The outside world sees the splendent moments of entertainers; however, things aren’t always how they seem. It might be quite the opposite, with heated moments and scenes that won’t benefit anyone to see behind closed doors. At the end of the day, everyone’s human, and life is full of ups and downs that sometimes leak into our work.
For Foo Fighters, the early 2000s might seem like a grand old time without any worries, while in reality, the band went as far as almost disbanding during the making of their 2002 album ‘One By One.’ You wouldn’t have guessed that as one of their most popular tracks, ‘Times Like These’ came out of that album. If we were a fly on the wall of the making process, it would have been a different conversation where Taylor Hawkins questioned Dave Grohl’s leadership.
The late drummer explained to Metal Hammer in 2005, “I love all the records we’ve done, but I think maybe less so with the last one, ‘One By One,’ which is half a good record and half one that is a little bit shoddy. It was probably not the best outing. But it is a picture of that time. We nearly broke up. We didn’t know what we were going to do.”
“I wasn’t surprised when we binned the demo,” added Hawkins about their disarray during that time. He then exclaimed, “I was thinking, ‘Should we even be making records?’ It was such a disorganized, unfocused time. I don’t think Dave was sure of what he wanted to do, and, you know, he is the leader. I think he was still in love with the Queens Of The Stone Age stuff; he really wanted to go and play with them. I think he missed playing drums.”
Through Hawkins’ lens, Grohl was living in the past before he returned. The late musician said, “But when he came back, I think he also realized that he didn’t just want to play drums for someone else. Now he’s learned to balance it out so he can play drums on all these great records because everyone wants him to play drums for them. So he can do that, and then he can return to the Foo Fighters, so he’s happy.”
So as fans, we only see the glamorous side of watching our favorites bring out new material and having fantastic live performances. Yet, in reality, even the making of an album can bring a band to the cusp of breaking up. The comeback from the Queens of the Stone Age tour was a challenge for everyone in the band. For Taylor Hawkins, it was harder for Grohl, but they eventually got together again, and the disbandment didn’t come to fruition. On the plus side, we got ‘Times Likes These’ and a blossoming career for the upcoming years.
