Prior to his performance at the Oates Song Fest 7908 over the weekend, Dave Grohl told the incredible story behind the Foo Fighters iconic song “Everlong.” Now, the video has been made available online and it’s something all Foo Fighters fans need to see.
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In the over 11-minute long video, Grohl explained that the song was born in a Seattle recording studio while he was in between takes. Dave began strumming “a cool Sonic Youth chord,” which he says he ended up playing for Thurston Moore and says he “was totally afraid I’d ripped off this Sonic Youth song somehow.”
After Grohl played it for Moore, Moore asked him “Why is that a demo? Why isn’t that on the album?” Grohl said “it just felt so off the cuff and unofficial that I considered it to be a demo. So then we went and we re-recorded it and that’s the song that you hear on the radio today.”
The great story behind one of the Foo Fighters biggest hits comes at the expense of heartbreak Grohl experienced at the time. He was going through a breakup at the time and when you combined that with his “Sonic Youth chord,” they had the foundation built.
“Everlong” was never meant to be an acoustic song. Initially, Grohl “thought it was a rock song,” but an appearance on Howard Stern’s show helped change his mind.
As Grohl recalls: “Howard Stern loved the song. And when you do the Howard Stern show it’s 6 o’clock in the morning and you don’t want to touch an instrument but he asked that I play it acoustically.”
“And so I did, and in a way, it gave the song a whole new rebirth,” he added. “This was long after it was released. It gave the song a whole new life. Because I think sometimes when I do it this way it really does peel back some of the bells and whistles and the other noise when it’s just the lyric and the guitar and my voice. I think it kind of makes the song feel the way I had always wished it had felt.”
WATCH MORE: We love the Foo Fighters and this tour rider tells us why
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