Drumming Techniques and Final Album Thoughts

Hello, I'm John Kennedy and joining me for this episode of Take Notes are Foo Fighters to talk about how they wrote, recorded and produced their latest album, Your Favourite Toy. I was joined by Dave and Nate from the band at Metropolis Studios in London, where we got into how the record came together, digging into the demos, sessions and songwriting and breaking down how the ideas developed in the studio. We recorded this on the day the album came out so they were in good form, full of excitement about the arrival of their new baby. They had just had their album launch party the night before, which sounded like a lot of fun. There was ice skating apparently, bowling and karaoke and then the same day that we recorded our interview for TakeNotes I did another interview for them for Radio X, a track-by-track conversation. But as ever with TakeNotes, we really dug deep into all the gritty details of how they made the record. As always, we filmed the entire conversation, so if you'd like to watch the full interview and see Dave and Nate break down the sessions in detail, head over to patreon.com forward slash take notes. Membership also gives you behind-the-scenes content, the chance to ask our guests questions and entry into our monthly gear giveaways. A big thank you as well to our partners at Tape It. They have just released their new D Noiser, delivering instant studio quality audio by intelligently removing background noise while preserving your sound without artifacts. It's available as a desktop app and VST and currently half price at $49 . So head to tape.it forward slash denoiser to check it out. But now without further ado, let's get started . Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in 1994 by Dave Grohl. Known for their alt-rock anthems driven by melody and personality, Foo Fighters grew from Dave's solo project into one of Modern Rock's biggest and most influential bands. Credited with helping redefine the sound of their era, they have released 12 studio albums, won 15 Grammy Awards, and in 2021 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Their 12th studio album, Your Favourite Toy, arrived in April 2026, largely recorded at Dave's home studio. The record is their first with new drummer Ilan Rubin. Today I'm at Metropolis Studios and I'm joined by Dave and bassist Nate Mendel. And what better way to start than by hearing the album's title track? This is your favourite toy . It is your favorite toy by Food Fighters, the title track of the new album, and I'm very pleased to say that I'm sat here with two Food Fighters at Metropolis Studios. It feels like we only met a few minutes ago because we've also recorded an interview for Radio X today, but it's great to have you here for tape notes to dig into some of the tracks on the new record. I thought maybe um we should learn where you recorded this album because I think that seems such a key ingredient to how you recorded your favourite toy. So at home, above what I'm gonna say is a garage, but you're gonna say is a garage. That's right. Yeah. Um yeah, we did this one in my house. And we'd made another record God, it was like 15 years ago. Uh our record wasting light, we did that one in my house as well. But that one we used the the actual garage as the drum room and then we did all of the other overdubs and things upstairs in this little office. And um so it's quite small. I mean it's maybe a third the size of this room. It's it's really small. Um when we did wasting light, we actually brought in a lot of analog equipment. We had two API 160 8, almost like sidecars that we bridge together. And then this wall of wonderful out board analog banks of compressors and things. And um, this time most of the album was done just like right in the box . We do have this beautiful old NEAVE BCM 10 sidecar. It was gorgeous and we've had for oh my god 25 years, 26 years. We've used for most of our albums. Then we have a bunch of like API EQs that we've hot rotted and um you know little bits and bobs here and there, a nice small selection of amps, a wizard amp, a fender tone master, a couple other things, but like a high watt, and um but really just everything was really pretty minimal. A lot of it had to do with the amount of space available. It's just a small room, so we really couldn't fit much in there. The drum set we used for the album is my daughter's drum set. It's an old Ludwig and it's a small three piece, but we managed to dial in tone so it really had a bigger sound to it. And And is that in the same room? Or is that the same? There's a small isolation booth that's uh it's uh a little bit bigger than a phone booth. It's really small, which we use to do vocals and um oh actually downstairs we sort of made this little isobooth kind of cabinet for the guitar cabinets. I had to go down in this section of my garage and move all of the Halloween costumes and the Christmas lights and things, and we built this makeshift like foam kind of cabinet box thing for additional guitar cabinets. And um yeah, it was all really sort of like makeshift in a way. The equipment that we used to do a lot of the demos on the album, you know, was all just sort of newer digital stuff with some cool older microphones. But then when it became clear that we were going to record the actual album at home, you know, I had this idea that it would be great to have a place 30 feet from my bed where if so inspired, I could just kind of roll out of bed, go upstairs, record something really quickly, but have it be album quality and uh the gear that we would use . So we did spend a little time upgrading what was upstairs. But for the most part it was pretty minimal. Yeah. And um you know, and it's cool like to wake up in the morning and make coffee and get the kids ready for school and then walk upstairs and our producer engineer Oliver Roman is already in there. You know, he's I would text him and say, What what time are you coming over? And he'd say, Oh, I'm already in your house. And so it was so every day it was it was it was great, you know, to be able to put down a vocal and say, Okay, I'm gonna go downstairs and make dinner. And then make dinner and then bring Oliver a plate as he's editing