Foo Fighters is an American rock band from Seattle, USA formed in 1995. Drummer Dave Grohl formed the group as a one-man project after the dissolution of his previous band, Nirvana, in 1994. Prior to the release of the band's debut album in 1995, Grohl drafted Nate Mendel as bassist,William Goldsmith as a drummer, and Pat Smear as guitarist to complete the group. The band was small, young, and began with performances in Portland, Oregon before gaining popularity.
My hero
When Grohl first started the band, its music was often compared to that of his previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Kurt Cobain was a major influence on his songwriting. Grohl said, "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down." Foo Fighters also utilize the Pixies' technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud chorus, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana. Writing and recording songs for the first Foo Fighters album by himself, Grohl wrote the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar similar to how he approached playing a drumkit, assigning different drum parts to different strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished." Once Grohl assembled a full band, his bandmates assisted in song arrangements. The members of Foo Fighters meld melodic elements with harder sounds. Grohl noted in 1997, "We all love music, whether it's the Beatles or Queen or punk-rock. I think the lure of punk rock was the energy and immediacy; the need to thrash stuff around. But at the same time, we're all suckers for a beautiful melody, you know? So it is just natural. I love being in a rock band, but I don't know if I necessarily wanna be in an alternative rock band from the 1990s for the rest of my life. It might be nice to broaden our range, open up the dynamic, so we can go out and just make music". Grohl noted that the band's acoustic tour was such an attempt to broaden the group's sound.