New album
The Foo Fighters and their journey through grief
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl on drums at Wembley Stadium. photo
© Scarlet Page/MBC/PA Media/dpa
The Foo Fighters present their eleventh studio album “But Here We Are”. Following the tragic death of drummer Taylor Hawkins, the band describes various stages of grief.
“I hear many voices, none of them are yours,” sings lead singer Dave Grohl, 54, on the song “Hearing Voices” on the Foo Fighters’ new album But Here We Are, out June 2. It is the eleventh studio album by the US rock band, whose new work strikes melancholy tones.
It is the first album after the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins, who was found lifeless in a hotel room in Bogotá, Colombia, while on tour last March. With the album, the band deals with the heavy loss – sadness and plenty of emotions can be found between classic elements of the band on “But Here We Are”.
The song “The Glass” combines pulsating riffs, driving drums and the distinctive vocals of Dave Grohl into a powerful anthem. This is followed by quiet rock ballads like “Under You” and “Beyond Me”, which finally lead to the song “Rest”, which rounds off the quiet album acoustically.
The band themselves describe “But Here We Are” as a “brutally honest and emotionally candid answer” to what the rock legends have had to endure over the past year. And that is reflected not only in the melancholic sounds on the album, but above all in the lyrics: “Sometimes I just don’t know what to do,” Grohl sings in “Under You”.
There is a reference point to Hawkins in almost every song. This makes the album a journey through the different phases of a grieving process and marks the heavy loss – desperation and anger (“The Teacher”) is always followed by gentle melancholy.
The band is on tour until October. In Germany they played as headliners at “Rock im Park” and “Rock am Ring”. The American drummer Josh Freese (50) accompanies on the drums and takes the place of Hawkins.