MARCH/APRIL 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MARCH/APRIL 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM BOOTSY COLLINS AVRIL LAVIGNE STEVE EARLE NIKKI SIXX MARCH/APRIL 2011 ONTENTS JOE BONAMASSA C Burnin’ with blues ALISON KRAUSS Goes home R.E.M. In the now FOO Steve Gullick FIGHTERS COVER STORY FOO FIGHTERS ALISON KRAUSS Life in the world’s biggest garage band 40 Dave Grohl and Nate Mendel talk candidly about taking 48 Following up her hit album of duets with Robert their band back to the garage—and back to analog. Plant by getting back to what she knows best. R.E.M. JOE BONAMASSA 26 Mike Mills discusses how his group’s multinational 60 Learning the blues at the feet of the masters approach to recording shaped its new album. helped prepare him for guitar-hero status. + LUCINDA WILLIAMS BOOTSY COLLINS 38 How married life has brightened the once-melancholy 64 This fl ashy, freaky ace of bass is still doing his best CAPTURING COUNTRY tone of her songs—and how it hasn’t. to make the world a funkier place. VIRTUAL DRUMS MARCH/APRIL 2011 VOLUME 02, ISSUE 02 4 PERIODICAL $6.99 U.S. / $7.99 CANADIAN TRIBUTE ACTS M2-Vol2-Mag-beta21.indd 4 4/18/11 2:48 AM MARCH/APRIL 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MARCH/APRIL 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM The Foo Fighters throw out the computers and throw down the rock ’n’ roll gauntlet By Chris Neal M2-Vol2-Mag-beta21.indd 40 4/18/11 1:49 AM M2-Vol2-Mag-beta21.indd 41 4/18/11 1:50 AM MARCH/APRIL 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MARCH/APRIL 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM ince 2005 the members of Foo Fighters have enjoyed how it was.” The result is the punchiest and hardest-hitting Foo Fighters the luxury of making all their albums at Studio 606, album since … well, maybe ever. Since the group’s self-titled 1995 frontman Dave Grohl’s state-of-the-art recording and debut (for which Grohl played all the instruments himself), it has steadily rehearsal facility in Northridge, Calif. Its walls lined with expanded its sound with projects like the 2005 half-acoustic double gold and platinum records from both his time with the album In Your Honor and poppier efforts like 1999’s There Is Nothing Foo Fighters and Grohl’s early days as drummer for Left to Lose. But Wasting Light, the Foos’ fi rst full studio album in four iconic alt-rock band Nirvana (not to mention his work years, is a focused recommitment to blistering hard rock. “At this point with other acts like Queens of the Stone Age and it’s almost like you’ve stretched that rubber band as far as it will go,” Tenacious D), Studio 606 has just about anything a Grohl says. “If you let go, it just snaps back. That’s what this record is.” musician could ask for in a recording studio. Grohl lives only minutes Grohl says that these days he and his comrades get their away, an effortless commute to fi nd oneself in a fi rst-class facility with experimental jollies with side projects like his work with the rock all the accoutrements to which he, bass player Nate Mendel, drummer supergroup Them Crooked Vultures (featuring Queens of the Stone Taylor Hawkins and guitarists Chris Shifl ett and Pat Smear have become Age guitarist Josh Homme and Led Zeppelin bass player John Paul accustomed as members of one of the most successful bands in rock. Jones); Hawkins’ albums with his group, the cheekily named Coattail So naturally, when time came to make the Foos’ seventh and latest Riders; Shifl ett’s new country-tinged band Chris Shifl ett & the Dead album, Wasting Light, Grohl elected to … record in his garage. Peasants; and Mendel’s recently reunited pre-Foos alt-rock act Sunny “I wanted to be the Day Real Estate. “The idea was band that sells out stadiums to make an album that’s true in Europe, but makes their to what the band sounds like,” albums in a garage,” Grohl says Mendel. “Keep it simple, Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel and Taylor Hawkins at Studio 606, Northridge, Calif. says with a chuckle. “There’s pure and true to how we actually some honor and nobility to sound as a band.” that.” The fact that the Foos do Wasting Light is a full- Why record in the garage? the song, cut everything indeed fi ll stadiums around the circle moment for Grohl in GROHL: I didn’t think we should take the conventional route of else away and then