through something or you know making rough mixes and it just makes it seem a lot more, you know, a lot less I don't know, clinical or professional or something to do things at your own pace in your own place , um made for a really comfortable experience. And also like a good space to experiment. You know, there's no clock on the wall really and there's no other clients waiting to get in the room. So to me it was it was ideal. Yeah. Especially for an album like this. Yeah. And and its sound great. And yet, you know, in that small space it with that kind of makeshift setup, it still sounds like a massive Foo Fighters album. Um and we're going to explore that today by digging into some of the songs on the record and the first song we're going to look at is Asking for a Friend. So Nate, if you could play it's a Blast of the Master, that would be brilliant. Save your promises till we meet again You can s ave all your promises till the bitter end What is real ? I'm asking for a friend . What is real ? I'm asking for you , where is this the end ? Give me a reason, show me his fact the free still way Just a little taste of asking for a friend by Foo Fighters from your favourite toy. This was the first song I think recorded for the record before you knew you were making an album anyway. Well there was this thought originally that, you know, people don't really make albums necessarily anymore. You can just record a song and put it out. So we we're kind of experimenting with that idea. Like let's just it doesn't have to be for anything or part of a larger ensemble of songs and just make a song. So that's really how this song came about. Yeah. Yeah, there was a song that came out before asking for a friend, a song called Today's Song. And that was I feel like that was around it was some it was an anniversary maybe. I think it might have been in July of last year. It was the anniversary of um our first record, which came out on July 4th, 19 55. Oh god, it was the thirtieth anniversary of our first record. That's what it was. Holy crap. It's a lot of time. I forgot about that part. Yeah, and so we recorded this song. It was the first thing that we had released in a long time . And we put it out just as a standalone single. And as Nate said, we'd never really done that before. Like, aren't you supposed to have an entire album to present to the world? Apparently these days you don't have to have that. And so then as we did this song, it was just as Alan joined the band, and he'd literally been in the band for a matter of days. So this song, there were maybe some demos that preceded this session, but it was really at first just kind of an exercise in um uh time signature where what is it? One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. Well, I see I don't I know it sounds horrible in a drummer . But um but I did like the idea of d-a-dun-d-d-un d-a-dun-d-un d-un d-a-dun-d-a-dun-d-a-dun. And um and how you could play with patterns within that not only time signature, but like almost drum beats that would that would roll like like titadun nut digadun digadin pedan or go double time . So it was really just like this this kind of experimenter exercise in playing with those patterns. But then it had to become a song in order for it to be worth anything other than just a riff. Yeah. And um yeah, and so we started putting it all together. There was, you know, there was an intro and there was a verse and there uh the chorus had a sort of busier pattern than the strip down verse da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da y we could because I think uh you don't have any demos with you today, Nate, but you do have the stems. you could start playing. No, 'cause otherwise I mean, it's beautiful being serenaded here by you, Dave. Um but we have the stems, so we could kind of play through some of those parts that certainly. Dave is talking about. Alright, you well, do you want to start with the drums? Yeah. Let's hear the drums. Alright, which are not in the intro. Asking all of them. And boom. Yeah. Here comes the pattern . So we should emphasize that Elan had a call a couple of days before this. You said oh no, can you come over? What how soon can you do it? He comes over to your house and you tell him to play play this, you know, in effect. This is probably either his first or second take. Well I mean he like when you sort of play something for him, he'll he's just so brilliant that you hardly have to explain anything to him. He can also just hear what's needed or necessary. So yeah, this one, we put a lot of work into this song actually. I had such a hard time with the bass on that triplet part. Did you really? I I do I didn't get I was playing it and I was like, this doesn't this doesn't feel right. And the Lord's like, that's not right, man. For whatever reason, like the straight beat with the triplety thing over it, I was just uh I was uh taken aback by how tricky that was. Got it though. When when did you put down the bass? You know, it so you were working on the drums. What was the next thing to go down? Do you think maybe at first but like we put down the drums and then we put down some guitars for like a melodic reference. Cause also at that point I don't think I really had a vocal melody . It really did just start with the with the sick the time signature and the rhythmic patterns. Then it was a matter of trying to find a song in it. So I'm sure that some guitars were put down with some kind of melodic reference. Yeah, it's usually you. You've got your guitar down, there's drums and then a lot of times I'll come in next. Yeah. Maybe maybe we could hear the drums, then the a bit of the guitar and then the bass. Yeah, okay . And then this will be Dave . So Metallica. Okay, so there's that and then see what the bass is doing . Get out right in time . No evidence. See ? But it's interesting. I mean how much time did you have to to work it out? I mean I'm looking to see if I have a demo of this. But I don't remember what I called it. Oh wait. So you begin with that sort of thing. Yeah, and would you have played that to Elan when he came over? Yeah, that would be that would be something. So he'd have heard that and then he's kind of building on that. Yes. And then you