X-clusive: Foo Fighters Vs President George W Bush

The new Foo Fighters album, entitled ‘In Your Honour’ (in Europe and ‘In Your Honor’ in the US) is a half acoustic, half full rock double record, described by Grohl as “the bottle and the hangover” and variously as the greatest thing the band have ever recorded.

Speaking exclusively to Xfm, Grohl explained that the political history to the album’s name (if not exactly its content) was a result of George Bush appropriating a Foo Fighters tune for his political campaign at last year’s US election.

“I went out and supported John Kerry [US election democratic candidate] on his campaign trail,” Grohl explained, “Only really because George W Bush was using one of our songs at his political rallies. It just goes to show how out of touch that man is if he’s using our songs at his rallies [laughs].

“There’s no way of stopping the president playing your songs, so I went out and played it for John Kerry’s people instead, where I thought the message would kinda make more sense. So I spent quite a lot of time on the trail.

“When I’d play at these things I’d play acoustic, so it wasn’t like a Foo Fighters show, and the first twenty rows of the audience would all be people in wheelchairs, then farmers, then school teachers and blue collar factory workers, but it was really cool.

“And I got to see how all these people came together, really strong people, passionate and devoted to this one honourable cause. The strength of community and human will, it was inspiring. The album, although it isn’t a political record, I was really, really inspired by how passionate people were last year to make a change.”

As for whether Grohl could see himself getting more active in politics as a full time vocation at any point in the future, the singer seemed sure it’s not for him.

“I grew up just outside Washington, and my father was a journalist and so he was involved in the political scene in [Washington] DC.” He explained, “He was a speech writer and a campaign manager, and its tough man, politics. You think being in a rock band is hard? [laughs] Politics is a whole different monster. Its tough, I can’t see any of us ever getting involved.”