Rumor had it last summer that the Foo Fighters’ latest, One By One, was so heavy and fragmented that RCA rejected the album and told Dave Grohl and his band to go back to the drawing board.
Whether it was complete ignorance or a lack of journalistic inquiry, the real reason may have had something to do with drummer Taylor Hawkins’ near death from a drug overdose in August 2001. No stranger to tragedy and untimely death, Grohl took no chances with Hawkins’ fragile state and decided to back off the Foos for a while.
With rumors about the demise of the band running rampant, Grohl joined Queens of the Stone Age for a stint as their studio and live drummer. Having departed stonerville after missing the satisfaction of leading his own band, Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters are back in line with One By One, a mélange of rock that silences the rumor spinsters and offers a window into the psyche of their songwriter.
The QOTSA influence on Grohl’s songwriting is ingrained on first track and lead single “All My Life,” a mid-tempo rocker full of palm-mutes and trademarked by a chorus less sugary than some of the Foos’ best-known hits.
Singing, “I’m done, done, and I’m on to the next one / Done, done, and I’m on to the next,” Grohl exposes one of his most well-known characteristics — an incredible restlessness when it comes to being tied down by commitment.
Having admitted that it is difficult to stay confined to just one project, Grohl’s frenetic music on One By One is perhaps the closest the general listening audience has come to knowing the living legend who has donned as many faces as Lon Chaney.
In his days behind the drums for Nirvana, Grohl stood in the shadow of one of rock’s most ominous legends. The darkness around Nirvana dimmed Grohl’s spontaneous, extroverted character, something he would later resume in his role at the helm of the Foo Fighters.
The 1995 self-titled debut, recorded entirely by Grohl, was demo-quality garage-rock with machine-gun drums, multiple guitar fuzz tones and vocals that made your skin crawl. Tracks like “Weenie Beenie” exposed a searing angst and guitar-rock efficacy that surprised even the harshest of critics, but that tone was balanced by the tongue-and-cheek nature of tracks like “Big Me,” a formula that would be repeated on 1997’s The Colour and the Shape and 1999’s There Is Nothing Left To Lose.
On One by One, Grohl speaks in riddles and offers up references that could easily be applied to several of those who are or were closest to Grohl. “Tired of You” could be construed as a love ballad to Grohl’s love interest, Melissa Auf Der Maur.
But some of Grohl’s best work emerges from his latent tenderness. After all, much of 1997’s The Colour and the Shape emerged from his relationship with Veruca Salt frontwoman Louise Post, and the Foos’ biggest mainstream hit, “Everlong,” was written for the salty songstress. On “Tired of You,” Grohl pines “I won’t go getting get tired of you / I’m not getting tired of you.”
“Halo” opens with light acoustics and upbeat drums that flow into a descending chorus as Grohl sings, “Halo / God only knows / Right behind me everywhere I go.” The intensity of the vocals and depth of the track is sure to beg the question of who this song written for, and the best guess is an old friend and bandmate.
The ambiguity of “Halo” is equally prevalent in “Lonely As You,” the most beautiful and noteworthy track on One By One. Sure to become a live staple, Grohl’s lyrics are more personal and baffling than ever, as it is impossible to pinpoint who he is speaking about. The intro, a clean mix of guitar strokes, is supplemented by lyrics that refer to a person so lonely they couldn’t choose between pleasure and pain.
“Every now and then, you’re down and out my friend, down and out again / But I’m down with you” screams Grohl in a possible reference to the struggles of drummer and best friend Taylor Hawkins.
Album closer and nearly eight-minute rock epic “Come Back” bookends an album that has Grohl admitting to his restlessness with music, his relationships and his past. The only thing he doesn’t do is admit to an ineptness when it comes to making rock tracks that stay affixed to your brain like they were super-glued there.
Quite possibly one of the best rock drummers ever, Grohl asserts himself on One By One as a true songwriter who has long since moved away from the shadows of his past and who is capable of making energized, melody-filled rock in a time when the genre is supposedly dead.
The critics can spin the rumor mill all they want, but maybe Grohl said it best in the album closer — “I will come back.”
Grade: A
