FOO FIGHTERS : Wasting Light

Apr 10 2011 by Paul Cole, Sunday Mercury

HE is the unlikeliest looking rock star, the bloke next door, Joe Public.

And that suits Dave Grohl down to the ground. His image – if, indeed, he has one – has changed as often as his shirt over the years. Not much.

So it comes as no surprise that Foo Fighters recorded their new album Wasting Light, out tomorrow, in Grohl’s garage on old analogue tape recorders.

“You know, I’ve never been one for costumes and smoke and mirrors,” says the 42 year-old rock millionaire. “I like it when bands seem like people.

“You could be David Bowie with face paint or you could be Neil Young in a flannel shirt. As long as the music is good, I don’t buy into any of the rock ‘n roll mystery stuff.

“If the singer is pumping my gas on Friday afternoon, I’m cool with that. I just want to see a band jam.”

Accordingly, the Foo’s seventh album is a back to basics affair.

“I didn’t want to just go into another big studio and use all the newest gear and make a new t-shirt and go on tour,” says Grohl. “It just seems so boring.

“I think there’s something cool about being a band that can play in stadiums and headline festivals, and be this arena rock band that still goes back to making records in a garage.

“I have a tiny little cassette recorder and if I think something is cool, I’ll put it on that. You know, it’s the same way you would have done it if you were 14 years old in a garage band.”

Such artistic freedom is rare but then, Grohl does have an edge.

“We’re lucky,” he says. “We never have anyone telling us what to do. We’ve been on my record label for 16 years. I’m the president of the record label that we record for. Maybe it’s a crime.”

Arriving hot on the heels of the band’s one night only documentary movie, Wasting Light is business as usual.

And that means it’s the band’s by now traditional mixture of killer and filler.

These Days is an obvious single, the classic Foo Fighters stadium singalong with Grohl out in the crowd, perched atop an impossibly long walkway.

Back & Forth is almost Beatley, in a hard rock sort of way; Bridge Burning is an explosive opener, chugging guitar and tight as a drum; the stop-start riff of Rope nods to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti.

Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic guests on the blues-fuelled drama of I Should Have Known, but Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould is underused on the otherwise unexceptional Dear Rosemary.

White Limo is the track that will excite the diehards, a brutal, shouty rush that recalls Nick Oliveri era Queens Of The Stone Age.

Elsewhere, both Arlandria and Walk pass melodic muster, but A Matter Of Time and Miss The Misery are sadly foo-gettable. Classy, but not a classic. PC