page_title: Wasting Light
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Wasting Light / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Butch Vig
context_page_description: Wasting Light is the seventh studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters. It was released on April 12, 2011 on Roswell and RCA Records, and is the first album to feature rhythm guitarist Pat Smear since The Colour and the Shape as an official member, as he's appeared on their previous album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace as an additional member.
  Wanting to capture the essence of their earlier work and avoid the artificiality of digital recording, Foo Fighters recorded in the garage of frontman Dave Grohl in Encino, California, using only analog equipment. The sessions were produced by Butch Vig, with whom Grohl had worked on Nirvana's Nevermind. Since the old equipment did not allow for many mistakes to be corrected in post-production, the band spent three weeks rehearsing the songs, and Vig had to relearn outdated editing techniques. The band sought a heavier and rawer sound in contrast to the experimentation of their previous albums. Most of the lyrics were written as Grohl reflected upon his life and possible future. Guest musicians include Bob Mould, Krist Novoselic, Jessy Greene, Rami Jaffee and Fee Waybill.
context_section_description: After the Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace tour ended in 2008, Foo Fighters went to Grandmaster Recorders in Hollywood to record a new album, but abandoned recording to take a break. They later rerecorded two of the songs, "Wheels" and "Word Forward", for their 2009 Greatest Hits album. The recording reunited frontman Dave Grohl with producer Butch Vig, who had worked with Grohl's band Nirvana on their breakthrough album Nevermind (1991).
  Grohl wanted to create an album that would "define" Foo Fighters, as he felt Back in Black defined AC/DC or the Black Album defined Metallica: "It might not be their best album, but it's the one people identify the band with the most ... You take all of the things that people consider your band's signature characteristics and just amplify them and make one simple album with that." He hired Vig for the project as he felt Vig was skilled at "trimming all the fat and making sense of it all".
  On tour in 2010 with Them Crooked Vultures, Grohl developed songs and recorded demos, which he took to Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins for development. The band also saw the return of guitarist Pat Smear as a permanent member; Smear had left Foo Fighters after the release of The Colour and the Shape (1997), but had been part of the touring band since 2006.
  
  Instead of recording the album in a modern studio, Grohl decided to record in his garage in Encino, Los Angeles. Grohl said: "There's poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. Why go into the most expensive studio with the biggest producer and use the best state-of-the-art equipment? Where's the rock'n'roll in that?" Grohl felt it was a way to make an innovate, "primal sounding" record, subvert expectations, and "make records the way we used to fucking make records".
  Wasting Light was recorded using entirely analogue equipment until post-mastering. Grohl said he felt digital recording was getting out of control: "When I listen to music these days, and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine  it kinda sucks the life out of music." According to Grohl, the analog strategy would make the record "sound rawer and somewhat imperfect; Chris Shiflett agreed that "rock n'roll is about flaws and imperfections". Hawkins wanted to avoid the "artificial sound" of contemporary recoding and believed an analog project would help the band reclaim artistic freedom.
  Grohl initially thought the idea was a joke. He warned the band that they would have to play well, as mistakes were not easily corrected without digital technology. The band spent three weeks in pre-production and rehearsals at their usual studio, Studio 606, where the composition was completed, going "from forty songs to fourteen". They rehearsed the songs with the intent of recording them live in Grohl's garage, unlike their previous approach of coming up with parts during the recording process. The band committed to not changing what they recorded; according to Smear, "Whatever we did, we didn’t change it. If a distorted vocal went through a pedal, that’s what it was going to be.”
caption: Butch Vig produced Wasting Light.
exif: {"Image Software": "PhotoScape", "Image DateTime": "2010:04:09 23:29:24", "Image ExifOffset": "2153", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "288", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "480", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "F67EF092A21E451C92D4A7DFDF69921E", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}