Resilience is an ugly word, but with an uplifting meaning: strength in the face of adversity. There are situations that destroy everything: the death of a loved one, the breakup of a marriage, the loss of one’s health, physical or mental. Therefore, resilience is not just about being strong, because there are wounds that require mourning. Perhaps the term alludes to the quality of being able to overcome when the disaster has been total. The story of Dave Grohl, leader of Foo Fighters and drummer of Nirvanahas a lot of that nerve necessary to put brick on brick once again, when the duel has been elaborated.
Kurt Cobain, the legendary leader of Nirvana, died in 1994 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound (although the possibility of murder was raised). It took Dave Grohl only a year to build his own project. Foo Fighters were a nice band that could even be naive pop (remember Big Me from the debut album): it was his way of moving forward. From that beginning he had to learn to be a singer, his own drummer and guitarist; In the second he looked for another drummer, but since he didn’t like what William Goldsmith had played, he re-recorded everything himself without warning. His attitude fell foul of his peers: he needed to learn to be a good leader. He would achieve it, not without cost.
Over the years Foo Fighters gained muscle, filling stadiums and reinventing themselves, while Grohl, a hyperactive neurotic destroyer of psychology manuals, undertook parallel adventures with Queens Of The Stone Age either Them Crooked Vultures.
The atmosphere was festive when in 2021 Foo Fighters recorded Bee Gees songs from their disco repertoire under the pseudonym Dee Gees: Grohl played with his drummer Taylor Hawkins to see who had the best falsetto. The revelry came to an abrupt end when Taylor died in his hotel room on Avenida Carrera 7 in Bogotá from causes that were not revealed, but that combined a poor heart condition with some inconvenient consumption. Their last show was in Buenos Aires in 2022 and the group couldn’t have been brighter
Hawkins wasn’t just any drummer: he was Dave Grohl’s drummer, which was like being a replacement for one of the best rock drummers in history, and in his own band. A heavy t-shirt that Taylor also wore gracefully, becoming Grohl’s ideal sidekick on stage, assuming the role of lead singer in important moments such as the cover of Somebody to love of queen.
His death could have been the end of Foo Fighters, but resilience appeared again: they released a new album, and went on tour with Josh Freese on the battery. Everyone knew about Grohl’s fragile mental state, especially when his mother died four months after Hawkins’ death. But they kept going.
A new bomb fell on the band when in a statement, Dave Grohol admitted to having had a daughter out of wedlock (he already had three with Jordyn Blum) and announced that he wanted to be a “present and loving father to her” and work hard to obtain forgiveness from his family and restore damaged ties. 430 therapy sessions later (six a week), we have him back. And with a new album.
Foo Fighters, with Dave Grohl in the center and in light blue: a band that does not disappoint.New album, with intact power and catharsis
Your Favorite Toy, The new Foo Fighters album, which will be released on April 24, is fast but not furious, although Grohl’s screams give that impression.. It is not the first time that a band seeks potency as heroic medicine (Metallica did it in St. Anger), nor the first time where the lyrics seem like a catharsis or a veiled confession. The power of Foo Fighters is intactand in part that merit lies in the hands of Illan Rubin, new drummer from Nine Inch Nails, a group that received the outgoing Foo Fighters drummer in a strange castling: Josh Freesefired for no other reason than the desire to have someone else on the bench.
The arrival of Rubin (no relation to producer Rick Rubin) gave Grohl back part of the happiness that the string of misfortunes took from him. The habit of advancing three or four songs at intervals in the form of singles from a new album takes away the surprise of a work, but it also acts as a smokescreen: they are scattered pieces in a puzzle.. And even though Your Favorite Toy is not a conceptual album, its meaning will be dissected and analyzed in light of the situation. From the start, the message is clear: Grohl is going to continue fighting with all his might, and the Foo Fighters are going to support him. Nobody gives up here.
Caught in the echo it is an acknowledgment of his confusion: “Here comes the crash/ I move in two directions/ I move in the complication/ And I wait for the intersection.” The confusion continues with pure screams with All of Peoplewhich came out this April 10 as a single)resulting from an encounter with a heroin dealer whom he had not seen for more than thirty years: “Of all people/ you survived.” It is more of a surprise than a reproach. Grohl breathes in Windowa beautiful, quieter song with sweetly distorted guitars about a girl who washes windows on tall buildings.
Foo Fighters were renewed with the arrival of new drummer, Illan Rubin.Vertigo reigns again your favorite toya song of glasses fogged again by confusion. Who threw that toy? More than a childhood trauma exorcised loudly, it is the confession of a confused adult who hopes to be able to cross his own ring of fire. “A man who waits for the dawn”, he once sang Ricardo Mollo.
The muscles remain tense if you only knew and spit and shinebut it is when Foo Fighters relaxes that tension that beauty appears as in Unconditionaland even more in child actorwhere Grohl faces his need to be validated and also to be able to accept the different situations he has gone through in recent times. This is probably the emotional crux of the album.
Amen, caveman It will surely be a high point at the shows, as it is classic Foo Fighters, where power is mixed with bittersweet melodies.
Closing for a friend
The album closes with the song that was a first covert preview: It’s for a friendpublished last year. Citing the already famous phrase from the social network X, Grohl asks himself existential questions and says that “it is for a friend.” Who hasn’t done it? At the end of the day, Dave is the same as the rest of us mortals, only his actions have global significance for being the leader of one of the most successful rock bands of the last thirty years.
A toy. “Your Favorite Toys”, the new Foo Fighters album.And it is precisely at the end where a dialogue between Grohl and the ill-fated Taylor Hawkins could be inferred: “Give me a reason, give me a sign/ the most unpleasant truth or the most beautiful lie (…) Keep your promises until we meet again.” Faithful to the band’s style It’s for a friend tIt has an epic development that goes from a heavy waltz to an area where it borders on hardcore.
Trapped in the echo of his own words, broadcasting through a broken propagation system, Dave Grohl clings to the edge of the abyss and screams for everyone to hear.
Your Favorite Toy It is neither a masterpiece nor a confessional manifesto, but it is irrefutable proof of life. for Foo Fighters who have firmly resisted a gale that would have taken others to the eternal night of oblivion. To paraphrase Grohl, the grass is not greener on the other side nor does time heal everything. But he who slacks off has no reward. And it must be recognized that in addition to being successful, Foo Fighters has been a brilliant and, above all, tenacious band. For not writing “resilient”.
