Foo Fighters interview: 'We're a different band without Taylor Hawkins'

"I'm 57 years old," says Dave Grohl. "But there are still times where I feel like the little punk I was at 13.

"I can still connect with that side of myself where I can scream and we can thrash, and it feels good."

As if to prove it, the rock frontman has gone back to his post-grunge, punk roots on Foo Fighters' 12th album, Your Favourite Toy.

He has described the record as a "powder keg", as "burning diesel", and even a spicy "jambalaya" – and it's certainly harder and faster than anything the band have released over the past decade.

Recorded in a period of personal upheaval, the record is full of slashing guitar lines and scorched-earth vocals. At times, Grohl sounds desperate. His lyrics bristle with turmoil and paranoia.

On the opening track, Caught In The Echo, he's paralysed by the prospect of moving forward.

"Decide, decide, decide, decide / Do I? Do I? Do I? Do I?" he screams, his voice spinning around your headphones like intrusive thoughts.

Of All People is more direct. A furious diatribe, it was written after Grohl bumped into a drug dealer he'd known in Seattle in the 1990s.

"I knew a lot of people whose lives suffered from buying those drugs," says the star, who has been largely drug-free since he turned 20 (although he was admitted to hospital in 2010 for overdosing on caffeine).

"I was so conflicted. I was like, 'I feel so happy for this person survived'. But part of me was like, 'All that [stuff] that was going around, it didn't do anybody any good'."

On the night of the encounter, he distilled his confusion and anger into a song, recording it the following morning in the small studio above his garage.

"That was kind of the intended process of this record," he says.

"You write something really quickly, and the next day you record it and it's done. That's the photograph, that's the one moment that you catch."

Although it was recorded in a matter of weeks, Your Favourite Toy was the product of a long period of experimentation.

Grohl demoed more than 50 songs - typically in the middle of the night, many of them instrumental, touching on influences as diverse as Massive Attack, Pink Floyd and Bad Brains.

"One night, I was lying in bed, listening to them all and, randomly, there were 10 in a row on the playlist that were really reminiscent of the music we grew up listening to," he says.

"I thought, 'Oh my God, this is the energy'."

"This is how our band sounds," agrees bass guitarist Nate Mendel. "This is what we do. We can do other stuff too, but this feels comfortable."

Aiming for a different, more mature sound wouldn't fit so naturally, Grohl continues. "It's like when you get invited to a formal event and you try to put on something really nice and clean. I look in the mirror and I'm like, 'That's not me. I look like a stoner in court getting charged for some sort of misdemeanour marijuana offence!'

"I'm just like, 'Who is that person?'"

"Who is that person?" is a question many fans asked in 2022 when Grohl - regularly described as "the nicest man in rock" - posted a statement on social media, admitting he had fathered a child outside his marriage.

"I plan to be a loving and supportive parent to her," he wrote. "I love my wife and my children, and I am doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness."

One of his new songs, Unconditional, appears to document those efforts to repair relationships.

"I'll find a better way / To explain this to you... Under one condition, though / It's unconditional," he sings.

"It's kind of a mournful song," he says, choosing his words carefully. "You're expressing how... how deeply sorry you are for... something.

"When you write a song like that, and you listen to it back, you kind of understand how you feel in yourself. And that makes it easier to use those words outside of the song, right?"

Grohl won't be drawn on the specific circumstances behind the song. "I can tell you're baiting the hook," he says (amiably) when I broach the subject, before offering a more general observation.

"You know, this band was born out of the pain of losing Kurt [Cobain] and Nirvana, so we've always relied on music to help us through difficult times - and it has certainly done that in my life in the last year and a half.

"At the same time," he continues, "it's one thing to send the world all these lyrics, and it's another to really delve into deeply personal things.

"So there are some things that I reserve for my personal conversations."

As he acknowledges, the Foo Fighters' story was forged in tragedy, and Your Favourite Toy is the band's second release since the death of their beloved drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022.

That loss was addressed on 2023's mournful, contemplative album But Here We Are. Today, the band have a new drummer, Ilan Rubin, but they're still grieving.

"We are a different band," says Mendel. "Taylor was such an energetic presence, he just brought himself so much."

After Hawkins was found dead in his hotel room, hours before a concert, Mendel thought the band were finished.

"I was like, 'Can we still do this without Taylor?', and I'm sure everyone else felt that, too.

"But one thing that I've come to realise - this sounds a little hokey, but it's true - is that Taylor is with us. His wife is on the road with us right now. We're still very close to the Hawkins family. We talk about him every day."

Grohl adds: "Continuing as a band was not easy. We were like best friends and brothers - so it was really complicated and felt really strange for a little while.

"When you go through any sort of trauma or loss, you have to do everything all over again. So the next day, that's the first cup of coffee since it happened. Then it's the first song we've written since it happened.

"But whenever we go through something really difficult, we go through it together, with our families and our kids and our wives. We really rally.

"And if you're surrounded by people that you know you can really rely on, that's the key."

One of those people was Sir Paul McCartney, who invited Grohl to join him on stage Glastonbury in June 2022.

It was the star's first public appearance since Hawkins' death, and the gesture meant the world – even if he almost missed the show after his flights were cancelled.

"I walked backstage 20 minutes before we were supposed to go on, so the whole thing was kind of a blur, but it meant a lot, for sure.

"He and his family were always so sweet and supportive and welcoming."

So has he thought about returning the favour and asking Sir Paul along when Foo Fighters play Liverpool's Anfield Stadium this summer?

"Someone asked that this week," he says. "And then, of course, all the headlines said, 'Dave Grohl has asked Paul to play in Liverpool'.

"I have not asked. I only texted and said, 'Hey, we're playing in your home town'. And he goes, 'You'll love it.'"

If the former Beatle does join them backstage, he may find that the encroachment of age has altered their pre-show rituals.

In the past, they'd slam tequila shots before walking into the spotlights. These days, "we do nap sometimes", Grohl admits; while Mendel confesses that the band can often be found building Lego sets in the dressing room.

"Not very rock 'n' roll, is it?" laughs Grohl, who has constructed the Eiffel Tower, the White House "and several Harry Potter castles" out of plastic bricks.

There is "something sort of meditative" about the process, he says. "You can just turn your brain off and follow the instructions.

"It's like Ikea furniture. I've built a lot of Ikea furniture in my time and you feel so proud."

However, cocktails do start flowing an hour before show time.

"Then the laughter gets a little louder, and the music gets a little louder and, just before we walk on stage, we're having the best time of our lives, so we hit the stage with a smile.

"It sounds so ridiculous, but to me, that's the most important part. There's no faking it in this band. You get on stage and you have those few hours to do it - and you've got to do it for real."