Fans expecting
Paul McCartney and the surviving members of
Nirvana to bust into "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Come as You Are" at last night's
"12-12-12" Sandy benefit concert
were a little surprised when the unlikely supergroup played a new song
called "Cut Me Some Slack." It turns out the tune is from the
forthcoming album
Sound City – Real to Reel, which is essentially the soundtrack to the Grohl's
Sound City documentary.
Grohl has been quietly working on the film, which is
slated to premiere at Sundance
in January, over the past year. It traces the history of Sound City, a
Los Angeles studio where countless famous albums were recorded,
including
Nirvana's Nevermind,
Neil Young's After the Goldrush,
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and
Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedoes.
"The place is a time warp," Grohl recently told
Rolling Stone.
"A tape-based analog studio. Nirvana did what everyone else had done
there: You plugged in, hit 'record' and that room brought out the sound
of your band."
Grohl directed the film, which features interviews with Young, Petty,
Rick Rubin, Fleetwood Mac and many others. For the soundtrack, Grohl
jammed with many of the legends that worked in the studio. "I can't give
too much away," says Grohl. "Because it gets really good there. You're
talking about some of the most legendary musicians of all time, doing
their thing. And you're seeing it in a way you've never seen before."
Most of Grohl's collaborators have been kept under wraps, but word
has leaked out that they include Rick Springfield, Josh Homme and
Slipknot's Corey Taylor. "For me to sit down and jam with someone like
Rick Springfield was really exciting," says Grohl. "When he sits down
with a guitar it's like he's 14 yearsold. He rips. We basically wrote
and arranged a song in a day. It's fucking great."
Grohl was excited to work with such a wide array of artists. "Why
shouldn't Rick Springfield be on the same record as Lee Ving [of Fear],"
he says. "When I was a kid, I'd listen to Steel Pulse as well as
Slayer. When you think about all of the people who recorded at Sound
City, it's like a virtual jukebox. To put all of these people together
in different configurations and make music all together, it's pretty
cool."
The goal was to cut a song in a single day. "It was a challenge and
an experiment," Grohl says. "We had a few test jams and then we started
going for it. It's tricky. It's like herding cats, trying to get them in
the same room at the same time. I don't know how they did 'We Are The
World.'"
It's unclear what role (if any) McCartney plays in the movie, but a
new website
for "Cut Me Some Slack" shows a "Final Master" reel-to-reel tape with
the names McCartney, Novoselic, Smear and Grohl written on it. The song
clearly stems from the movie project.
Plans are somewhat in flux at the moment, but Grohl would love to
stage screenings of the movie around the globe. "After each premiere we
could have a show with musicians," he says. "They'd not only play music
from the film, but from their catalogs as well. We could do it in a
Hammerstein or Roseland and pack the bill with the coolest bands in the
world . . . We aren't far away from this. Pretty soon, everyone will
hear what our big plan is. We've been planning it for a long fucking
time."
source: rollingstone.com
