you think that approach came across in the recording and in the album? Well it was absolutely easier I would say than some of our past records, it was just a fairly easy record to make, it really was, and maybe that was apart of it. It’s hard to say what becomes apart of it. Back in April you told the NME that you would rather the DVD wasn’t released as you weren’t comfortable with that amount of openness – do you still feel like that after you’ve seen it and have seen the reaction that people have had to the DVD? I’m just kind of past it. I never was necessarily that interested, especially as I got older, in anything other than music. Being such a big part of what people see or know about me; obviously things happened to me in my twenties, late twenties – that was a long time ago and I didn’t necessarily, wasn’t that excited to relive it for everybody’s dramatic enjoyment. At the end of the day you get into this business and you decide ‘yeah, I want to try to be some sort of professional musician’ and that’s the price of admission, you have to deal with the fact that there’s a certain amount of privacy that’s just not going to be there anymore. It’s all just part of the game, it is what it is and it’s not my favourite part of it and obviously I have things I’m not necessarily that proud of that I did in my twenties but I think we all do to a certain degree – it’s there now for my children to watch someday… and I’m not too happy about that either! But it is what it is, all part of the game. I think it’s pretty enjoyable for people to watch I suppose as it is really honest and in the end I suppose a candy-coated version won’t be as interesting. When you were recording the album, as you can see on the DVD, there were always cameras about. Was there always the aim to make this DVD, or was it just friends with cameras recording the sessions? There was never an absolute plan when we started making the record to make a sort of retrospective documentary, but we just weren’t really sure what it was going to be. It was pretty much left in the hands of the director James Moll and he took it in his own direction and the way he wanted to and didn’t really give up on his vision, ever. At first I thought ‘well this really isn’t about our music’, it’s more about our lives, but then the more I thought about it, and all of us did, in a way; people already know about our music. There was a bit on the ‘how to’ of how we made this record at the end of the movie, which was somewhat informative in that sense, but at first it just
seemed to be about the drama of the band, but hey – that’s what people are interested in. That’s what I’m interested in when I watch a rock and roll documentary, is, you know – who died! How many drugs did they take, who are they fucking – that’s kind of the deal isn’t it? Now this is the 7th Studio album for the band, you’re also headlining a lot of big festivals across the world. Quite recently you did a garage type tour – did you enjoy doing that? You do that with your own band ‘Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders’ where you play the smaller venues – was it nice to have a little change and put Foo Fighters into those smaller areas, besides from doing the big shows like the Milton Keynes Bowl and other festivals? Yeah – I liked it. I probably like it a lot more than anybody actually. I tend to find those smaller situations; be it a garage or a small club, more musically satisfying, I really do. I tend to feel like these big giant places, even though they’re good as you reach a lot of people and it shows your, I don’t know, status! Like ‘hey I’m headlining a big festival’ and that’s great because it means that people are really getting it, and they really like it, especially when they stay opposed to us being the exit music. It says something, it’s pretty amazing, but at the same time on a musical level I tend to like the little small situations as it feels we’re all tight, close together, in a small little club, a different kind of thing happens in comparison to being up on a big huge stage, in front of say 20,000 people. Are you looking forward to coming back to T in the Park again in Scotland? Absolutely – absolutely. It’s been a while since we last did T in the Park, can you remember? The first time you headlined it was in 2005. 2005 that’s right yeah. I think we did it in 2002 as well. Is there something that you like about Scottish crowds in particular that stands out? They’re definitely some of the wildest crowds, there’s no question about that! The dudes are real dudes; it’s great. I love Scotland, it’s beautiful. The next day you have a day off – do you hang about at festivals to see other bands? Or do you move straight on to the next place? We pretty much just move straight on to the next place, as we’re all usually getting ready to go somewhere else. We all have our families with us right now so days off are kinda of family time, so we go to the park, that kind of thing. Time to spend some time with your kids.
August 2011 anne louise | 11