David Eric Grohl is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was the drummer for rock band Nirvana and founded the band Foo Fighters, for whom he is the singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter. Grohl is also the drummer and co-founder of the rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, and wrote the music and performed all the instruments for his short-lived side projects Late! and Probot. He has also recorded and toured with Queens of the Stone Age.
Nirvana was an American rock band formed in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1987. Founded by lead singer-songwriter and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic, the band went through a succession of drummers before recruiting Dave Grohl in 1990. Nirvana's success popularized alternative rock, and they were often referenced as the figurehead band of Generation X. Their music maintains a popular following and continues to influence modern rock and roll culture.
The Colour and the Shape is the second studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters, released on May 20, 1997, by Roswell and Capitol Records. It marked the official debut of the Foo Fighters as a band, as their eponymous 1995 debut album was primarily recorded by frontman Dave Grohl and producer Barrett Jones as a demo. After the debut became an international success, Grohl recruited guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Nate Mendel, and drummer William Goldsmith to form the band's full lineup. The group convened in the fall of 1996 for pre-production on a second album, and brought in Gil Norton as producer to establish a pop sensibility for the tracks. The band strived to create a full-fledged rock record, contrary to music press predictions that it would be another grunge offshoot.
Foo Fighters are an American rock band, formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1994. It was founded by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of Nirvana after the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The group took its name from "Foo fighter", a nickname coined by Allied aircraft pilots for UFOs and other aerial phenomena. Over the course of their career, Foo Fighters have won 12 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album four times. The band has also won an American Music Award, four Brit Awards, and two MTV Video Music Awards.
One by One is the fourth studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters, released on October 22, 2002 by Roswell and RCA Records. Production on the album was troubled, with initial recording sessions considered unsatisfying and raising tensions between the band members. They eventually decided to redo the album from scratch during a two-week period at frontman Dave Grohl's home studio in Alexandria, Virginia. The album, which includes the successful singles "All My Life" and "Times Like These", has been noted for its introspective lyrics and a heavier, more aggressive sound compared to the band's earlier work, which Grohl said was intended to translate the energy of the Foo Fighters' live performances into a recording. This was the first album recorded with Chris Shiflett as part of the band.
Preservation Hall is a jazz venue in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. The building is associated with a house band, a record label, and a non-profit foundation.
Preservation Hall Jazz Band is a New Orleans jazz band founded in New Orleans by tuba player Allan Jaffe in the early 1960s. The band derives its name from Preservation Hall in the French Quarter. In 2005, the Hall's doors were closed for a period of time due to Hurricane Katrina, but the band continued to tour.
"Lonely Boy" is an international hit song from 1977, written and recorded by Andrew Gold in 1976 for his album What's Wrong with This Picture? It spent five months on the American charts, peaking at number seven in both Canada and the United States, and number 11 in the United Kingdom. While "Lonely Boy" would be Gold's biggest U.S. hit, his "Never Let Her Slip Away" achieved greater success in the U.K.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace is the sixth studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters, released on September 25, 2007 by RCA Records. The album is noted for a blend of regular rock and acoustic tracks with shifting dynamics, which emerged from the variety of styles employed on the demos the band produced. It also marks the second time the band worked with producer Gil Norton, whom frontman Dave Grohl brought to fully explore the potential of his compositions and have a record that sounded different from their previous work. Grohl tried to focus on songs with messages that resonated with his audience, writing reflective lyrics which drew inspiration from the birth of his daughter.
Troy Andrews, also known by the stage name Trombone Shorty, is an American musician, producer, actor and philanthropist from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known as a trombone and trumpet player but also plays drums, organ, and tuba. He has worked with some of the biggest names in rock, pop, jazz, funk, and hip hop. Andrews is the younger brother of trumpeter and bandleader James Andrews and the grandson of singer and songwriter Jessie Hill. Other musical family members are cousins Glen David Andrews and the late Travis "Trumpet Black" Hill. Andrews began playing trombone at age four, and since 2009 has toured with his own band, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue.
Jonathan Michael Batiste is an American musician, bandleader, and television personality. He has recorded and performed with artists in various genres of music, released his own recordings, and performed in more than 40 countries. Batiste regularly tours with his band Stay Human, and appears with them nightly as bandleader and musical director on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Batiste also serves as the Music Director of The Atlantic and the Creative Director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.
Them Crooked Vultures is an alternative rock supergroup formed in Los Angeles in 2009 by Josh Homme on lead vocals and guitar, John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards, and Dave Grohl on drums and backing vocals. The group also includes guitarist Alain Johannes during live performances.
Wasting Light is the seventh studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters. It was released on April 12, 2011 on Roswell and RCA Records, and is the first album to feature rhythm guitarist Pat Smear since The Colour and the Shape (1997) as an official member, as he's appeared on their previous album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007) as an additional member.
Sonic Highways is a 2014 American documentary miniseries directed by Dave Grohl and written by Mark Monroe. The documentary was made concurrently with Foo Fighters' eighth album, Sonic Highways, and was broadcast on HBO. Grohl described the project as "a love letter to the history of American music". Each of the eight episodes is presented as an exploration of the musical history of a different American city through a series of interviews by Grohl. The group is also shown incorporating what they learned from the interviews into the writing and recording of a new song in or near that city. The series debuted on October 17, 2014.
Benjamin Jaffe is the creative director of Preservation Hall and plays tuba and double bass with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
"The Sky Is a Neighborhood" is a song by American rock band Foo Fighters. It was released as the second single from their ninth album Concrete and Gold on August 23, 2017. As of November 2017, the song had peaked at number one on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart and seven on the Alternative Songs chart.
Concrete and Gold is the ninth studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters. It was produced by Greg Kurstin and released worldwide on September 15, 2017, through RCA Records. Described by the band as an album where "hard rock extremes and pop sensibilities collide", Concrete and Gold concerns the future of the United States from the viewpoint of the band's frontman and lead songwriter Dave Grohl, with the heated atmosphere of the 2016 elections and the presidency of Donald Trump cited as major influences by Grohl. Juxtapositions serve as a common motif in both the album's lyrical and musical composition, with Grohl further describing the album's overall theme as "hope and desperation".
"The Line" is a song by American rock band Foo Fighters. The song is from the band's ninth studio album Concrete and Gold, being released as a promotional song a week in advance of the album's release. It was released as the album's third single on May 1, 2018, after "Run" and "The Sky Is a Neighborhood".
A Tuba to Cuba is a 2018 American documentary film about the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The leader of New Orleans' famed Preservation Hall Jazz Band seeks to fulfill his late father's dream of retracing their musical roots to the shores of Cuba in search of the indigenous music that gave birth to New Orleans jazz. A Tuba to Cuba celebrates the triumph of the human spirit expressed through the universal language of music and challenges us to resolve to build bridges, not wall. The film was directed by T. G. Herrington and Danny Clinch and narrated by Ben Jaffe whose parents founded Preservation Hall in a segregated 1961 New Orleans. The documentary had its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX where Michael King of the Austin Chronicle exclaimed that it is "very likely to become a classic of the music documentary genre."
