Foo Fighters is an American rock band, formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1994. It was founded by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of Nirvana after the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The group got its name from "Foo fighter", a nickname coined by Allied aircraft pilots for UFOs and other aerial phenomena they reported seeing. Over the course of their career, Foo Fighters have won 12 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album four times. The band have also won an American Music Award, four Brit Awards, and two MTV Video Music Awards.
Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album Foo Fighters, which featured Grohl as the only official member, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear to complete the lineup. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon. Goldsmith quit during the recording of the group's second album, The Colour and the Shape (1997), when most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl himself. Smear's departure followed soon afterward, though he would appear as a guest with the band frequently starting in 2006, and would rejoin as an official full-time member in 2011.
They were replaced by Taylor Hawkins and Franz Stahl, respectively, although Stahl was fired before the recording of the group's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999). The band briefly continued as a trio until Chris Shiflett joined on guitar after the completion of There Is Nothing Left to Lose. The band released its fourth album, One by One, in 2002. The group followed that release with the two-disc In Your Honor (2005), which was split between acoustic songs and heavier material. Foo Fighters released its sixth album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, in 2007.
The band's seventh studio album, Wasting Light, produced by Butch Vig, was released in 2011, in which Smear returned as a full member. In November 2014, the band's eighth studio album, Sonic Highways, was released as an accompanying soundtrack to the Grohl-directed 2014 miniseries of the same name. On September 15, 2017, the band released their ninth studio album, Concrete and Gold, which became their second to reach number one in the United States and was the band's first studio album to feature longtime session and touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee as a full member.
