Sonic Highways: Chicago

About

For Foo Fighters eighth studio album Dave Grohl devised an ambitious plan - instead of recording the album in one or two locations at their own leisure, they would tour the United States and visit eight well-known recording studios, giving themselves just one week to record a song in each. Each studio would be located in a city with rich musical heritage and whilst there the band would explore that heritage, as well as Dave interviewing several prominent musicians from that area.

As a final twist, whilst the band hit each studio with a demo track in hand no lyrics were written, instead Dave planned to take direct inspiration from his interviews with locals and work those thoughts into the lyrics.

The final product was entitled Sonic Highways, both the resulting album and the eight part documentary series. The series initially aired in the US via HBO, a new episode each week starting October 17th, 2024, twenty years to the day since Dave Grohl walked into Robert Lang Studio in Seattle to begin recording what would be the first Foo Fighters album.

This first episode centred around Chicago with its rhythm and blues musical heritage. The episode saw interviews with multiple musicians from the broader area including Buddy Guy, Rick Nielsen and Jason Nurducy. Other musicians not born in the area but prominently featured in the scene were also featured, including Bonnie Raitt. Members of Naked Raygun were also interviewed, the first punk rock band Dave Grohl ever saw live at the Cubby Bear in Chicago.

The episode walks though the history of music in the city as well as introducing the studio selected for recording, Electrical Audio. Owner Steve Albini is interviewed by Dave and given a tour of the studio.

The episode segues between archive footage and interviews, alongside behind the scenes footage of Foo Fighters recording the song 'Something From Nothing' at Electrical Audio', including Rick Nielsen recording a cameo guitar track.

The episode concludes with a music video shot in Electrical Audio featuring the entire band as well as Nielsen.