were able to rework the guitars and and and put down some more things. But then clearly you had a second thought you thought, right, it's it's two metal or it's it's what was it? Well there just didn't seem toed be, you know, I think it's a it's sometimes easy to wind up with a patterned riff that's all based in one key and you know a, lot of heavy metal songs are like, you know 're just using that like that root note key for everything. It's like blah-da-bam, blah-da-bam, blah-da bam, blah blah bam, blah-da bam, blah-da-bum, blah-da-bam, blah-da bam, or whatever, instead of having the chord s move to introduce like maybe a more interesting melody or whatever. So I think that for me that was the challenge. It was like, okay, how this is a cool pattern, how do we turn it into a song? Yeah . So so what did you do next? You know, how did you turn it into I mean let's I think the next part might have been um the second verse after the chorus, maybe 'll see . When you're alone, am I at one So you're staying within the rhythm. Am I a part of you ? But also that that original riff that down Which was used in the intro of the song can also be used over that bridge section or that second verse or whatever. So basically just trying to find these interchangeable pieces that will work on top of each other without just staying in that one kind of flat key the entire time. So it was really just yeah, it was kind of like it's like a Rubik's cube, trying to get one side solid to get all of those pieces to work together. So there there was that and then there was the idea of having it go double time. When it gets the double time part, that was I think the original our original attempt at that was like even more Metallica . Gotta get so who's playing all those different guitars? Is that you, Dave, or is that Chris? No, that's Chris. And at what point did Chris put down those? So do you you'd already change the tempo by that point and it's like right Chris it's gonna this is what's happening next. Yeah. I mean I thought that you know, just to put it into double time and bring it somewhere else and you know, it just made sense that like after that big drum roll animal like just goes straight into like a screaming lead. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I grew up like a rock and roll kid and very much like a metal kid as well. So this like takes up from a lot of those cues. Chris is really in his wheelhouse with that solo too. This his A metal background. Yeah. He's got some he can shred. A lot. And you know, and and this song is much different than the other songs on the album in that there's a lot of movement in this song. Yeah. There's breaks, there's different sort of time signat ure stuff, drum pattern stuff, melodic stuff. Solo the Chris . Should we solo the solo ? And where is he standing when he's doing this then? Is he downstairs in right in front of the console or right in front of the sitting right next to Oliver or producer engineer. And I'm like usually right behind him on this old Ames chair with my legs up on an Ottoman, just listening. And watch. I mean, you know, again, Chris is also entirely capable of doing things that none of us can do. So, you know, you can kind of throw him suggestions or um but yeah, Chris also grew up as a like a rocker dude. And we don't have that many opportunities in our songs to I feel like there was a lot on this record. It's like here's the solo section. It's like really again. Yeah, maybe more so than before. And is he using particular amp or a particular set of gear to to create that sound? He was probably running through Well, his go-to is the Freedman, but that might be live. I'm not sure what he was recording with. Yeah. Maybe the wizard? I'm bad when it comes to guitar amp stuff. I just go I usually blast through this old tone master thing. Whenever we record, it's like I use the tone master and a old Treaty Lopez guitar. And that kind of it is the That's your sound. That Tone Master is great. That's a great amp. But yeah. We also do have a bunch of petals in this sort of like petal cabinet where you can like pull out a drawer and there's all these cool petals to use. But um that doesn't sound overly affected to me. Mm-mm. No, it's pretty straight ahead. Yeah. Kind of relatively clean. Yeah. It's so much fun to play with pedals and get the most tripped out fucking spacey tones . But sometimes you go too far and you just lose all of it in the track. So sometimes, you know, something a lot more simple and direct will be more effective. Yeah. That is a good example of a guitar lead that sounds like a cable and a guitar that goes straight to an amp and you just fucking turn it up. Yeah, yeah. And you just play like Chris can play. And you just play like Chris can play. Let's hear some of these changes then within the song. If we were kind of ru you may you could maybe run through them. Well okay so let's see. Alright we got the intro section which is this arpeggiated thing which is quite different than the rest of the song. It's kind of building up there. Save your promises. It's solo the guitar things. Okay, so this will be you. So it was a drop detun ing and Pat 's not in yet. No . Chris is doing this high thing. Yeah, there was some there were harmonics put in there as well . You know, sometimes when you start layering a combination of like a harmonics and then arpeggiated string plucking of strings or whatever. You wind up with these really cool overtones that the instruments as a group will make a certain note that you may not have exactly played, you know. So those harmonics with that arpeggiated thing, to me it was almost they're like bells in a way, and the rhythm of the picking, you're sort of like you're introducing the rhythm of the song or the beat. I d I really love percussive guitar playing, you know, like Malcolm Young from ACDC is just as instrumental rhythmically as Phil Rudd, the drummer of ACDC. And so to have all of these things taken into consideration, whether it's the drums or the bass line or the arpeggiated stuff, it's all to sort of it really turns into like a freaky musical drum circle in a way, even though there's only one drum set. But yeah, so the introduction is meant to sort of introduce that sway, you know, the waltz. