6 things you may not know about Foo Fighters

As part of the BBC's unmissable summer of music in 2026, Foo Fighters are BBC Radio 6 Music’s latest Artist in Residence, with each member of the band curating their own playlists, all available now on BBC Sounds.

The band also sat down for an in-depth Access All Areas special, which you can now watch on BBC iPlayer.

Frontman Dave Grohl, alongside bandmates Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett and Nate Mendel, gathered at the iconic Maida Vale Studios in London - a location with particular significance for Grohl, as you'll discover below - to break down tracks from their new album, Your Favorite Toy, as well as revisiting some of the classic songs that have made them one of the biggest rock bands on the planet.

The conversation turned up some fascinating insights into the band’s creative process, their history and what keeps them going after more than three decades together. Read on for six things we learned about Foo Fighters.

Each day this week, we’re releasing a new 6 Music Artist in Residence series at 6am on BBC Sounds, featuring Foo Fighters (Mon 29 Jun), Honey Dijon (Tue 30 Jun), James Blake (Wed 1 Jul), beabadoobee (Thu 2 Jul) and Robyn (Fri 3 Jul). They’ll also be broadcast on 6 Music 9pm-1am each evening, Mon to Fri, and be accompanied by Access All Areas specials on BBC iPlayer.

Expect a journey into the musical soul of each act, as they present a playlist of tracks, based around a different theme or mood.

1. Maida Vale was the first studio where Dave Grohl recorded with Nirvana

Speaking during the Access All Areas special, Foos frontman Dave Grohl reveals that he has a long and storied history with Maida Vale as a setting.

"I have been in this room before," Dave says. "It was the first place I ever recorded with Nirvana. I think I'd only been in the band for like three and a half weeks, and they needed a drummer to do this UK tour with L7. And so we came here. I think it was a John Peel session... we did two Vaseline songs that we wound up doing on tour."

Dave continues: "I think we had maybe arrived the day before. Actually, I think the night before this, we went to see the Pixies at Brixton Academy. It was my first time recording in a nice studio… that was a long time ago… I’ve got a lot of history in this room."

2. The Foos new album was recorded in a “tiny room” at Dave’s house

Foo Fighters’ latest Your Favorite Toy, released in April, is their twelfth studio album and their first in three years. While their previous effort was made in a studio in LA, they stayed at home for this one. Quite literally, in a small room in Dave Grohl’s house.

"[We] recorded this in that tiny room in my house. It was like we couldn't all fit in there at the same time," Dave says.

"There's a lot of songs on this record where I would walk out of the room and come back an hour later [and] there’d be this stuff on it that I was discovering. These parts that I had never really heard before - Chris's parts, Pat's parts - and then bass lines that I'm still hearing now."

"I got to the point where I'm like, 'you know what, I think I might be ruining these songs. So it’s best if I just get out of the studio and let everyone do their thing,'" Dave jokes.

3. Dave doesn’t write vocal melodies until he’s at the mic

During the chat, Foos bassist Nate Mendel reveals that Dave has a habit of not quite knowing how a song is going to sound until he steps up to the microphone - which, twelve albums in now, he’s probably earned the right to do.

"It's funny when we record because Dave hasn’t put any of the vocals down on anything that we do, so you’re recording without a melody," Nate says. "So it’s always a surprise. You’ll finish the track like, ‘oh, this song could be great,’ and then at the last moment Dave puts the vocal on, then you really know where it’s where it’s going to be. So it's always kind of a surprise to see how it's going to play out."

"I like to keep them hanging," Dave adds. "I never sing… so the first time I sing most of these songs, all of them really, is when I sit down in front of the mic. Oliver [Roman, producer] will say like, 'is this loud or is this like a softer thing?' I'm like, 'no, it's loud.’ And he goes, ‘okay, let me get a mic level.' And then I sing it for the first time."

4. They turned an acoustic track into a rock song

'Child Actor' is one of the standout tracks from the new record, and Dave says that it could have sounded a lot different.

"I had this idea for 'Child Actor' that it was going to be kind of jangly. So I did a demo of it, [but] that seemed very sort of middle of the road, like something that we had definitely done before. I thought, 'okay, well this could be a cool song,' but it just seemed kind of predictable.”

"I was like, 'I don't know if I want to put an acoustic thing on this record.'"

Dave explains how the track then turned into a rock number: "Oliver kept saying, what about that 'Child Actor' song? And so that's why I decided that it should be a rock song. Credit to Oliver. I was caught in my own echo."

5. The last song they record for an album is often the best

"Sometimes the songs that stay with us forever are the last ones that we record for an album," Dave says, naming Foos classics like ‘Everlong’ and ‘The Pretender’ as being two that fit this bill.

"Gil goes on holiday to Greece, and me and Taylor [Hawkins, former Foos drummer who died in 2022] started jamming on this idea. We did a demo of it, put down all the guitar stuff, did the drums, and couldn’t wait to play it for Gil when he got back. The way Gil would produce songs is he would tear them to shreds and make you play them a hundred times - inspect every element. Taylor and I thought we had it at a really good place, like the middle section."

"So Gil comes back and we play it for him proudly and he was like, ‘Hmm. Well, you know, maybe let’s set back up in the main room, get the instruments back up and let’s work on this.’"

Dave adds: "We had already recorded all these songs doing 10, 20, 30 takes and it was exhausting. But that demo - we used that arrangement, that template - and it turned out to be the song. It was one of those songs where it was the last one we recorded, and when it was done, we felt like we had an album."

6. No matter how bad a show goes, 'Everlong' always saves it

Foo Fighters are one of the most electrifying bands to witness live, but even they admit they can have an off night. When that happens, they say a handful of classics always come to the rescue.

"There are certain songs in the set that, if it's not a great show, will always get it going," says guitarist Chris Shiflett. "'Everlong' is always one of those songs. 'Best of You' is always one of those songs. And 'Pretender' is absolutely one of those songs."

“When we get to the last song, ‘Everlong’ - it never fails," says fellow guitarist Pat Smear, and Chris agrees: "They only remember how you walk out and how you walk off."