According to Foo Fighters founder and band leader Dave Grohl, “Your Favorite Toy” is the song that “unlocked” things for the band’s upcoming 12th studio album of the same name. So far, the 10-track collection due out on April 24 — preceded last year with the booming single “Asking For a Friend” — sounds like a return to punk form for Grohl, who cut his teeth as a teenager in the D.C. hardcore band Scream before joining Nirvana.
The three-minute rager that dropped on Thursday morning (Feb. 19) opens with quickly strummed guitars and Grohl’s distorted “nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah” refrain over a galloping drum rhythm, before exploding into a typical shouty Foos chorus. “Get back, hear that boy?/ Someone threw away your favorite toy for good/ For good, ” Grohl sneers on the band’s first new song of the year.
“‘Your Favorite Toy’ really was the key that unlocked the tone and energetic direction of the new album,” Grohl said in a statement. “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.”
According to a release, the album was recorded at home and co-produced by the band and Oliver Roman (The Cribs, Wolfmother). The release of the album’s title track comes less than a week after the Foos previewed the album’s tracks on their website via a clickable, throwback landing page in which snippets were embedded in images of the band in the studio and on stage. The album is expected to feature the recorded debut of new drummer Ilan Rubin, who took over for Josh Freese, the veteran timekeeper who filled in for late drummer Taylor Hawkins for two years until he was dismissed by the band last May.
The Foos have lined up a series of shows for their 2026 Take Cover world tour, which kicks off on June 10 in Oslo, Norway at the Unity Arena, before moving across Europe over the summer and then landing on North American shores on Aug. 4 with a show at Rogers Stadium in Toronto. Among the recently added stops is an Aug. 22 gig at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic.
Listen to “Favorite Toy” and check out the album’s track list below.
- “Caught in the Echo”
- “Of All People”
- “Window”
- “Your Favorite Toy”
- “If You Only Knew”
- “Spit Shine”
- “Unconditional”
- “Child Actor”
- “Amen, Caveman”
- “Asking For a Friend”
