Releases Album

The Colour and the Shape

‘The Colour And The Shape’ is in effect the first real Foo Fighters album, the beginning of Foo Fighters as a full band of musicians – Dave Grohl (Guitar, Vocals, Drums), Pat Smear (Guitar), William Goldsmith (Drums) and Nate Mendel (Bass).

With a desire to create a more polished rock record rather than another quick and dirty punk album English producer Gil Norton (known for The Pixies ‘Doolittle’ and ‘Trompe le Monde’, among others) was approached by the band, a man with a reputation for precision and perfection.

Loaded up with demos and rough outlines of songs written on the road, the band convened with Gil at Bear Creek, a secluded recording studio in Washington. There, Gil’s order of precision pushed the band to build the album tenaciously, no matter how many takes it took to hit the spot – everyone was under pressure to perform, with nowhere to hide.

Tensions soon began to rise with William in particular being pushed to extreme levels, and with Dave Grohl also being handed divorce papers mid-session, work on the album was paused over the festive period during which time Grohl went to Washington DC and worked on some further ideas with one of them, ‘Everlong’, turning out to be the shot of whiskey the project needed. The band re-convened in the new year at Grandmaster Recorders in Los Angeles to finish up recording.

Grohl began laying down drum tracks of his own at the new studio, unbeknownst to William. Mendel and Smear also arrived and it was decided by Producer Norton and Grohl that the new drum tracks would be used on the record, not William’s. Eventually Informed of the news and feeling deflated, the drummer decided he could not continue with the band, opting to leave immediately.

The three remaining members pressed on and the album was finally completed by February 1997 with ‘The Colour And The Shape’ released on May 20th that same year.

Recording had been troubled and cost them their drummer but the results were well-received by fans and critics alike. With support from three huge singles in ‘Monkey Wrench’, ‘My Hero’ and ‘Everlong’ the album quickly went Platinum in the US and UK, with worldwide sales today estimated at over three million and the album still regularly placed at or near the top of many fans lists.