(Credits: Far Out / Danny Clinch)
Wed 26 November 2025 5:30, UK
It’s safe to say that Foo Fighters have become far greater than the Dave Grohl Experience in recent years.
Although Grohl has been there since the very beginning and can take the credit for playing nearly everything on their first record, it’s the real energy behind the rest of the band that have made them grow stronger every single time they made a record. But that kind of chemistry doesn’t come without all of them referencing the same kinds of musicians every time they’re jamming.
While Grohl is the one that comes up with all of the riffs, every member was ingrained in every kind of classic rock band that anyone would ever need. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for them to pull out a Kiss riff and start jamming on it for a little while live until they get bored or even find time to cover a few Zeppelin tunes along the way. If anyone wanted to be a member, though, they would need to dig a little deeper.
Whereas someone like Taylor Hawkins was practically a member of the band before he even had to audition, Grohl knew that anyone who joined on guitar needed to have the same feel for the record. And while Chris Shiflett has been able to do a lot of different things behind the fretboard when breaking out his country music chops, he did get into the band thanks to his track record working with everyone from No Use For a Name to Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies.
There was always a common language among the band of underground rock and roll, and no one really laid the groundwork for them quite like Bob Mould did. Although the punk revolution really helped bring alternative rock to the mainstream for the first time, Mould was instrumental in what bands like Foo Fighters were going to sound like when he formed Husker Du. Their songs were as aggressive as any hardcore outfit, but there were always moments when the melody would take centre stage as well.
Although Mould was an adoptive godfather of alternative rock in lots of ways, Grohl remembered that his presence stopped everyone in their tracks when it came time to record with him on Wasting Light, saying, “Bob Mould came in to play on that song. I was a huge Husker Du fan. I met him for the first time last summer in Washington DC. And he’s the nicest fucking guy in the world. There was this great moment where he walked in the studio with his guitar; everybody was sort of star-struck. The minute he opened his mouth on the microphone, it sounded exactly like Husker Du. It was an honour to have him on the record.”
And when Mould does take over, it almost turns into one of his own tunes for a few seconds. Grohl was definitely trying to capture that same aggro-alternative vibe on the song ‘Dear Rosemary’, but since Mould was there to help write the bridge, it made the whole thing feel like a one-off supergroup that existed for the span of a single song.
But it’s saying something when Mould’s presence was only one of the many highlights from Wasting Light. After spending time making the best stadium rock they could, this was the kind of return to form that most people had been waiting for from the Foos, especially when they were able to balance the more radio-ready tunes like ‘Walk’ and ‘Rope’ with songs that most people didn’t realise they wanted like the punk thrashabout ‘White Limo’ or bringing Krist Novoselic in for ‘I Should Have Known’.
Any other band could have spent time spinning their wheels at this point, but as Grohl would find out soon enough, there wasn’t a single milestone that they couldn’t reach if they stayed true to themselves. And with someone like Mould on the ground floor of that record, they had no problem remembering where they came from.
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