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's a little bit of a nineties dynamic here. You got the quiet pretty part and then the rock L part. Give me a reason, show me a sign . Ugly is truth all the prettiest land There's a tension through the song, you know, that it it it feels I mean it does take off, but it feels as if it's gonna take off now and then it's like oh no it's not quite yet. It's uh do you know what a Taylor used to call it stress rock. Right. Stress rock. Oh my god, I haven't heard that in so long. Yep . It's got a a bit of that. Extensive. Yes. Yeah. Um thinking of tones. It's gotta be a baritone in there too. Uh would Pat have been playing it? It's gotta be a baritone. Let's see where where Pat's at. There it is . Okay, so that's cut. The great thing about the baritone too, when you have those moments of those stabs. You know, you throw in a baritone on top of that, it just kind of like sounds like a fucking the machine gun. You know, it's funny, some of my favorite there's this band from Montreal. Actually they're not from Montreal. They're from way north of Montreal. They're from the same little town as Angine de Poitrine. There's a band, there's a metal band from the 80s. There's still a band called Voivod . And they were just from the middle of nowhere in Quebec. And they had this song called Thrashing Rage . And the riff was just it was they were like these really tripped out northern Quebec fucking metal dudes that their band was based on a like a science fiction concept. Voivod . But that song, when they played it live is in the 80s, the singer would come out and he had like a gas mas k on in this smoke machine, and he would blast these clouds of smoke to the rhythm of the drums. So it'd be like and he'd come out on stage with this gas master and go it was just like anything to further the fucking power of a simple riff like that. We do have a tour coming up. Time to get a gas mask. So many ideas. Um I'm conscious of the time. So is there anything else we need you'd like to highlight in this song before we move on? Hmm. Yeah. Something screaming. Yeah, I want to hear something. Because there's some pretty great screaming near the end, isn't it? Yeah, let's get to some of those hot screams. Let's see where we're right here. I'm asking for a friend or res isting Damn and how do you record that? How do you make sure it sounds the way you want it to sound? You know, like doesn't go too much in the red or or doesn't destruct too much. You know what's so funny? Last night we were having dinner at a restaurant and uh there was Nate and Alan and I, our manager John, his wife, our friend Russell, our friend Ray . And a man walks up to the table and says, Hey, how's it going? And I was like, good, how are you? An American. And it was Rich Costi who mixed our record echoes, Silence, Pace, and Grace. And oh my God, he's one of my favorite people in the world. I was so excited. I hadn't seen him in 15 years. He's made muse records and he's made a ton of huge records. And um, you know, it was great to see him and we talked and swapped numbers and stuff. But my favorite memory of him was when we were mixing one of our albums , that album, Echo Silence, Patience and Grace, and he was working on an automated naive at a studio in Los Angeles. And every time the song got to the big explosive part, the board would shut down. And he was like, what the fuck? And so he would call in the engineer, the house engineer, and he'd get the board back up and then Rich would keep mixing and then it would get to that point in the song where it explode and the board would go down here. He was like what the fuck and I was like looking at the meters on the board, and the meters were pegged, just solid red the whole time. So I said to him, I was like, which might it have something to do with the fact that every meter on this bridge, like every every piece of gear is just pegged. And he said, Don't look at that. And he got tape and put tape over every one of the meters so, you didn't watch what was happening. You just l used your ears . And so instead of the fear of pushing a needle too far to the red, you were appreciating the the distortion or however that sound was just being crammed into every compressor and every EQ . And so when recording something like a dirty vocal or a scream or a distorted vocal, it's like I don't fucking care what the meter says. It's like I'm just gonna scream as hard as I fucking can. And Oliver Roman, who recorded and produced the record with this, he gets it, you know. I'd hate to lose the moment for the sake of clarity . And so um something like that, it's like but I kind of have to warn him. Okay, I'm gonna scream . And I scream and like we end the take, and I just see him in the control room just going like laughing hysterically. Do it again I think we should have a a blast of everything together to hear asking for a friend in all its glory. It is asking for a friend by Foo Fighters from your favourite toy, and the next one we're going to look at is Spitzhine, but right now we're gonna take a quick break. This episode is supported by the Masters in Songwriting Program at Trinity Larbon. With a right produced release philosophy at its center, the course is designed to give you the knowledge and community To tell us more about it, I'm joined by Dr. Tony Briscoe, Music Production Module Leader for Popular Music at Trinity Lab an. Hi Tony, thanks for speaking with us. Can you explain how Write Produce Release shapes the experience of the course? Hi John, thanks for having me. So write, produce, release is really at the heart of the MA in songwriting at Trinity Lab on. The idea is simple. Students don't just study songwriting in theory, they actually do it from start to finish. They write original material, developing skills in melody, harmonies, and lyrics. Then we move to production, building confidence with using DAWs and shaping their tracks into something more polished and professional. And finally they release music, exploring identity and technology while also learning a practical side, such as you know the IP, building a brand, mapping a five-year career plan, all of that kind of stuff. So by the time they