The current incarnation of Ghost came to an end on Saturday night (Sept. 30) when frontman Papa Emeritus was forcibly removed from a stage in Sweden and a “new” Papa introduced himself. The Gothenburg show was the band’s last appearance in support of most recent releases, the album Meliora in 2015 and last year’s Popestar EP.
Read More @ Ultimate Classic Rock: Watch Ghost’s Papa Emeritus Replaced by ‘New’ Frontman
Concrete and Gold is the ninth studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters. It was released on September 15, 2017. The album's first single, "Run", was released on June 1, 2017, and topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart the following month. The second single, "The Sky Is a Neighborhood", was released on August 23, 2017. A third song, "The Line", was released a week prior to the album's release. The album received positive reviews, and topped the US all-format Billboard 200 chart in its debut week of release, selling 120,000 copies.
Initial writing sessions only involved Grohl, who continued being in seclusion from the band, although he initially struggled, feeling "out of practice" and "creatively atrophied" due to his longer than usual break from music. Grohl rented an Airbnb in Ojai, California, so he could focus on long bouts of writing, with Grohl recounting "I brought a case of wine and sat there in my underwear with a microphone for about five days, just writing." After twelve or thirteen rough ideas were mapped out, he ran them by the band, who shared Grohl's belief that he was on the right track with the material. Happy with his work, but feeling the material still required further development, Grohl started thinking about reaching out to a music producer.
The band ended up working with music producer Greg Kurstin on the album. Grohl had been listening to the work of Kurstin's indie pop band, The Bird and the Bee since 2014 and was very impressed with his work, calling it "so much more sophisticated than anything [he'd] ever heard." Grohl reached out to Kurstin, and learned that he had taken a hiatus from The Bird and the Bee to focus on his work as a music producer, producing songs including Halsey's "Strangers", Sia's "The Greatest" and "Cheap Thrills" and Adele's "Hello". The two both were interested in the challenge presented with working together – Kurstin had never worked on a heavy rock album, while Grohl had never worked with a pop songwriter – and decided to collaborate on the album.
Recording was done at the heavily populated EastWest Studios, where the band frequently ran into, and interacted with, various other musicians in the studio building. Recording sessions frequently culminated into large barbecuesand alcohol drinking among the other artists using the studios, often leading to Grohl grilling meat for parties of up to forty people while finishing up recording sessions. The set up lead to the band having a number of high-profile collaborations on the album. The band worked with Boyz II Men member Shawn Stockman on the album's title track and album closer, which stemmed from a chance meeting between Grohl and Stockman in the parking lot. Grohl also announced that "probably the biggest pop star in the world" would provide backing vocals on a track as well, though he refused to name who, leading to much speculation due to the number of pop stars Kurstin had previously worked with prior to the Foo Fighters. Grohl later clarified that it was not Adele or Taylor Swift, and that the person has " been around a long time", and eventually revealed it to be Justin Timberlake. Further collaborations include vocals by Inara George on the track "Dirty Water", saxophone by David Koz on the track "La Dee Da", and vocals by Alison Mosshart of The Kills on "La Dee Da" and "The Sky Is a Neighborhood". Additionally, Paul McCartneycontributed drums to the track "Sunday Rain" after entering the studio and recording two drum tracks without even hearing the song first, basing his performance entirely on Grohl recreating the song acoustically for him on the spot. Concrete and Gold also marks Rami Jaffee's first credit as an official band member, having been a session and touring keyboardist for the band since 2005.
While not a formal collaborator on the album, Grohl also would travel to visit past collaborator Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age during the recording sessions as well, who was working in the nearby United Recording music studio. The two often played in-progress material for each other, as each was working on a new approach of recording a rock album with a pop music producer, Homme doing the same thing with music producer Mark Ronson on the album Villains.
“Let’s get the band back together” is a rock ’n’ roll cliché, yet it has remained a difficult task for some of the world’s most legendary groups, as you’ll see in the above list of Bands That Reunited Without Their Lead Singer.
In fact, a number of the highest-profile bands have reformed without the inclusion of the act’s most famous voice – and, usually, face – out front. To be clear, however, rock history is rife with examples of bands that traded one frontman for another – AC/DC, Van Halen, Journey, Queen and many more. But you won’t find those bands in this gallery, because none of them ever broke up.
Read More @ Ultimate Classic Rock: Bands That Reunited Without Their Lead Singer
Dire Straits, the Moody Blues, the Zombies, Eurythmics, the Cars and the J. Geils Band are among the artists nominated for the 2018 class of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees.
“Let’s get the band back together” is a rock ’n’ roll cliché, yet it has remained a difficult task for some of the world’s most legendary groups, as you’ll see in the above list of Bands That Reunited Without Their Lead Singer.
