Foo Fighters perform at the 2021 MTV VMAs
Image: Theo Wargo/Getty for MTV/ViacomCBS

Dave Grohl Reckons the Next Foo Fighters Album May Be An “Insane Prog-Rock Record”

Foo Fighters only released their 10th studio album Medicine at Midnight back in February of this year, but it looks like Dave Grohl and co. are already thinking the shape its follow-up might take.

Over the course of their two-and-a-half-decade-long career the Foo Fighters have steadily shifted their broad direction – from the rougher-hewn intensity of their early work to the anthemic, stadium-sized rock that marks the band’s current era. But in a new interview, bandleader Grohl discussed continuing to widen the scope of their work.

“Every album that we’ve made is a response to the one we made before,” Groh told Rolling Stone in a profile largely centred around the band’s continued survival a quarter century into their existence, published earlier this week. “So now there are whispers of making an insane prog-rock record.”

Though Grohl pointed out in the interview that he’s yet to begin writing any new music for album 11, his comments do feel like an echo of conversations that happened prior to the recording of Medicine at Midnight. Speaking to Music Feeds earlier this year, the band’s Nate Mendal reflected on how Grohl indicated he wanted the record to be the band’s version of David Bowie‘s Let’s Dance.

“Like, short, simple, everything totally accessible and kind of a bit poppier than what had come before it,” Mendal explained. “And I was like, ‘Fuck yes. That sounds awesome.'”

In that sense, it’s not unreasonable to see how Grohl and his bandmates could draw from, say, the likes of Rush to inform the songwriting process for their next record. There have also been detours into more unconventional territory – for instance, when the band adopted their Dee Gees alter-ego and released the disco-oriented Hail Satin in July, consisting of a mixture of Bee Gees covers and live Medicine at Midnight cuts.

Must Read