Foo Fighters heavier than ever

The fate of the forthcoming Foo Fighters album Wasting Light was sealed in Jameson's Irish Whiskey almost exactly a year ago.
Frontman Dave Grohl was swigging from a bottle at the Independent Spirit Awards in Los Angeles when he was accosted by a Rolling Stone journalist enquiring as to the band's next move.
A lubricated Grohl revealed his intentions of returning to rock'n'roll fundamentals for the seventh Foo Fighters album. It would be recorded in his garage at home instead of the band's private studio, directly to tape without the usual digital manipulation, and produced by Butch Vig who first worked with Grohl on his former band Nirvana's album Nevermind.
Grohl also vowed the record would be "our heaviest album yet", a fact the singer was reminded of when he woke the next morning to discover his words plastered all over the internet. The only problem was that none of the conversation had been properly discussed with either the rest of the band or Vig, meaning Grohl had some explaining to do.
Fortunately his band members - Chris Shiflett, Nate Mendel, Taylor Hawkins and Pat Smear - are familiar with their leader's single-minded approach. Hawkins, the Foo Fighters' drummer who was poached from Alanis Morissette in 1997, admits Grohl's whisky-doused revelations actually worked as a potent catalyst for Wasting Light.
"All those things Dave said to that journalist that night were just ideas which had by no means been put into practice," Hawkins tells AAP.
"So Wasting Light is the one record we've done where the finished version is pretty much what we planned on to begin with. It almost had to be that way because of what Dave said."
If it hasn't been for his tipsy exchange (Grohl apparently told the journalist as he left, "If I stay another minute, I'm gonna get so f**king drunk, I'll barf all over myself") Australian fans might have never witnessed such incredible live shows on the Foo Fighters' recent visit.
Every song on Wasted Light was arranged for the live arena, so that for the first time since their 1995 self-titled debut album the band could perform a new album in its entirety from start to finish.
Shows in Brisbane and Sydney pushed the three-hour mark as a non-interrupted preview of Wasting Light warmed up for every greatest hit imaginable, plus covers by Prince and The Who.
The Sydney gig, which will be remembered by those lucky enough to attend simply as 'Goat Island', was the longest-ever Foo Fighters' performance and one of their most enjoyable according to bassist Nate Mendel.
"It really was fun and everyone in the band was really into the idea of doing the whole album from start to finish," he says.
"It created a lot of enthusiasm for playing live again."
That enthusiasm was first born in Grohl's garage during the making of record. The hiring of Vig as producer wasn't a unanimous decision at first, especially from Taylor who describes the song Wheels, the last time the Foo Fighters and Vig worked together, as "a boob job manicured version of who we are".
But with Wasting Light, Vig provided a vital role in ensuring Grohl's hard rock promise was adhered to. He also helped to simplify certain songs and shape a fierce but radio-friendly album at a time when rock music struggles for air play against pop and R&B.
"We usually want to fire every producer by the end of each record but that didn't happen this time round," Hawkins says.
"Butch's mantra was set in stone, he'd knock back a demo for not fitting the heavy rock criteria."
"He felt there were a couple of songs that just weren't gnarly enough," adds Mendel.
Songs which made the cut and have already been released, Rope and White Limo, point to a complexity which was hinted towards on the band's previous album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace - Rope, for example, boasts an intricate drum solo.
After admitting that Foo Fighters tend to elaborate in the studio "because as musicians that's what we get off", both Hawkins and Mendel unite in a resounding "no" when asked if the garage-based recording process signified a band going back to basics.
"Maybe there was a conscious effort to get away from certain things that we'd been doing, like using ProTools or layers of acoustic guitars, but that never meant going backwards," says Hawkins.
"Nobody wanted to recreate the first or second or third record and I don't see it as looking back.
"We're always trying to move forward in our own baby steps kind of way."
The baby steps are clear to see in the forthcoming documentary from Oscar-winning filmmaker James Moll, Back And Fourth, which examines the Foo Fighters' career.
Unveiled in Sydney as part of their visit, the film details the band's gestation from the ashes on Nirvana into one of the most successful rock bands of the past 15 years.
But it also lifts the lid on early tensions which saw three of the band's original members either quit (original drummer William Goldsmith), threaten to quit (Mendel) or quit and later return (Smear).
The pressures of being in a band proved to have an even worse affect on Hawkins who nearly died from a drug overdose while on tour in London three years after joining the band.
The surfer-haired drummer claims those days are long gone and a better sense of balance has been achieved over recent albums with the back slapping camaraderie evident on Wasting Light nothing new.
Grohl even invited some old friends from his grunge days to collaborate on the album, his surviving Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic and Husker Du's Bob Mould, and their presence did nothing to threaten the remaining Foo Fighters.
"All the drama happened in the first six years of the band and the last 10 years have almost been boring, nobody quit or had any problems and the challenges we overcame solidified us and made us who we are," says Hawkins.
"That's the sound of the Foo Fighters and I suppose that's another reason we went to tape as well, we wanted it to sound like us."
* Wasting Light is available on April 12.
* Foo Fighters Wasting Light On The Harbour will be screened on Channel V from April 2.