The gear used by Dave Grohl on the Foo Fighters’ legendary debut album
In October of 1994, just six months after the tragic passing of Kurt Cobain and the disbanding of Nirvana, Dave Grohl entered a studio. The resulting record was a cathartic and therapeutic experience for the talented young musician. He tapped Barrett Jones to produce and engineer the record. Essentially, it was a solo album, with Grohl recording all the instruments himself. Jones had recorded some of the early Nirvana demos at his Laundry Room Studio in Seattle, but interestingly, those had been recorded prior to Grohl being in the band.
READ MORE: What guitars does Dave Grohl use? These are the instruments that power the Foo Fighters
The Foo Fighters session was done over five days at Robert Lang Studio. The same studio where Nirvana recorded their last song, You Know You’re Right. As it would transpire, that final Nirvana session was booked for three days, but Cobain was absent from the first two allowing Grohl and Novoselic to work on their own songs. Grohl had been recording demos and cover songs on his own in his spare time since the early 1990s, and many of those songs were released under the pseudonym ‘Late!’ as a cassette titled Pocketwatch in 1992.
Barrett Jones had known Grohl since he was a kid. Jones recorded his very first band, Freak Baby, when Grohl was just 14 years old. Through the years, they cultivated a method for recording that was quick and efficient. The resulting self-titled album is largely cited as the first album of the post-grunge genre. It reached #23 on the Billboard chart. Not too bad for a debut album written and recorded by one man.
There are a lot of misconceptions online about the gear that was used on the debut album, so we tapped up Jones and Earnie Bailey – Kurt Cobain’s guitar tech who also worked with Grohl during the early Foo Fighter days – to give us the real story.
The Foo Fighters photographed in London, 1994. Image: Andy Willsher/Redferns via Getty Images
Guitars
Most people claim that Grohl used a black Les Paul Custom for the debut album, but this is false; Earnie Bailey actually bought that guitar in 1996-97 after Grohl’s white Les Paul Custom. For the album itself however Grohl used a 1980s Tobacco Burst Les Paul Standard. Grohl also had access to Jones’ guitars for the session, which included a 1972 Sunburst Les Paul Custom and a black 1986 Melody Maker. Those guitars may or may not have also been used on the album, but they were in the room.
Others have further claimed that Grohl used a Fender Mustang, but both Bailey and Jones assure us that this is absolutely not the case. The record is entirely recorded with Gibson guitars, a sound that Grohl has stuck with for the majority of his career – developing an affinity for semi-hollow Gibsons that would eventually lead to his DG-335 signature model.
Dave Grohl performing with the Foo Fighters at The Fillmore in California, 1995. He plays a Gibson Les Paul Tobacco Burst. Image: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
Amps
The amplifier used throughout the album was Jones’ Marshall JCM800 half stack. There was a little-known secret weapon that was used sparingly on the album as well, specifically on the unbelievably gnarly intro to the song Watershed. The amp was described to me as a “gas can” amplifier, which is exactly what it sounds like – an amplifier that is housed in a gas can.
Barrett Jones described the amp thusly; “The ‘Can’ amp is a busker’s amp that I got in London in the late 80s when I lived there; surprisingly it’s made by the same company that makes Ampeg. It has a unique sound, and I would end up using it somewhere on almost every record I made back then.”
Dave Grohl performing with the Foo Fighters in Belgium 1995. He plays a white Gibson Les Paul Custom. Image: Gie Knaeps/Getty Images
Effects
The Foo Fighters have become somewhat of a benchmark for a straight-forward rock band, which is generally defined as not using a ton of effects, and as it turns out, the Foo Fighters have operated that way since the very beginning. The only stompboxes used on the debut album were a RAT distortion, an MXR Distortion+, and possibly a Boss DS-1. Those distortion boxes were no strangers to the grunge genre. In fact, Kurt Cobain was one of the most notable users of the RAT. The Distortion+ was used by everyone from Alice In Chains to Soundgarden to the Smashing Pumpkins.
Bass
Dave Grohl is known for being a fantastic frontman and songwriter, riff merchant and of course a godlike drummer – but he’s not always feted for his bass playing. In spite of that, he also played bass on the album. While it probably would have been easy for him to get a session bassist or a friend to help him out, after all, he had just recorded drums with Mike Watt, who was a very well-respected bassist. He had also allegedly considered his former Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic for the role, but ultimately decided against it for understandable reasons so soon after Kurt’s passing.
The Foo Fighters was, from the very beginning, a personal endeavor for Grohl, so he opted to record the bass tracks himself. For the bass tracks, he primarily used a Fender Jazz bass run through an SVT or possibly, at times, through the Marshall JCM, similar to the setup of the Motörhead legend Lemmy Kilmister.
Pat Smear and Dave Grohl performing with the Foo Fighters at The Fillmore in California, 1995. Image: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
Big Me
The album’s incredibly efficient recording session was attributed to Grohl’s nearly supernatural ability to record most of his tracks in one take. According to Jones, the instrumental tracks were done in three days, the vocal tracks in one day, and another day of rough mixing.
With a rather straightforward setup regarding gear, the real magic of this album was Dave Grohl’s songwriting and energy; as Barrett Jones stated, “The magic was Dave and his songs, the sound is Dave and his interaction with that recording space. That recording was only my second time in a 24-track studio and I was just trying to capture the energy.”
Grohl titled the project Foo Fighters to give it the illusion of being a full band effort. He recruited an all-star cast of musicians to help him perform the songs live and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, Foo Fighters encompasses a wide range of talent in its ranks, but the band’s driving force is still Dave Grohl’s energy and songwriting talents, something that has remained pretty consistent since the release of the debut album 30 years ago in 1995.
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