EXPLOITED&DANGEROUS

I’ve been making to make a post about my favourite songs at the moment and about why my favourite bands and songs of all time are my favourite bands and songs of all time, but neither post has exactly come to pass recently. Anyway, I’ve recently been inspired by people like Frazer talking about the people he’s befriended and how they’ve had an effect on him, and then people like Hele, who regularly talks about music and how it affects her.

In short, I’m fnally going to make a post about why my favourite band is my favourite band, how their music became the soundtrack to my summer (of 2007) and, eventually, my final year at school, and how they’ve helped to make me the person I am today. (You see, there is always method in my apparent madness.)

More after the jump!I’ll start by saying that I think the person I used to be was a terrible person, and I’m sure that in a few years I’ll think the same of who I am now, but I don’t think I can do anything but improve at this point. I used to be a wrathful, proud child, and I think I still am to some degree – but I no longer mind humility and what it can teach us, and I’m a lot more patient, mild-mannered and relaxed than I used to be. In short, I’m a better person, but I can still keep improving (which, if this was a different post but along the same vein, I could use as an excuse to quote Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, but I won’t).

In a swift change of subject, I’ll mention that my favourite band are Foo Fighters and they have been since 2002, when I first heard All My Life, which was their most recent single at the time. To this day, it remains my favourite song by the band (even knowing what it’s actually about, which my ten-year-old self had a hell of a time trying – and failing – to work out), although Everlong, arguably their most famous song, comes a close second (and never fails to tug at the heartstrings because it’s so beautiful – the video’s incredibly trippy and completely detached from the song, however). I like a lot of their songs, actually, if not all of them, although my patience only goes so far with some of them.

Now, Foo Fighters weren’t exactly new in 2002 – their first self-titled studio album was released in 1995, although it was only Dave Grohl (yes, that Dave Grohl, the one who drummed for Nirvana) for the majority of the album; as an actual band, their first collaborative effort, The Colour and the Shape, was released in 1997. I had no idea of this at the time, but my dad – who I share a lot of my musical tastes with – bought their previous albums (which also included There is Nothing Left to Lose, released 1999, along with the two previously mentioned) after deciding we’d quite liked One By One, their most recent album (at the time), released in 2002. Are you keeping up with this? Good.

When I’d first heard of Foo Fighters, I was still in primary school and I was only just beginning to enjoy the idea that I could be a different person and that trying to fit in wasn’t getting me anywhere, especially seeing as I didn’t enjoy anything that I kept claiming I did. (It was a strange time, in primary school: at one point, everybody decided Coronation Street was the in thing.) All My Life was the first song I learnt the lyrics to that nobody else knew – oh, sure, I knew Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous by Good Charlotte, but everybody knew that song, because GC were ‘edgy’ and ‘alternative’ and we were totally ‘rebellious’ by listening to them – and I wonder if it’s because that song become my own personal anthem (and it still is, even with the unfortunate connotations that brings), because it was something unique to me, that they’re still my favourite band to this day.

Or, you know, because they’re an awesome band that just has fun, does their own thing, has the nicest man in rock as their frontman and lead vocalist, and make damn good music whilst still being down to earth. That might have had something to do with it too.

Nonetheless, they remained my favourite band despite the fact I was enamoured with Good Charlotte (who I still like, although they’re admittedly a guilty pleasure), Lostprophets (they’re starting to sell out), the Hives (okay they’re a good thing to be enamoured by), Nickelback, and pretty much anything else you could find on Kerrang! in those days. Funnily enough, I never really cared for Nirvana, not even when I realised Dave Grohl was their drummer – I don’t think Nirvana were bad, but grunge has never really been my thing. Anyway, the point is: I kept liking them, even though we hadn’t heard anything new from them for about three years.

And then came 2005, which was not exactly the greatest of all years for me (but I can’t even be bothered going into why it wasn’t, and I don’t really care anymore). It brought Best of You, a song that I didn’t really have much liking for, and the band’s newest album, In Your Honour, which, although good (and new material from my favourite band!) and having two discs, wasn’t something I was really that interested in. Even now, it remains my least favourite album, although I more praise and approval for it than I used to. It’s the perfect example of how well Foo Fighters can do ‘loud’ and ‘not so loud’, as the album describes the two discs. And so, for another two years, the band faded in and out of my interest: I certainly got enjoyment from them and they were still my favourite, but there was nothing new to get excited about.

