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Dave Grohl discusses Record Store Day release of early Foo Fighters demos

By | Published on Friday 10 April 2015

Dave Grohl

When you’re the official ambassador for Record Store Day, you can’t just sit around doing nothing. True, that does seem to be a large part of the job, but at the very least you’ve got to knock together some sort of exclusive release for the day. Otherwise, what’s the point?

And so, this year’s ambassador, Mr David Grohl of those Foo Fighters, is releasing a ten-inch featuring four demos he recorded while Nirvana was still a going concern. Titled ‘Songs From The Laundry Room’, it features early versions of ‘Alone + Easy Target’ and ‘Big Me’, a cover of Kim Wilde’s ‘Kids In America’, and a previously unheard song, ‘Empty Handed’.

At the time they were made, Grohl tells Rolling Stone, the recordings were more an experiment than something intended for people to hear.

“I’d never been the singer of a band and I’d never been the principal songwriter of a band”, he says. “So to me it was just this private experiment, not something that I wanted lots of people to hear, because I didn’t necessarily like my voice. When you’re in a band with the greatest songwriter of your generation, you don’t want to be the guy saying, ‘Look at my songs too’. So I would record them and put them away. But it was fun to do. I’ve recorded stuff and just erased it. Sometimes it’s just fun to flex that muscle and record. It feels good.”

He continues: “It was just something to do in between tours when I was playing with Nirvana. By the time Nirvana was over, I had, I don’t know, 20, 30, 40 of these recordings that no one had ever heard … I think the songs that we picked for the Record Store Day album were maybe picked out of fifteen or 20 others that no one’s ever heard”.

Record Store Day is on 18 Apr. But look, ‘Songs From The Laundry Room’ is available to pre-order on eBay already. So that’s nice.



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