Dave Grohl ‘Hates’ When Bands Play One Classic Album Live

Rob Slater on November 5, 2014

Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters will celebrate their 20th anniversary of their 1995 self-titled debut, next year. Grohl told NME that the band has no plans to play the album in order. “I don’t like it when a band’s tour is just to play one past record. I fucking hate that,” Grohl said. “I don’t like it when bands do that. It’s presumptuous. It’s lazy.”

Grohl did say he considered re-recording the Foo Fighters’ debut album to “piss people off” but was called off by drummer Taylor Hawkins. “At one point I thought, ‘You know what would be really funny? To re-record the first Foo Fighters record as the band we are now’ – ‘cos the first record isn’t the Foo Fighters, it’s just me. So what if, for the 20th anniversary, we went in and re-recorded the first record – same songs, same arrangements, in sequence – but as the Foo Fighters 2014? Taylor was like, ‘Are you out of your fucking mind?! That’s the worst idea ever! People would fucking hate it!'”

The guitarist went onto say that “the best way to celebrate our 20th anniversary isn’t to focus on 20 years ago, but to focus on the last 20 years, meaning two years ago and six years ago and eight years ago.”

Many of the songs from the band’s 1995 debut have fallen out of rotation, however “This is a Call,” “Big Me,” “I’ll Stick Around” and “For All the Cows” have made appearances on their one-off shows centered around the Sonic Highways episodes. The band also headlined Voodoo Fest in New Orleans and jammed on “This is a Call” with Trombone Shorty.

Foo Fighters’ latest, Sonic Highways, is due out November 10 and features appearances by Joe Walsh, Ben Gibbard, Rick Neilsen, Zac Brown and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, among others. The band recently released “Congregation,” which features guitar and vocals from Brown.