tour anymore and he doesn\u2019t like doing press and he hates flying, tons of stuff. Of course, we were totally shocked. Then I remembered, when Pat joined Nirvana, all of his friends were placing bets on how long he was going to last in that band. Some friends bet a week, or a month, or two months. This is the longest he’s stayed in a band since the Germs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy life was fucking going down the toilet,\u201d Grohl added. \u201cIt was not a good time. My ex-wife was mixed up in it and she was not being cool at all. I was just trying to fucking stay out of everybody\u2019s way, you know, just to finish what I\u2019d started.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Foo Fighters at the Polo Fields, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in 1996 (Image credit: Kevin Mazur\/WireImage)<\/p>\n

The Colour And The Shape was released on May 20, 1997. The minimalist artwork resembles the Atomium, a structure built to commemorate the 1958 Brussels World\u2019s Fair, but Grohl was only half-joking when he revealed that the cover almost featured a psychoanalyst\u2019s couch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we finally did sequence the album, I had this realisation that it runs like a therapy session,\u201d said Grohl. \u201cThe first song, Doll, is all about your fear of entering into something you weren\u2019t prepared for, I go through this whole therapy session, and I end up at the last track [New Way Home], when I realise that it\u2019s okay, I can make my way through all of this, and I\u2019m not that freaked out at the end.”<\/p>\n

When it came time to tour the album, Taylor Hawkins replaced the departed William Goldsmith, adding a new power to the group’s live shows. But, with the benefit of hindsight, the tensions that rose between the original band and their producer were elemental in crafting a critically-acclaimed rock album which has since been certified platinum in North America, Australia and the UK.<\/p>\n

When we finally did sequence the album, I had this realisation that it runs like a therapy session.<\/p>\n

Dave Grohl<\/p>\n

Norton\u2019s fastidious approach in the studio reaped rewards, not least on lead single Monkey Wrench, a choppy, uptempo blast which details the frontman\u2019s thoughts about being trapped in a failing marriage. But it was Everlong, the last-minute demo captured during the holidays, which remains a career highlight and fan-favourite almost three decades later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt opened up so many doors for us melodically, dynamically, it sort of gave us a reason to keep being a band for 12 or 13 more years,\u201d said Grohl during a VH1 Storytellers performance in 2009. \u201cI honestly think that if it weren’t for this song, we probably wouldn’t still be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In documenting the frontman\u2019s very own \u201cwinter of discontent\u201d and the resilience shown when faced with myriad hurdles, The Colour and the Shape is imbued with genuine depth and emotion: divorce, self-doubt and the prospect of losing half a band within the space of a few months would be enough to cause most people a nervous breakdown. Instead, the Foo Fighters emerged in triumph, with a stadium-sized alt-rock album which remains every bit as vital today.<\/p>\n

Foo Fighters – Everlong (Official HD Video) – YouTube
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