Foo Fighters – Alone + Easy Target
Today’s Vaults is a choice cut from the eponymous debut album by alternative rock group, Foo Fighters ‘Alone + Easy Target’. When the album was released, there was band, as such – the project was the brainchild and baby of just one man – Dave Grohl.
After Nirvana ended so abruptly, Grohl suffered a bout of depression, and couldn’t decide whether or not he could face returning to music. He decided to make a collection of songs where he would play every musical part, and release them under a pseudonym so no-one would know it was him. Grohl was initially insecure about his voice – though you might not think that from the thundering rock-screams he manages on stage these days – so he made sure all the vocals on the album were either quadrupled or had effects added to them.
Though Grohl wasn’t sure about the quality of the music, the collection of songs – that went on to form Foo Fighters debut eponymous album – were received positively by critics and by 2011, the album had sold 1.468 million units in North America, and certified Platinum in Canada and Gold in the UK.
There were four singles released from the album but it was far more than just four singles and some filler. Tracks like ‘Exhausted’ and ‘Alone + Easy Target’ are still among some of the best Foo Fighters material to date (though there’s a mammoth back catalogue to search through before you can come to that conclusion). Grohl had written both tracks when he was still with Nirvana, and had played a demo of ‘Alone + Easy Target’ to Kurt Cobain back in December 1991. “Kurt was staying in a hotel in Seattle at the time, as by then he’d moved to LA,” Grohl said later to MOJO. “I’d told him I was recording and he said, ‘Oh, I wanna hear it, bring it by…’ He was sitting in the bath-tub with a Walkman on, listening to the song, and when the tape ended he took the headphones off and kissed me and said, ‘Oh, finally, now I don’t have to be the only songwriter in the band!’ I said, No, no, no, I think we’re doing just fine with your songs.”
As it happened, ‘Alone + Easy Target’ was just never meant to be a Nirvana track. But it’s perfectly Foo Fighters. Though they’re a mega popular rock band these days, you’re just as likely to come across Dave Grohl’s name in the gossip columns as Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love accuses him of any number of things (currently, it’s of trying to hit on her daughter Frances Bean – which everyone – including Frances – deny to be true).
What happened to the days when it was all about the music, eh? Just forget about all that stuff, put your headphones up and remember rock like it was 1995.
