Foo Fighters Share How "Times Like These" Nearly Broke Up the Band

"It was just a shitty time"

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Mar 10, 2021

"Times Like These" is among the Foo Fighters' biggest hits, but as they now share, the second single from 2002's One By One very nearly led the band to break up.

In conversation with Zane Lowe for Apple Music's Essentials series, the Foos discussed "Times Like These" amongst other songs that play an important role in their 25 years as a band.

"We were making that record, and it just wasn't really happening for whatever reason," Grohl recalled. "The recordings weren't what we wanted them to be, the enthusiasm wasn't really there."

Guitarist Chris Shiflett added, "I thought the band was going to break up, and it's funny you bring up that song because I remember, I think literally the first time we ever played it was at a rehearsal at [Nate Mendel's], after the Queens of the Stone Age tour. And it was actually there that we all got in a huge argument, and it was maybe the closest the band actually ever really did come to breaking up but then didn't.

"We were just still trying to figure out kind of how to be a band still, and like Dave said earlier, the record that we made just sounded sort of phoned in, and [we were] trying Pro Tools for the first time and Dave was really excited about the Queens stuff. And it was just a shitty time for the band."

Drummer Taylor Hawkins also shared a funny story of how producer Nick Raskulinecz became involved in One By One's recording, all thanks to Grohl "[calling] the wrong Nick" while demoing tracks at his Virginia home.

As Grohl explained, "I meant to call Nick Oliveri, who was the bass player for Queens of the Stone Age, and my friend Nick Raskulinecz answered. I knew him from Sound City, great engineer, he had worked at that studio for years."

Rather than admit his mistake, Grohl enlisted him for work on the record, and the rest is history.

You can hear Foo Fighters discuss "Times Like These" around the video's seven-minute mark below, where you can also revisit the song's video.

Foo Fighters released their 10th album Medicine at Midnight earlier this year and landed on the cover of Exclaim!'s first issue of of 2021. We also examined Dave Grohl's connections to Canadian indie music.



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