turn world (two upcoming shows several ways. It features the hiring the best studio in Hollywood, using all the newest, coolest that up to 11. at England’s 65,000-capacity return of guitarist Pat Smear, gear and making a CD that would sound like everybody else’s. So I MENDEL: It’s like Milton Keynes Bowl sold who met Grohl while serving fi gured we’d wheel the tape machines out of the closet, dust them working with a friend. out within hours) and make as touring guitarist for Nirvana off, put them in my garage and make the record there. Using digital He’s good at the albums that reliably move in the before joining the Foo Fighters. recording technology, there are just too many options to manipulate. technical aspects millions was a prime motivator Smear left the group in 1997, A lot of producers have a problem with digital technology—it’s almost of putting a record for Grohl’s decision to move returned as a touring member like Frodo and that damn ring. (laughs) It’s like, “One ring to rule together, but he doesn’t his group and its recording 10 years later and has since them all!” All they want to do is put it on, and the band is saying, get in your face and sessions even closer to home. been reinstated as a full Foo. “No, no, don’t put it on!” So I wanted to eliminate that option. The second-guess your decision-making. The songs were pretty well “Doing it this way defused a lot Then there is the presence of idea was to capture all of that on tape, and we did. structured by the time we went into pre-production with him. He’s got of that expectation or tension,” not just Vig but Nirvana’s Krist MENDEL: I was skeptical about doing that at fi rst, honestly. We’ve an opinion, and he’s not afraid to tell you if something’s not sounding he says. “I thought, ‘Let’s make Novoselic, who plays bass and got a nice studio, we’ve done a couple of records there and it worked right, but his strong suit is fi guring out how to have it make sonic sense it in a place we’re entirely accordion on “I Should Have well. I wasn’t sure about the idea to go and camp out at Dave’s house, so that the end result is strong. comfortable: my garage. Back Known”—only his second studio infringe on his family’s private space and be in a cramped space in the minivan out of the garage collaboration with Grohl since an untried studio. But it ended up being the most fun, casual, relaxed How did Pat return to the band? and put the drumset in there.’ the 1994 suicide of frontman album that we’ve ever made—and it sounds great. So I was basically MENDEL: I don’t think Pat was super happy with his decision And it really is a garage: There Kurt Cobain put an end to wrong. (laughs) to leave all those years ago, are a couple of kid’s bikes in their former band. “When he and he remained friends with there and a refrigerator full plugged in and started playing, How did you set up ‘I wanted to be the band that sells everybody after the initial of beer, and that’s about it. Butch and I just looked at each the studio? shock and disappointment The project was to create other and laughed,” Grohl says. GROHL: First we did out stadiums, but makes their of his leaving had a chance an environment in which we “Like, ‘Oh my god, I haven’t a test. We rolled in the to dissipate. There were would make a record that heard that in 20 years.’” The tape machine, recorded only two albums that Pat sounds like the Foo Fighters.” willingness to make that sound a couple of demos and albums in a garage.’ didn’t have anything to do To further that goal, a part of the Foo Fighters marks it sounded great. We – Dave Grohl with [There Is Nothing Left Landov Grohl made two more a reconciliation of Grohl’s past thought, “All right, now let’s to Lose and 2002’s One by important decisions. First, he and present—and a newfound commit and start to get the control room ready.” So we had to buy a One]. Everything from In Your Honor on, he at least took part in the drafted producer Butch Vig— confi dence in the strength of his couple of things. I said to the engineer, “OK, make a wish list of things touring. It was working well with him, he felt like a member of the producer of Nirvana’s classic Dave Grohl on stage at London’s Wembley Stadium, June 6, 2008 current group’s rock-solid legacy you’d need to make a great record in a garage.” He sent me the list band, and we decided we should just have him come back.