Melodically and tempo-wise, the song feels like something we might have done 10 years ago. I tacked an old riff on it and it became this climactic explosion. I had this acoustic idea but it didn't have an ending. It's a funny one because the tail end is actually something that's about 10 years old. 'This is another one that goes from acoustic to rock. I was quite nervous about putting it on the record because it's a big departure - then I thought, 'What the fuck? That's exactly why we should put it on the record'.' Someone pointed out middle C to me and I took it from there. I got a piano a year and half ago for my birthday and I had never played one before. It was just a simple melody with a piano track. People keep saying this sounds like Paul McCartney. So I played that acoustic thing, after the show we got fucked up in the bar and I promised him I'd put it on the record! And on that song it's me and this guitar player named Kaki King who is the most fucking shredding guitar virtuoso genius America has to offer, she's fucking unbelievable!' He made me feel like my music is maybe more meaningful than just jumping up onstage after five beers and having lasers chop your head off, y'know? So, I felt like maybe what I'm doing is a good thing for some people. He gave me a gift that no one had ever given me before. And the night before the show, I thought that I should write something just to dedicate to him that night because he definitely seemed like a hero. Brant, one of the miners came to see us when we did the acoustic tour down at the Sydney Opera House. One of the miners asked for an iPod with our last record 'In Your Honour' on it. After a few days the rescue team made contact with the guys and asked them if they could get them anything until they were able to rescue them. 'About a year and half ago, there were some miners that were trapped in a mine in Beaconsfield, in Tasmania. He's such a great friend and mentor and, of course, he's an incredible drummer.' I'm so lucky he's in my band, I swear to God. And Hawkins, man! Taylor's got a pretty slimy groove on this song. I just had a simple riff and melody and I ran with it. 'This one's unlike anything we've done in its swing and swagger. 'For this song, it was a working title that stuck, because that was a song that we had demoed and it sounded like this really bright, poppy, late '80s REM song that would have been off their 'Green' or something like that.' This is a product of just sitting around and doing fuck all for weeks on end.' I've been touring for a long time and hotel rooms all begin to look the same after a while. I spend a lot of time alone in hotel rooms I really don't do a hell of a lot on the road.

I just feel and see everything differently now.' Anyone who's a father understands how the world becomes a different place when your child is born. This is about reawakening after becoming a father. 'On the last album we split the acoustic side and the electric side into two albums.

You can almost dance to this one, and there aren't too many Foo Fighters songs you can do that to.' I grew up listening to the Beatles and Beach Boys and I love writing simple melodies. In order to have songs like Let It Die or Erase/Replace, which are darker and heavier, you need to have the lighter side of things too, like this one. 'I wrote this while we were on our acoustic tour. So, just as I'll sit at a drum kit and play beats, I sit with a guitar and try the same thing. I can write riffs all day long because I look at the guitar like a drum set. As a drummer and a guitar player, the rhythmic quality of a decent riff is like a cannon to me. 'I still listen to Kill 'Em All once a week and there's a part of me that will never lose the love of riffs. Usually you.have a few parameters you're afraid to pass but, this time, there was no fear of going too far.' So we did everything we could to really magnify all those elements and that was fun. If we had a beautiful melody, we'd throw a fucking string quartet in there. We wanted the stops to be pin-drop silent before exploding. When Gil came over to America, we sat at a table and listened to demos for a week and half and just picked the most powerful, dramatic songs. 'We had 30 or 40 song ideas when'we started recording. It's not Bohemian Rhapsody it's a basic four-part rock song with a Chuck Berry breakdown in the middle. It's the sort of song that this band is all about. I had this melodic idea and just went ahead with it, thinking the album needed a four minute blast of rock! We fucking threw this together in an hour. 'The album took us about a month to record, and this was recorded toward the end of that session. Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace

Echoes of silence