PARANORMAL ACTIVITY
“WE ARE ALL THE SUMMATION OF OUR INFLUENCES. IT IS BOUND TO SHOW UP SOMEWHERE”
Chris Shiflett
How a record sounds is a product of the time, the place and the people who made it. And few appreciate this symbiotic relationship between place and sound as much as Dave Grohl. The Foo Fighters frontman and guitarist directed the 2013 documentary Sound City about the LA studio of the same name. A year later, he created the HBO series Sonic Highways, which explored the cities, venues and stories behind America’s music culture. And this sense of place has played a key role in Foo Fighters’ career.
In 1995, for the Foos’ self-titled debut – a solo project in all but name – the location was Seattle’s Robert Lang Studios, a home venue to get Grohl back in the game after the death of Kurt Cobain brought Nirvana to a tragic end. In 2001, when the Foos were coming apart at the seams, with the sessions for stuttering to a halt, Grohl taking leave to play drums on tour with Queens Of The Stone Age, what saved the record – and perhaps the future of the Foo Fighters – was taking the whole production back to Grohl’s home studio in Alexandria, Virginia. In Studio 606, they got their groove back, thrashing it out in
