Heavy Duty

They Should Be on a Much-needed Break Right Now, but the Foo Fighters Would Always Rather Rock Than Rest. Dave Grohl, Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear Sound Off on What Got Them to Cut Their Vacation Time Early and Crank Out the New Concrete and Gold.

- Richard Bienstock

Grohl’s get-up-and-go attitude likely can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that he lives in a house crammed full with a wife and three daughters—“I usually wake up around 4:30 or something like that,” he reports, “and I get a good hour, hour-and-a-half to myself before my house explodes into a tornado of activity.” But it’s also just the 48-year-old’s naturally energized demeanor. To that end, the Foo Fighters—whose last album, 2014’s Sonic Highways, was a transcontinental endeavor that was paired with an eight-part HBO docuseries—recently finished up work on their ninth full-length, Concrete and Gold, and just returned from a slew of overseas shows where they headlined arenas, stadiums and festivals from Reykjavik to Roskilde. Furthermore, they’re about to embark on a U.S. tour that kicks off in San Bernardino in grand fashion with Cal Jam 17, a 12-hour “rock super fest” that is Grohl’s reimagining of the legendary 1974 festival of the same name. In place of the original’s lineup of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and the Eagles, Grohl has put together a bill that includes, among others, Queens of the Stone Age, Cage the Elephant, Royal Blood and, of course, his own band. After that, the Foo Fighters will continue on, crisscrossing the globe on their own full-scale headlining tour over the course of the next year or two.

Needless to say, this would constitute a pretty full plate of activity for any band— much less one, that, for all intents and purposes, is supposed to be on a break.