Exclusive: Dave Grohl Returns to D.C. Roots in ‘Sonic Highways’ Clip
Foo Fighters‘ HBO musical travelogue series Sonic Highways next visits Washington D.C., and Rolling Stone has your exclusive preview at what Dave Grohl considers to be his homecoming. Having grown up in the Virginia suburbs outside of D.C., Grohl got his start in the city’s influential hardcore scene performing with local acts like Dain Bramage and Scream before popping up on Nirvana‘s radar.
“The experiences I’ve had in this city, from the age of 14 years old, set this foundation for the rest of my life as a musician,” Grohl says in the clip above. “The community, the support, the love that was here in the D.C. music scene has carried over into what I do now. The way that Foo Fighters work now, we’re like a family, and we try to treat everyone that way.”
Grohl also credits the D.C. hardcore scene for keeping him grounded and humble in the face of festival-headlining fame. “The message wasn’t ‘We are rock stars and we are better than you.’ The message was ‘We are people and we’re all in this together.’ I got that from Washington D.C., and it makes its way into our music,” he says.
The preview also features some of the D.C. artists that’ll appear on Grohl’s hometown episode of Sonic Highways, including Minor Threat/Fugazi frontman and Dischord Records co-founder Ian MacKaye, Bad Brains, Trouble Funk’s Big Tony Fisher and hardcore punk producer Don Zientara. It was at Zientara’s Inner Ear Studios where Grohl and the Foos recorded their D.C.-inspired Sonic Highways cut “The Feast and the Famine,” which the band unveiled late Thursday night in anticipation of their trip to the nation’s capital.
As with the Foos’ Chicago-inspired “Something From Nothing,” many of “The Feast and the Famine” lyrics are likely derived from interviews Grohl had with D.C. musicians, but we’ll have to wait until the episode premieres to decipher who said what. The track does possess the city’s trademark aggressive, hardcore feel and ruthless drums as Grohl sings of building a monument to faded dreams. Sonic Highways the album is out November 10th.
The song opens up with the line, “Last night they were burning for truth, down at the corner of 14th and U,” which is the primary location for the city’s 1968 riots following the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. The location is also near the city’s iconic Black Cat venue where countless hardcore acts have made their name. Like last week’s gig at the Cubby Bear, Foo Fighters themselves will take the stage at the Black Cat for another all-star midnight show following the premiere of the D.C. episode Friday night.