Foo Fighters released their first live album, Skin and Bones, in the U.S. on November 7, 2006. Across three sold-out August nights at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, the band had eight musicians to call on and still found a reason to invite a ninth. For “Another Round,” Dave Grohl wanted the harmonica player from the studio recording. That meant getting Danny Clinch, the man directing the concert film, in front of his own cameras.
Clinch had landed the original part by having a few harmonicas in his car. As he recalled on the Two Stops Over podcast, he’d stopped by while Foo Fighters were making In Your Honor. Grohl had a tune and a key, but he hadn’t finished the lyrics or recorded his vocal. Clinch fetched his harmonicas and played. When it came time to film the song in Hollywood, Grohl invited him up and gave him a hard time about casting himself in the movie.
“Another Round” had appeared on the acoustic half of In Your Honor, the 2005 double album that gave Foo Fighters a rock disc and an acoustic disc to fill. Taking the quieter songs on tour meant figuring out who could play all those parts. Guitarist Pat Smear returned to play alongside Grohl and Chris Shiflett. Petra Haden brought violin and mandolin, Rami Jaffee played keys and accordion, and percussionist Drew Hester joined the rhythm section of bassist Nate Mendel and drummer Taylor Hawkins.
The extra seats onstage also gave Grohl a reason to dig through the older records. At a Seattle stop earlier that summer, he singled out “Next Year” as a song he’d had trouble fitting into a loud Foo Fighters set. It found a place on Skin and Bones, right after “My Hero.” That pairing gives a sense of what the players could do. “Next Year” already had a gentle melody to work with. On “My Hero,” a song recognizable from its opening drum barrage, the piano gets to lead.
Two of the album’s songs go back further than Foo Fighters. Grohl told Guitar World that when he moved to Olympia to join Nirvana, he slept on the couch in Kurt Cobain’s apartment and wrote music there at night. He recorded “Marigold” and “Friend of a Friend” on a four-track in that apartment. “Marigold” later surfaced on the flip side of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box.” On Skin and Bones, it comes four songs in. Grohl saved “Friend of a Friend,” the first song he remembered writing on acoustic guitar, for the solo encore. “Best of You” and “Everlong” followed.
The theater arrangements carried over to the writing of Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace in 2007. Grohl told Billboard the tour let him hear “the melodic possibilities hidden in a lot of our songs.” You can hear what he meant in the opening of “The Pretender.” There’s a small string section, a picked guitar and enough space to hear Grohl draw breath. When the full band comes in, those quiet opening bars are what make the entrance hit.