graduate, they're not just leaving with ideas, they leave with a finished portfolio and the confidence to stand behind that sound. And it's very flexible. This isn't a traditional full-time in-one room masters, is No. So it's it's it's the one thing we're really excited about is that the course is designed as an online first, which makes it ideal for working musicians and global students who can't relocate. Uh and then in the summer everyone comes together in London when intensive writing camp, modeling on the professional industry writing sessions. Amazing. Who do you think the Masters is designed for? Well the good thing is that it's really for anybody who's serious about songwriting and want to build a sustainable career . We see emerging artists who want to build a credible portfolio. We also welcome working musicians who want to sharpen their production skills or better understand the business side, which is really, really important these days. So if you're driven can The Songwriting Masters at Trinity Larban might be your next step. To find out more, head to trinityLarban.ac.uk. That's trinityla ban .ac .uk and search for the MA in songwriting . The next song we're going to look at is Spit Shine. But before we get there, I have a couple of questions for you from our patrons on Patreon. Um so we let people know who we've got coming on. They're very excited about Foo Fighters being part of the That's actually that's a great question. Maybe it's off the top of my head we were talking about earlier when you came back from vacation when we were doing the color and shape and you brought in Everlong. Mm-hmm. Just like, oh here's the song. Sounds pretty good. We'll see what happens. You didn't re you know, you have no idea what the the life of song's gonna be. Right. Yeah. So yeah, in retrospect, a big moment. What else? There was a moment when I was fourteen years old , maybe fifte en, I went to see a punk rock show in Washington, DC. And I met these other kids that were my age in between bands. We were there's a place called the Wilson Center. And uh we were outside like smoking clove cigarettes and being cool little punk rock kids. And I met these other guys and they had a band. And at that time I just played guitar. I didn't play the drums. But I love to pretend to play the drums at home. And I joined this band. They were called Freak Baby . And I was the second guitarist and the drummer's name was Dave Smith . And D ave had a drum set in his basement. That's where we would rehearse. And he was a he was a good punk rock drum mer, but there was but I sort of I kind of knew that I I could do it maybe a little better than he could . And I remember um suggesting, hey, how about this? Why don't why why don't I play drums and um you play the bass? And he was like, okay, he's a great bass player. And so I just immediately like got on the drum set and picked up the sticks and became a drummer that day, in that moment . Up until then it was just like I was sitting at home listening to, you know, minor threat records or punk rock records with pillows and sticks. And now it's on a real drum set. And I was like, whoa . And I was just like, and I knew how to do it. And it was like, oh my God. The band instantly sounded better. I'm like, holy fucking shit, I'm a drummer. This is great. That kind of changed everything in that moment. Wow. Where at the time it was like, yay, we have a punk rock band, but um kind of changed my life. Yeah. That's amazing. And it links in to the other question I'm going to ask now, which is from Nick Webb, who says Ilan has a book on drumming. Dave, if you wrote a book on songwriting, what would be the most important ideas in it? You know, I bought El on's book off of Amazon.com. I couldn't wait to read it. And I opened it up and it was a lot of sheet music, which I can't read. I'm like, god damn it . He wrote a book of music . Um he's so brilliant. Yeah, he's so incredible. I mean he is a fully formed musician. The other day at the studio, he looked in the corner. We have a piano at the studio, which we don't use that often. We don't use it, I think other people do. And he said, Oh it's a Steinway that Clive Davis gifted to us after one of our records. And uh it's used in the studio but we don't we don't use it often. The Foo Fighters don't. And he sits down and he starts playing Mozart like a classical pianist. And I'm just like, Are you fucking kidding me? And he wasn't fumbling his way through it either. No. Yeah. He was handling it. This guy. Um if I had to write a book on songwriting, oh geez. I mean I, I've've recently I had this idea that I wanted to talk about this album in t in terms of songwriting, which actually we're doing right now. And I was gonna write this whole piece on why people write songs. Not necessarily how, but like why. Why do people feel the need to do it? And I had this idea that I was I was gonna book in the whole piece with a quote from Nate , where we were recording an album in my basement in Virginia. I think it was the fourth record, third or fourth record. And I was stuck on a lyric and it I was wasting everyone's time . I think everyone was downstairs waiting for me to record the vocal. But I did I was on I was on a blank page. I was uninspired. I didn't have anything to write. And Nate says to me, he goes, you know, not every song has to be imagine by John Lennon. You know that, right? Like you could just write something. And I'm like, oh, it was really liberating. I'm like, oh, phew. I don't have to write imagine today. Great. And so um but it's funny because the the book end I wanted to I wanted to sort of tie it all together at the end of the piece by saying, you know, what might not seem imagined to you could be imagined to someone else . But you know, first of all, lyrics are subjective and, you know, they're up to one's own personal interpretation or whatever. So there's some lyrics that that I'll read from other artists and think like, eh, it's kind of nonsense. Whereas that person is decoding some sort of emotion within themselves. And no matter how quickly or how much thought they put into it, it's revealing in some way . I think one thing that maybe a problem that I have had in the past is is just self-editing to