Foo Fighters talk Sonic Highways

Foo Fighters have issued a trailer for their upcoming TV series Sonic Highways.

It premieres in the US on October 17 and will be shown in the UK on October 26 through BBC Four.

The band recorded each of the eight album tracks in a different US city and frontman Dave Grohl reveals he approached songwriting differently this time – interviewing musicians from each place and using their quotes in the the tracks.

He explains: “The process is we come to a city and spend a week and record an instrumental because I interview all of these different musicians. I talk about the regional relevance of the music from that city, the cultural influence that made for the sound of the music.

“There’s no way that you can tell the history of a city’s music in one hour, so we have to do it in a way that relates to the band and goes from point A to point B and becomes a song.”

And drummer Taylor Hawkins says it’s given Grohl a new focus when it comes to writing new material.

He adds: “Dave said he was going to take sentences from the interviews and write a song. I was like, ‘That seems really difficult,’ but it’s given him a whole new way of writing lyrics.”

The clip also briefly shows some of the artists who will feature in the series, including Josh Homme, Paul Stanley and Chris Martin, along with country music legends Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton.

The Sonic Highways album launches on November 10, while the album’s first single Something From Nothing is due to drop later this week on October 16.

Last month, Grohl promised the band would return to the UK in the near future, while fans have launched a crowdfunding attempt to bring the Foos to Birmingham. US fans staged a similar campaign earlier this year.

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.