Wasting Light is the seventh studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters, released on April 12, 2011, through Roswell and RCA Records.
Wanting to capture the essence of their earlier work and avoid the perceived artificiality of digital recording, Foo Fighters recorded the album in the garage of frontman Dave Grohl’s home in Encino, California, using only analog equipment. The sessions were produced by the band alongside Butch Vig, with whom Grohl had worked on Nirvana's Nevermind. Since the old equipment did not allow for many mistakes to be corrected in post-production, the band spent three weeks rehearsing the songs, and Vig had to relearn outdated editing techniques. The band sought a heavier and rawer sound in contrast to the experimentation of their previous albums. Most of the lyrics were written as Grohl reflected upon his life and possible future.
Guest musicians include Bob Mould, Krist Novoselic, Jessy Greene, Rami Jaffee and Fee Waybill. Pat Smear played as an official member of the band for the first time since The Colour and the Shape (1997), and the first album which recorded as five-piece band.
The recording sessions were documented on the band's website and Twitter. Promotion included the documentary Back and Forth and a worldwide concert tour that included performances in fans' garages. Wasting Light was preceded by the successful single "Rope", which became only the second song ever to debut at number one on Billboards Rock Songs chart. The follow-up single, "Walk", also charted highly. Wasting Light debuted at number one in eleven countries, including the United States, and received positive reviews from most music critics, who praised the production and songwriting. In 2012, Wasting Light earned four Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album.
Background
After the Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace tour ended in 2008, Foo Fighters went to Grandmaster Recorders in Hollywood to record a new album, but abandoned recording to take a break. They later rerecorded two of the songs, "Wheels" and "Word Forward", for their 2009 Greatest Hits album. The recording reunited frontman Dave Grohl with musician and producer Butch Vig, who had worked with Grohl's band Nirvana on their breakthrough album Nevermind (1991).
Grohl wanted to create an album that would "define" Foo Fighters, as he felt Back in Black defined AC/DC or the Black Album defined Metallica: "It might not be their best album, but it's the one people identify the band with the most ... You take all of the things that people consider your band's signature characteristics and just amplify them and make one simple album with that." He hired Vig for the project as he felt Vig was skilled at "trimming all the fat and making sense of it all".
On tour in 2010, with Them Crooked Vultures, Grohl developed songs and recorded demos, which he took to Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins for development. The band also saw the return of guitarist Pat Smear as a permanent member; Smear had left Foo Fighters after the release of The Colour and the Shape (1997), but had been part of the touring band since 2006.
Instead of recording the album in a modern studio, Grohl decided to record in his garage in Encino, Los Angeles. Grohl said: "There's poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. Why go into the most expensive studio with the biggest producer and use the best state-of-the-art equipment? Where's the rock'n'roll in that?" Grohl felt it was a way to make an innovative "primal sounding" record, subvert expectations, and "make records the way we used to fucking make records". Wasting Light was recorded using entirely analog equipment until post-mastering. Grohl said he felt digital recording was getting out of control: "When I listen to music these days, and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine it kinda sucks the life out of music." According to Grohl, the analog strategy would make the record "sound rawer and somewhat imperfect; Chris Shiflett agreed that "rock n'roll is about flaws and imperfections". Hawkins wanted to avoid the "artificial sound" of contemporary recording and believed an analog project would help the band reclaim artistic freedom.
Vig initially thought the idea was a joke. He warned the band that they would have to play well, as mistakes were not easily corrected without digital technology. The band spent three weeks in pre-production and rehearsals at their usual studio, Studio 606, where the composition was completed, going "from forty songs to fourteen." They rehearsed the songs with the intent of recording them live in Grohl's garage, unlike their previous approach of coming up with parts during the recording process. The band committed to not changing what they recorded; according to Smear, "Whatever we did, we didn’t change it. If a distorted vocal went through a pedal, that’s what it was going to be."
Recording
Grohl's garage was equipped with microphones, sound baffles on the garage door and behind the drums to prevent sound leakings, and a carpet under the drum kit to make it sound less "loud and bright". To reduce the cymbal bleed, the microphones were rearranged and the crash cymbal was traded for a "shorter-decay Zildjian cymbal with holes drilled in it." A room next to the study was turned into an isolation booth to record the vocals. For the recording itself a makeshift control room was built inside a tent on the backyard, and a system of two cameras and a television provided the communication between the garage and the control room. The equipment was the same the band employed to record the albums There Is Nothing Left to Lose and One by One at Grohl's former house in Alexandria, Virginia.