the point of losing the the origin al uh the original intent. You know, it's almost like improvisational when you just do something uh that happens quickly with with no self-editing that it can often be the most revealing. And that's a lot of this that on this record. And as we dig through the tracks and listen to stuff, I'm constantly finding a new meaning or a new depth to something that I may have not have considered before. Yeah. So, you know, I'm not the type of person that's gonna walk around with a journal and a bottle of red wine sitting in park and writing an endless tome of fucking poetry . But when I have to, I will. Yeah. And and we're gonna hear some more of that poetry in song. Oh god song. So if you could give us a blast of the bastard . A little taste of Spit Shine from your favourite toy by Food Fighters, the next song we're going to dig into. Um how did this one come about ? This one was an idea that came up kind of a while back, maybe like 20 18 19 . We were about to make the medicine at midnight record. And um we have a recording studio, but it's always busy. And I wanted to have a place to just set up a little studio and record ideas . So there was this big old weird haunted house-looking mansion not far from where I live and uh we rented it out so that we could make demos there. And we wound up making a record there. Then we wound up making a horror movie there too. But um it sounded great in there. And there was something about that that this is one of those songs that really is based on a a rhythm which um But that it's the sort of swish of the high actually solo the drums. It almost sounds like shakers. Hey. And to me it was like I don't know I don't know what you would call that beat or but it just kind of had this little skip to it and I love those side beats you know like there's something about it that it seems kind of like you just want to shake your shoulders. It seems kind of fun in a way, you know. I mean, it's not unlike something, you know, like the like the no one knows by Queens of the Stone. This like has a sidestep to it that's kind of cool. So it actually in the course of this Wait, mm-hmm. There's a little bit of swing to it. But everything was just sort of based on that and the idea of having a really rapid fire vocal. I mean, it's funny, the originally the cadence of the vocal was like there was no break. There was no breath in it. It was like and I remember the first version when we recorded it, our producer, Oliver, he was like, I it was so hard for me to just breathe while I was singing. I'm like, I think I might find a new pattern . He's like, I think that's a good idea. It's a bit much. Do you want to hear I have that? Do you really? Is it was it jumpy or no, it was sp az . This is the demo. So it was like just f you know, like messing around for fun because you know, again, not every song has to be imagined, so like you know, why not just kinda have fun with it? And I remember after doing that, I would play it for people. And um actually Nate's wife Kate was like, she loved that thing. Surprisingly, because it's not her jam ordinarily. I was like, wow , okay. But again, like, you know, you have to have the right ingredients in order to make that happen. And so like I could scream my my lungs out all night long. We can come up with rifts all day long . It takes a great drummer to like be able to sort of tie all of those things together. And to have it patterned in a way. Like, you know, I'm a hu as much as I like I love rock and roll, I've always been a fan of electronic music. Going back to like remember the young gods? Did you know about the young gods? Yeah, yeah. From Switzerland. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing group. Incredible. And they were sort of mixing like, you know, live instrumentation with samples and synthesizers and stuff. I loved the young gods. Kissing the sun. It's a great song. Yeah. They also had the there was an EP or a song called Envoy . Do you remember that? They were just so cool. I loved it when bands sang with accents. Death metal bands from Brazil. Yeah. If you sang like this, it made that sound diff But anyway, so but you know, so I loved Prodigy, you know, I love Chemical Brothers, I loved propeller heads, I love the all of these. So there's something about like that repetitive pattern of something. And then of course it's just like four on the floor. You know, to try to like see if you could achieve an analog version of Atari teenage riot. Like wouldn't that be great? So yeah, so the the foundation of this was really that that rhythm and a really repetitive riff. So let's hear the rhythm again, but with the vocal that you did go for that allowed you to breathe. Sure. Favorite part of the record right there. And then the whole the whole thing. It's great the way the the contrast with once you introduce the oo ze and then get into this, yeah you know, it's it's like the light relief to the intensity of what came before. You know another thing I love about this song is so it's in it's uh ascending riff. And then when Chris comes in, he has a descending riff that goes over that And putting those two things together, I feel like maybe where does he come in with that? There it is. Yeah. Over this. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds pretty cool. Sounds like a swarm of fucking insects or something. Yeah. Um and a lot of that just happened like in the moment, just uh right off the tight. I remember when Chris did that guitar line, Pat was in on the couch laughing hysterically. Oh my god, I love it. That's hilarious. doing it, then you're gonna have that feeling as you're playing it live in front of a lot of people. And um yeah, it's a kind of spirit or energy of something that you want to retain. Yeah, totally. Um I I want to hear the there's a nice bit of bass in the brick Oh is the the breakdown bit? Yeah. Yeah let's see where we're at . It's just continuing the ref wave Oh yeah, the theremin too. We should solo that. So I don't know why, but I sort of imagined like ew, it'd be kind of cool if we put could a ther emin on this. And we were trying to we were calling around looking for people who had cool old theremins, you know, and uh we couldn't find one. So