Dave Grohl has opened up about the inspiration for the Foo Fighters’ upcoming album.
On Thursday, the frontman announced that the rock group’s twelfth studio album, Your Favorite Toy, will be released on 12 April.
The Best of You hitmakers also unveiled the album’s first single, which shares the same name.
“Your Favorite Toy really was the key that unlocked the tone and energetic direction of the new album,” said Grohl in a press release. “We stumbled upon it after experimenting with different sounds and dynamics for over a year, and the day it took shape I knew that we had to follow its lead. It was the fuse to the powder keg of songs we wound up recording for this record. It feels new.”
Recorded at Grohl’s 606 studio, the album is comprised of 10 songs and was co-produced by the Foo Fighters – also comprised of Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee, and Ilan Rubin – and in-house engineer Oliver Roman.
Reflecting on the project during an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music, Grohl recalled how the band all agreed that Your Favorite Toy would be the lead single the moment they recorded it.
“This particular song was literally the springboard for the rest of the record. When we hit this, it was like we hit this little vein of gold,” the 57-year-old explained. “And we were like, ‘That’s the feeling, that’s the vibe, that’s the energy,’ and then we just blasted everything out in three or four weeks.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Grohl also discussed how late drummer Taylor Hawkins still influences the band’s music.
Hawkins died while on tour in Bogotá, Colombia at the age of 50 in March 2022. Rubin, the former touring drummer of Nine Inch Nails, is the current drummer for the Foo Fighters, following the departure of Josh Freese last year.
“You know, we’re having this conversation on Taylor’s birthday. It’s Taylor’s birthday today,” he continued. “And so, we wake up in the morning and everybody just texts about how much we miss him and how the world’s not the same without him, but we still feel him very much. We always talk about him every f**king day. In everything we do we want to have that energy – we want to have that energy for Taylor.”
