TAYLOR HAWKINS It all came together really quickly. Dave got excited about what kind of record he wanted to make, so he started doing demos. Within a couple of weeks he was ready, so he called us up. The songs weren't done, but the ideas were definitely pretty much already on their way there. All we needed to do was fill in the blanks. There were a couple of things that happened more out of the air. For example, Dave wrote "Waiting On A War" as we were all together. "Love Dies Young" as well. I think he wanted to get it done quickly. There's a method to that, because sometimes when you demo stuff too much, you kind of heat the life out of it. It's good to know what you're doing when you walk into the studio, but at the same time he was really interested in letting it happen spontaneously once we had an overview of the song.

"Making A Fire" was the first song we worked on - and the first time we introduced the idea of making drum loops, which is something we'd never done before.

I was kind of against it, to be honest - I'm the drummer, so I would be - but once I got my head around the fact that Queen made drum loops, it changed my ideology. I realised it's OK if we stepped out of the box and tried something different. Dave almost wanted it to have a kind of Beastie Boys feel to it. When we got done with it I was cool, it is a new sound for us. For Foo Fighters to come up with something relatively fresh and new is not easy, man. We've been doing this for so long and this is our 10th record. But when [first single] "Shame Shame" came out, people were like, "What the fuck is going on here?" Overall, Dave wanted more of a groove- oriented record, not so much just big guitars. There are big guitars and all that stuff, but he wanted to make his Let's Dance or his Purple Rain. That's the kind of mood he was in. The title track is a nod to Let's Dance and that kind of vibe. Even the sort of "Let's Dance"- inspired guitar solo. That's just such a new kind of feel for us... I think Dave wanted to make a fun record - a dancey, party record.