I went on Amazon.com and I bought this theremin that was like it was probably this big with an antenna that's like about that high. It's probably $19 and I got it in 24 hours. Set it up and Rami shows up, our keyboard player. I don't think he'd ever played a theremon before. He's like, wait, so what do you want me to do? What do I do? What do I do? I'm like, dude, you just, you know, I don't know. I've never used one. Like and so we just sat there kind of playing with laughing hysterically because it's almost like a whoopee cushion. And it's like it's just always funny. Theremin over theremon over theremon. And um it was just the most ridiculous thing. It was fun to watch, Rami. Yeah. Is he gonna have is he bringing that out on the road? Oh hell yes . I mean you know, if we have to be careful or it could turn into days and confused really quickly. Oh we did a video for the song just before he left on this trip and I think that was really he wasn't playing it, he was performing it. It's like a demented swan lake. Brilliant. Um we're gonna have to have a blast the end and then we can move on and have a listen to if you only knew That was Spit Shine, and we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back and we're gonna play If You Only Knew The next one we're going to look at is If you only knew. So if you could get this uh blast of the master, that would be brilliant. Mm-hmm . Don't spend a living comes around here we go again Ain't that's saying you're not face Face Just a little taste of if you're only new by two fighters from your favorite toy. How did this one come about ? This one began on an acoustic guitar. The riff. Down down ch down ch annel ch . In a way it almost has like this kind of old James gang sort of funk role to it. Not that it's a funk song, but it does have a little bit of a swagger to it. And um we have a bad habit of sometimes beginning songs not on the one . So to me, I hear the one perfectly for this song. I just I don't know why, and I can't read music and I'm bad with time signatures. But to me, it was like I could feel the down , down , down, down, down, down , dan , down, down, down, down So to me it feels perfectly natural that way. And then when I was playing everybody the demo of the song, it would come in, they'd be like, whoa. And it'd feel upside down. Actually I think I do have that on my phone I used to call it I think I called it stroll just the instrumental and the one thing I liked about this demo is that that's a combination of an acoustic and a trini together Or it almost reminded me of like a Bowie Ronson kind of it just had this like swagger to it, you know So what was the issue Nate? You know, when if you're all looking at Dave saying, What's going on? I well I had an issue with the pre-course. That's where I get lost. Yeah. It was like one, two, three, four, where am I? What's going on. Yeah this part seem doesn't seem more straightforward to me. You're right though, it does have that Bowie Ronson thing going on. I I'm kind of visualizing David strumming that acoustic guitar. Got it. I'm just watching Nate as you're you're listening to the bass. I got the count now. Right. It's weird when it gets to that point. Like it's funny because you know it d people count things differently. And sometimes it doesn't matter. Like it doesn't matter. There was once when I was recording on a nine-inch nails record, drums . And it was this demo thing. It was called with teeth. I think that's what it was. It was a song called With Teeth, and it was for a record called With Teeth. And uh the riff was like Like that. And I'd go in and do a take, and Trent and Atticus were there, and they'd say, okay, uh, let's do one more take. But uh make sure you hit a crash on the one. I'm like, okay, so do it again. I'll do another take. And like, great, okay, just one more, but just get the crash on the one. I'm like, great. So I'm like, oh and they're like, come in here. And I walk into the control room and they're like, they start playing the track, they're like, tell me where you think the one is. And I was like, don't down load . And the two of them just start laughing. Like, that's not the one. The one is here. And it was on some weird side note thing that fucked me up. Like I was so conf used. And so I was like, well that's not my one . Like, okay, that's your one. As long as I recognize the pattern, just tell me where to put the symbol, I'll put it there. But I've got my own one. So it's kind of that way. It's like you've got like a a box of rhythmic knowledge. You know, like I feel like I can handle most things that come my way and it's every once in a while one will come out of left field. It's like I d I I don't get that. I can't do that. But it's hard to it's almost like it's you know it's hard to unsee something. You know, you see something, you're like, ah god, and you'll never it's also hard to unhear something. So it's hard to unhear the one. It's hard to put it somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Or when you scout over a song and then can't unhear it. So going back into if you only knew, let's hear some more from the song and it maybe you could like build up the track uh with the parts and talk us through it. Yeah. Okay, cool. Uh me should we start with the drums? We could just go from there or drum chat. Alan Ruben Now one of the other great things about Alan is that he has perfect flams . He has a perfect perfect distance between the notes and his flams. It's very important. Some people choke their flams . I remember when he was warming up backstage before show with this little practice pad. He's like, what are you doing over there? It's like, oh I'm trying to get my left hand to do be at the exact same intensity as my right hand. It's not just get the pattern right. It's gotta be even. Very detail oriented . Ambedestrious, I'd say. Open-handed drummer . There are true advantages to that. But also a great like swing . You know, you could feel that he's not rushing. Yeah. Though he's not dragging . It's a very natural I mean, you know, he's a he's a Zeppelin fanatic and so he really does pull from the feel of like Zeppelin stuff. Yeah. But um so So what what should we hear next? The base on top of that or the