Dave Grohl has spoken about Foo Fighters‘ upcoming album ‘Your Favorite Toy’, saying it is “uptempo” with some “noisy, loud bangers”.
The band announced their 12th full-length effort yesterday (Thursday February 19), while sharing its massive title track. In a four-star review, NME described the song as a “futureproof rock beast” that is “snarlingly unapologetic”.
Foos’ new record is due for release on April 24, following on from 2023’s ‘But Here We Are’. It’ll also contain last year’s ‘Asking For A Friend’. The album was recorded at home, co-produced by Foo Fighters and Oliver Roman, and mixed by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent.
During an interview on Apple Music 1, frontman Grohl spoke to Zane Lowe about what fans could expect from the project, and how it came to be.
“For the last year-and-a-half, I was spending a lot of time in my studio just writing and experimenting and demoing things, and I’d come up with maybe like 30 or 40 different ideas,” he explained.
“One night I was listening to all these ideas and just randomly, there were these 10 songs in a row in my playlist that were all just like noisy, loud bangers. Uptempo, like back to the old days. I was like, wait a minute, maybe this is the record.”
Grohl continued: “There was other stuff that sounded like Led Zeppelin‘s [1976 album] ‘Presence’, and then there was stuff that sounded kind of mellow acoustic, but I was listening to this playlist and these 10 [songs] in a row and I’m like, this is the record right here.”
The musician opened up about how he then questioned the “intention” and “ambition” of the band, now that they’re more than three decades into their career.
“Like, what are we? It’s our 12th record,” Grohl added. “We’ve been a band for 30 years and, as people, we’re evolving and we’re growing. Where do we go from here? What do we do?
“And that’s when all the boundaries just sort of fall away, and that’s where you realise the intention and the ambition is all within yourself. So, whatever’s going to make us jump around and smile and scream… and that’s the purest intention.”
Grohl then told Lowe that the Foos “found it in this song”, referring to the ‘Your Favorite Toy’ title track, which he called “the springboard for the rest of the record”.
“When we hit this, it was like we hit this little vein of gold and were like, ‘That’s the feeling, that’s the vibe, that’s the energy’. And then we just blasted everything out in like three or four weeks,” he said.
In a previous statement about the LP, Grohl explained: “‘Your Favorite Toy’ really was the key that unlocked the tone and energetic direction of the new album. We stumbled upon it after experimenting with different sounds and dynamics for over a year, and the day it took shape I knew that we had to follow its lead. It was the fuse to the powder keg of songs we wound up recording for this record. It feels new.”
The album marks the first with Ilan Rubin, who recently joined as drummer and took on the role from Josh Freese. The two have swapped groups, with Rubin leaving Nine Inch Nails to join Foos, and Freese departing the Foo Fighters and returning to NIN.
Grohl had confirmed that a new record was finished in January, with the Foos subsequently sharing some teasers online. The group later updated their website and posted more previews of new music.
Foo Fighters will head out on the road in the UK and Europe this year for a run of huge stadium shows, and are set to play some North American dates over the summer and autumn. They’ve announced an Australia and New Zealand leg, too, for 2026 and 2027.
The UK stint includes two headline shows at Liverpool FC’s Anfield Stadium (find any remaining tickets here), with European festival dates scheduled for Mad Cool, Nos Alive, Pinkpop and more.
In other news, ex-Foos drummer Josh Freese has spoken of life after his exit from the band, saying “no one should feel sorry” for him.
The post Dave Grohl says Foo Fighters’ new album ‘Your Favorite Toy’ is “noisy, loud bangers. Uptempo, like back to the old days” appeared first on NME.
