Foo Fighters & Nevermind Producer Butch Vig to Record New Album

I was two drinks into the night recently when the subject of Dave Grohl came up between me and a dear friend. The topic was actually “people who would be better than Meg White to work with Jack on the new White Stripes album”. Not that she isn’t a total little treat, she’s just been focusing on things like modeling and marriage while Jack has been running around upping his amazingness by hanging out with the likes of (Raconteurs cohort) Brenden Benson, Jimmy Page and The Edge. So yeah, occasionally I like to muse about what would happen if she decided to sideline music permanently. I mentioned Dave Grohl because, duh, he’s a fucking great drummer. Yes, I’m asserting that.

I think the fact that the Foo Fighters, as a band, have somewhat dropped from relevance has made everyone forget that Dave Grohl is one of the most diverse, unique and sought-after studio musicians in the past 20 years. He’s played with everyone, and I mean that in the “so many different people who are awesome that would it be exhausting and futile to even try to name them” kind of way. And seeing as Jack White has also been making the rounds and working with a myriad of musical so-and-sos, I still stand by my half-drunken assertion that these two would make some ridiculously driving, sexy, immaculately-crafted music.

But it would seem that Dave Grohl’s dance card is full for another while still; despite rumors and talk of a hiatus for the band, he appears intent on restoring his former power-to-rock in the form of a new Foo Fighters studio album. “Me and [Foos drummer] Taylor [Hawkins] have already started demoing songs,” Grohl told Rolling Stone at last Friday’s Independent Spirit Awards, where Grohl was presenting. Seeing as how the Foos have already penned 6 albums in their 16-year history, news of their return to the studio wasn’t the big story at the Awards; the exciting part is that they’ve tapped Butch Vig to produce it. Vig produced Nirvana’s Nevermind back in 1991, when Grohl was their drummer. Between the frontman’s insistence that this new album could be the Foos’ “heaviest album yet” and that reliable 20-year nostalgia that Nirvana fans are sure to be feeling next year, the Foo Fighters might have a fighting chance at a return to rock relevancy.