Oh, boy, did they ever make up for that.

It was the summer of 2007. I was between year ten and year eleven in my secondary school, which meant that in less than year’s time, I would have finished my GCSE exams and I’d be preparing to go to college. It was also the summer that I no longer possessed my own computer for the time being, so I was having to share the family computer with my parents. Anyway, it was one long, boring summer day and I was at home, and somehow I caught word that Foo Fighters were releasing a new single – and Radio 1 were going to be playing it first that day. Naturally, I was there like shareware.

The new single? Well, if you remember that far back, you’ll know what it was.

Yeah, that’s right.

It was The Pretender.

Now, I remember thinking two things. The first was: this isn’t quite the same sound I remember loving. And the second?

This is AWESOME.

I know that music changes, and so do the way bands sound – and yet I liked this. I liked this sound. And so, with the new album being released 25th September 2007 (two days after my birthday, conveniently), I had nothing to do but to download the Pretender and play it repeatedly. Which is, of course, exactly what I did.

A couple of my friends also expressed interest in the band, and I was glad to share my music with them, and I slowly began to research into the band a bit more – I knew who Dave Grohl was, of course, but beyond that, I didn’t really know much about them. And so I came to learn that Dave Grohl was the nicest man in the rock, the band was totally awesome and just liked to have a lot of fun, and that I’d found a new idol in the frontman.

Not because of his musical prowess, although he is impressive with everything that he does (drums, guitar, vocals, piano, etc.), but simply because of his attitude. I don’t know how accurate my mental interpretation of him is – I assume I’m not too far off – but it’s kept me on the straight and narrow. It’s helped me change as a person.

I’ve had the opportunity to see Foo Fighters play live twice (and we own three of their DVDs, which I’ve also seen): once at Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh, and once at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle. I’ll hopefully get another opportunity to see them if they tour again in 2010 as they’re making a new album.

Anyway, the long story short of all this is that I realised I wasn’t a pleasant person and there was no excuse for me to be the way I was – I was angry, I held secret grudges, I could be spiteful and take it out on people who didn’t deserve it. I hurt people around me. And if Dave Grohl could be civil and polite to Courtney Love (and you don’t need an explanation from me to know why this is an impressive feat), why couldn’t I be civil and polite to everybody? Why couldn’t I forgive people for what they’ve done to me?

So, over the course of my eleventh and final year at school, I began to gradually change. Other things have contributed, particularly knowing people such as Hele, but I’ve mellowed out a lot since then, and I’m no longer wrathful, proud and spiteful, at least not to the point of being detestful. I can keep myself in check. I don’t lash out and, if I do, I eventually apologise. I rationalise things and I keep myself in control. And I’m a happier person, now, too. I no longer feel as if the world owes me something.

I can’t really repay Dave, and Chris and Nate and Taylor, for being able to inspire me and change me with their music. I wouldn’t be able to thank them enough, either, and, really, I’d be happy enough just to shake Dave’s hand. But I do what I can. I buy their music, I go to their gigs, I watch their DVDs, and I sing my heart and lungs out.

I’m not saying they’re amazing musicians (although I think they are) and that everybody should love them (although a lot of people do), but they are my favourite band and they’re my favourite band for a reason – and they’ve never harmed anyone, ever, not in the way that other bands pick fights with one another or act arrogant and put on godawful shows where all they do is just play the music. I’ll defend them until the end, if I have to.

I can’t really think of a good way to finish this, except to ask you to go out and listen to their music – you’ll find a fair bit of it on YouTube (although I’ll warn you now that while their videos are generally either funny or awesome, Low features Dave Grohl and Jack Black basically getting drunk and dressing up in women’s underwear, so you may want to be prepared for that), if not all of it. And they may not be everybody’s favourite band, but most people with similar tastes to mine will admit that yes, they are very good.

And hell, I mentioned I didn’t like Best of You that much. When it’s live, I get chills and want to cry. And when All My Life is life? Everybody goes completely fucking mental and dances, even though by this point we’re all exhausted and our throat and feet and hands hurt.

That’s all, folks.