Recording of the album began September 6, 2010, lasting for eleven weeks, each one focusing on a particular song, something Vig stated "was good because each song kinda had its own life". The recordings started with Grohl's rhythm guitar and Taylor Hawkins' drumming to provide the foundations and see if both could "lock in". Hawkins usually played for hours before he got "a drum track I'd be proud of". Click tracks were used, but Vig said that there was not a worry for the drums to follow it exactly as they "wanted it to groove" and "we realized that when everything is off just a few milliseconds, the sound gets wider and thicker." After the guitar and drum track, Mendel would play his basslines, which were practiced enough for them to be recorded perfectly on the first take. The following day, Shiflett and Smear would play guitars, with the latter being the last and usually being given a baritone guitar to have a different sound from the other guitarists. After the instrumental backing was ready, Grohl did the vocals either on the control room or the isolation booth. As Grohl wanted the songs "to have maximum emotional potential", the vocals were screamed to the point he had headaches—"when the mic is picking up every tiny inconsistency, you really strain to make it sound right."
Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü, one of Grohl's idols, was brought in to do vocals in a song Grohl conceived as a duet with him, "Dear Rosemary". Mould also played guitar on the track, even though Vig's plans had him just singing. Grohl's and Smear's former Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic appeared in "I Should Have Known" as Grohl thought "it would be nice to have him come down and share the experience" and that the song would be enhanced by his bass and accordion-playing.""2011 Preview: Foo Fighters making Music to Break Into Cars To ". Q, November 2010 "Miss the Misery" features Fee Waybill of The Tubes, a personal friend of Grohl who said that the frontman invited him because "the background vocal sounded like him". Other guest musicians included three members of the expanded touring band, keyboardist Rami Jaffee, violinist Jessy Greene and percussionist Drew Hester.
Vig started doubting it could be done fully analog once the tapes for the first song recorded, "Miss the Misery", started falling apart, but Grohl reassured him "no, Butch, I don't want any computer in this house at all." The producer said that during recording he "had to force my brain to fire different synapses" to remember how to deal with the analog equipment and the lack of a digital display. One of the habits Vig had to call back was editing using a razor blade—"I used to be able to do 20 edits in half an hour if need be. It took me about 20 minutes to do the first edit!"—a technique he employed for the first songs recorded. Eventually he gave up and decided to punch in and punch out tapes instead, as the process was time-consuming and a more editable tape sent to Vig from Smart Studios was mostly ruined by one of Grohl's daughters."Some bands go quietly into the good night. But not the Foos, with Nevermind producer Butch Vig urging them". Hot Press, May 2011 While many recordings had inserts and some parts rerecorded, the only song that had to be redone from scratch was "I Should Have Known", as Grohl felt Vig was "trying to make this into a radio single" when the singer wanted it "to sound really raw and primal".
The mixing started at Chalice Recording Studios, but moved to Grohl's house as engineer Alan Moulder said it was the way "to make it sound like your garage." Since Grohl's mixing console was not automated, at times four people—Vig, Grohl, Moulder and engineer James Brown—had to work simultaneously on the board, something Grohl found interesting because every song was done differently and "even the mixes sounded like performances" The mixes were tested out in the cars of the band members and Vig, as they felt that "if it sounds good on a lousy stereo, it will sound good anywhere".
The recording of the album was filmed as part of a career-spanning documentary called Back and Forth, which Grohl said was essential to make audiences understand the decision to record the album in his garage.Foo Fighters Discuss 'Back and Forth' Documentary at SXSW , Billboard The album name, taken from a lyric in "Miss the Misery", was chosen by Grohl because "it seemed to resonate with me: 'OK, that's what we're here doing'", as the band always "recorded each album thinking it could be our last" and tried to take the most of their tenure together—"we're only here for a short time, we're lucky to be alive, lucky to be a band; I don't take any of this for granted; I don't want to spend my time looking backwards, I want to look forwards".
Composition
For Wasting Light, Grohl stated that they would go back to a more raw and heavier sound after "exploring new musical ground" on the previous records, adding that "with the last album we were too concerned with being musical, now it's time for us to be a rock band again". To contrast with the "seven or eight minute-long songs, with seven or eight sections, and two or three time changes" Grohl played with Them Crooked Vultures, he instead tried to compose the "tightest, catchiest four-and-a-half-minute 'softball bat to your face' songs". Hawkins added that he liked Wasting Light for being "straightforward, and that’s a good thing for us right now. The last couple [records] had some big dynamic changes." Grohl described the effort as their heaviest yet, later saying it was done because "I'm 42 now. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make this record when I'm 46 or 49. It's my last chance." While the demos that prompted Grohl to say the album would be their heaviest yet were not used on the album, Vig took the declarations to heart, following three criteria while recording: "It's got to be hooky, heavy, and we're going analog all the way." Critics described the album's overall sound as alternative rock, post-grunge and hard rock.