you gone for get in there Nate. Yeah, more Nate. Oh here's me struggling to figure out the pre-quarts . I'm just root noting in here. Nothing too interesting. That's good, you know, sometimes you just sometimes you just gotta like, yeah, fill it up. Alright, we got some You know here. In this breakdown, actually we've got some really wonderful Rami Jaffy . Really, what can you do? Oh yeah. There comes Robbie. I need somebody to take my hand . Really what can you do ? Lead me somewhere I can la y to rest . Pattern . This is Pat . Pat is Pat . It's funny all drums in there. Pat usually goes last when it comes to tracking. And we've usually put all of the you know main ingredients into the song. A rhythm guitar some sort of melodic movement that Chris will do maybe in a higher register and then Nate Rommy and it's like how could we make this song bigger. I swear to God, you just give Pat one fucking take. And he'll take it there. Like he really does . Smiling. The funny thing is that you know it's that it's the sort of raw energy of his playing that makes the track bigger, the chords that he uses, the sound that he gets, the way he strums, all those things. And he can usually get that in one take, but he loves recording. You know, a lot of people get red light fever. They get scared when it comes time to record. He does not . And once he's finished something, he doesn't want to stop. Like, it sounds great. He's like, no, let me do it again. This is fun. Like, uh well, okay, but I think we have it. Um but yeah, this song there's you know, this isn't outside of the the you know, rhythmic complications. It's a it's a pretty simple song. There's a few guitars and there's some lead notes here and there. But you know, it's also it's another song where we used, I think it was a 58, which we sort of blew out with some distortion. Actually, yeah, let's listen to the vocal in the verse. The water from the world. Just we have a tiny like slap delay that we put on there. And on the trigger , I'm holding fire . The passing of the flame burning up the side And then we lose the slap. Hold on ! Oh yeah. I know which kind of makes it jump a little bit more. It comes . It goes sam Same old story . Don't be sorry . If you won't let new you won't let new action on the sw Put a lower register octave Maybe you'd feel the way I tell if you won't land new Doubling vocals It's a good thing. It's a good thing. It's very positive. Um I think we should go back into the track and and to round things off and and highlight Pat and highlight everybody as as you play it. Chris has some really great lead stuff in there too. Yeah. Got a little bit of Nashville in there. A little Nashville? Yeah. A little rock and roll. Mm-hmm. Sounded great. So good to hear all those different parts. Can we get a blast of them all together now and hear the master of If You Only Here? Baby feel the way I do If you only knew by Foo Fighters from your favourite toy, and that's the last trap we're looking at today, but we are gonna let you go, David Nate, but there's one more question I want to ask you, which is uh a question that we ask everybody who comes on the podcast and it's about uh a favourite piece of equipment or a piece of tech that you maybe couldn't have made this record without. Oh wow. Couldn't have made this record without. Well you know, I have a lucky guitar. And it was the first Gibson Trini Lopez that I ever purchased . And I bought it at a guitar shop in Bethesda, Maryland called Southworth Guitars. And it was one of those guitar shops that just like it was like a museum. You know, you'd walk in and you'd see all of these beautiful classic guitars . And I didn't at that point I think I was it was maybe I'm I was still in Nirvana and I just wanted like a hollow body to um to put it in my lap and sit on the couch and just mess around and I'm looking at this row of old Gibson like 335 s. And they're all beautiful. And there's this one that had this funny headstock. And it looked the body shape and design was the same, except it had these diamond f holes and different headstock. And I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. And so I bought it and brought it home and just played it on the couch . But it eventually became it was it became the lucky guitar that's been on every record that we've ever made. And um I think that um for a lot of reasons. It it's a great guitar. It's very dynamic. The harder you play it, the harder it sounds. The more gentle you play it, the more gentle it sounds. It's reactive to touch, more so than a lot of other guitars that I have. Also has sort of like this exposed bridge thing that can act as a almost like a snare. It becomes like this additional percussive element to whatever riff you're playing, and it has a chime to it . So we've never made a record without that guitar, I don't think. And um it's almost like a superstition to me. So um I'd I'd we couldn't have made this record without that guitar because I I don't want to make a record without that guitar. I think that's probably the one piece. Amazing. We need to choose one more song, another track from the album, a kind of outro song as you walk off into the sunset. Yeah. Yep. So as we walk off into the sunset let's listen to unconditional Excellent So good I'm so good to be able to hear these things and be able to isolate them and and see them in all that detail. Really exciting. Thank you for spending time with us and allowing us this uh opportunity. This is Unconditional Bai Foo Fighters . Thank you for listening and in particular thanks to all of you who have signed up to support us on Patreon. I'm just one part of the team that brings you take notes and it relies on your support. Access to Patreon includes the full-length videos of new episodes where possible, ad-free episodes and detailed gear lists among many other things. If you'd like to join, head to the link on our socials or website. For pictures, highlight clips and behind the scenes content, head to our Instagram or YouTube channel and on Discord you can join the growing take notes community. Once again thank you for listening until next time, goodbye The clock is ticking It's back and fort h All those memories worth sav ing what it's worth now for