The Foo Fighters - Million Dollar Demos (2001)

I've just taken delivery of a fascinating book entitled 'The Greatest Albums You'll Never Hear' by Bruno MacDonald, which, as the title suggests, looks at the stories of unreleased and unheard albums by a very wide variety of artists. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I've tracked down quite a few of them, and so the first of a number of future posts is from The Foo Fighters. The ‘Million Dollar Demos’ were taped during The Foo Fighters first attempt to record their fourth record 'One By One' in 2001. This was a pretty tough time for the band, with Taylor Hawkins overdosing on drugs in a London hotel room, and Dave Grohl telling a journalist that it was the first time that he'd ever considered quitting music. No-one was very happy with the recordings, which reportedly cost over a million dollars to make, and when Grohl decided to spend the summer of 2002 touring with Queens Of The Stone Age, the future of the band was looking decidedly uncertain. Things came to a head at the Coachella Festival in 2002, when Grohl played with both The Queens Of The Stone Age and The Foo Fighters, and his band-mates in the Fighters complained that they weren't happy with Grohl's 'moonlighting'. Despite this the band playing a blinding set, and the bad feelings were worked through, with the decision being made to scrap all the recordings they'd made so far, and to re-record all the songs in just two weeks in Dave Grohl's basement studio. 'One By One' included the successful singles 'All My Life' and 'Times Like These', and was noted for the introspective lyrics and a heavier and more aggressive sound compared to the band's earlier work. Of the original recordings, eleven tracks were laid down, of which ten were considered for the album, (not including 'Times Like These' and 'Low' which were written after the demos were abandoned), but only three were ever officially released, as b-sides to singles from the released record. Although 30-second clips from the other tracks circulated online, the full demos were only leaked when Reddit user Dale Nixon made a new account, and made one single post, which was a download link for the 'Million Dollar Demos'. We can now hear that most of the songs are similar to their final counterparts, although songs like 'Come Back' and 'Lonely As You' are drastically different. Rumours abound that Dale Nixon might actually be Dave Grohl himself, as he used that pseudonym when he played on The Melvin’s 1992 album 'King Buzzo', but that could just be a red herring. Whoever he is, he's now given us a chance to hear these legendary demos, for which we are all thankful. 

Track listing

01 All My Life
02 Walking a Line
03 Have It All
04 Tired of You
05 Halo
06 Normal
07 Lonely As You
08 Overdrive
09 Burn Away
10 Come Back

Suggested by 'The Greatest Albums You'll Never Hear' by Bruno MacDonald