March 01, 2005

Foo Fighters Joined In Studio By John Paul Jones, Norah Jones

By James Montgomery (MTV.com)

The Foo Fighters have been pretty busy lately ... but you probably haven't noticed.

Maybe that's because since November they've been holed up in a super-secret Reseda, California, studio (dubbed "Studio 606" by the Foos -- and they can call it whatever they want, since they built it), working on their still-untitled double album. It's not such a secret place, though, that a few of their friends couldn't find it.

Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, Norah Jones and Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme will all guest on the still-untitled album, which, according to Foo guitarist Chris Shiflett, will be an "extravaganza."

"We're all pretty stoked on how it sounds, and everyone's amped to get back on the road and try it live," he wrote in a very excited post on FooFighters.com. "We started tracking the rock stuff first, then moved on to the mellow sh--, which is almost done, and now we're back to the rock.

"None other than John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame came by to play some Mellotron, piano and mandolin on a few tracks. Of course, we managed to sneak in a few Zeppelin trivia questions and he even riffed 'Kashmir' on the Mellotron for a minute," Shiflett continued. "We had yet another special guest in the studio yesterday. None other than Norah Jones! Her song is on the 'mellow' disc and it's got a really cool Elvis Costello vibe to it. Her voice is beautiful and fits the song really nice."

According to Shiflett, the band has recorded "over 40" songs, of which around 20 will make it to the double album. The next step will be recording a few overdubs and some vocals, which will be done at the end of the month. Then it's on to the final mix.

But is hasn't all been hard work - there's also been a whole lot of in-studio eating and reading going on, which Shiflett also details in his posts, along with other topics such as the ping-pong prowess of his fellow Foos.

"I'm terrible at it, but Dave [Grohl]'s really good. [Drummer] Taylor [Hawkins] has chops, but you can get him excited and take him off his game," Shiflett wrote. "[Bassist] Nate [Mendel] is the stone cold killer on the table. Okay, that's not true, but he's pretty good."