Foo Fighters are a stadium-shaking, anthemic rock band who have had no problem filling the world’s biggest spaces for the better part of twenty years. Outside of Dave Grohl, the only consistent member of the group since 1994 has been bassist Nate Mendel. The Richland, WA native also helmed one of Seattle’s premier rock bands at the height of the alternative rock movement in Sunny Day Real Estate until the group disbanded when Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith teamed up with Grohl’s new project, only to reunite several times in the years since.
Now, Mendel is branching out in between massive tours with Foo Fighters as Lieutenant with a new record ( If I Kill This Thing We’re All Going to Eat for a Week ) featuring members of Modest Mouse, The Head and the Heart, and old friends like Sunny Day Real Estate’s Jeremy Enigk. As you’ll see, Mendel went into this project with a fair amount of trepidation but emerged with a final product he is proud of.
What was the inspiration for making a solo record? Where did these songs come from and how did you manage to carve out time within Foo Fighters’ busy schedule?
Well, there wasn’t a lot of strategizing for how the timing was going to work out. That’s why I am getting ready to go on tour between two Foo Fighters tours. I was concentrating enough on getting this album made that I didn’t think that “Oh it might come out at some point and I want to go to the shows, and it would be a good idea to figure out when that will happen.” But I have been writing bits here and there for years and never really looked to make a record or put together a band. And I got enough stuff together that I decided that it was probably time to think about distilling all these ideas into songs. So I just picked out the best 13 ideas and started focusing on those and trying to work out a way to turn them into songs and strategizing on how to write lyrics and figure out who will play keyboard, drums and put the whole thing together – and that process took probably three years, and I did it between Wasting Light and Sonic Highways. I was in the middle of recording it right when Foo Fighters got together to start working on this latest record, so the summer before last was a pretty busy summer.
You’re the chief songwriter for this album, a different role for you compared to Foo Fighters and Sunny Day Real Estate. What was that like?
I never done anything besides throw in bass ideas. I have never come in with a series of chords or “I think a song should sound like this” or anything like that. So it’s completely foreign, new, and really a great experience to sit in a room and think, “Okay so what should a song sound like” and have to make all the decisions on my own. I’m glad that I went through with it like that. I don’t know if I would do it again. I think collaborating with the band to my experience is the best way to do things. But I think in order for me to get a handle on being a songwriter and person that would be more out in front creatively in a band I needed to go through with doing it on my own. So there was a lot of demoing and to see what a song would sound like. I couldn’t go through different iterations with the band. Like, “Let’s try to doing it in 3/4. Let’s try it faster.” Something like that. If any time one of those ideas would come up I would have to scrap the entire thing and basically re-demo the song, which is a really pain-staking and tedious process.
After going through that, how would you prefer to do the next album?
I don’t know if I will have the confidence yet to say like “This is the song we should do as a band.” With this the songs are already finished so when I got the band that’s playing live together there wasn’t much of a creative process. It was a matter about learning the songs. That’s another evolution as a person who is running a band, which is to get together when you got only a scrap of an idea and steer guys in a certain direction while trying to maintain the vision for the songs, and at the same taking in the ideas of the accomplished creative guys you’re working with. That’s the next step into figuring this thing out.
That’s interesting because I’ve heard you say that one of the most difficult parts of being in Foo Fighters initially was trying to fit in the studio. It seems like this was a learning experience along those same lines.
Well I think so and I think part of that was on purpose. Being a recording bass player wired there’s always something to learn. But I got it down enough that I got the space to try to figure something else out and learn. It’s a whole other region of music that I purposely secluded myself from, like “No I just play bass in this band. That is what I do.” So stepping out from that and involving other musicians, it’s amazing how naive I have been about the whole process. That’s one thing I could say. Like being this far in and saying, “Okay, so the drummer I was played with can’t make this tour. How am I going to find another drummer? Somebody’s interested? What does that look like? How long does it take to learn this song? Are they going to like the song? Does it even matter if they like the song?” All that kind of thing. There’s a lot to figure out not just musically but also socially if that makes sense.
Do you think you’ll walk into the next Foo Fighters session with a different approach?
I think my role in Foo Fighters will not change. I am not going to become the main songwriter in the band. But I think the thing I would have of course is maybe more empathy for the position that Dave is in. And I don’t know practically what that would mean, but when we are in a room figuring out a song and him going for a thing and trying to filter his ideas through four other guys who are all in the same position: going through that at the same time, what kind of fruit that bares I have no idea. We’ll just have to wait until we make another record…
You’re rooted in punk rock, but this album has a very fluid, indie sound to it. Where does that come from?
I think it comes from all the music I have done over the years. There’s my formative years, which were pretty much solidly hardcore bass that I loved forever. Then I moved passed that and got into proto-indie rock stuff with Sunny Day and then into this more traditional rock and roll thing with the Foo Fighters. So looking at it, I think the easy answer would be in an amalgam of all those things. I know where my heart lived: in weird more 80s new wave and pop mixed with the kind of aesthetic that Sunny Day had, like more introspective songs that hopefully have more bombastic explosive moments, so it’s rooted in there somewhere. I am too close to listen to it and say build a point to it. I think that’s more for somebody else.
This reminds me a lot of the Fire Sale record you did along with Jeremy Engk.
I like that record. That’s one of the things I have done that I am most proud of, so I wouldn’t of been surprised if somebody can see some of that record in this one.
You brought a variety of musicians into the studio with you. How did you settle on these names?
My main collaborator in recording is [Modest Mouse’s] Joe Plummer the drummer. I did most of the other instruments but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to tackle the drums on my own, and I have known Joe for years. We grew up in Seattle during the punk rock scene during the late 80s/early 90s and we just kept in touch in years. He was my first choice and thankfully he was available to do it. That was the skeleton of the stuff when Joe and I were getting the tracks down, and then I went over the top a bit.
Then the other people who played on it were just when a part needed to be done or an idea came up in my head. I had [Foo Fighters guitarist] Chris Shifflet come in and do a guitar part, and obviously I see him all the time so I invited him down and collaborate. In terms of engineers I worked with Page Hamilton just before doing the new Lieutenant record so I kind of leveraged that, and Page would come in help on the “Believe The Squalor” song, and [The Head and the Heart’s] Josiah Johnson who sang on the track and is a client of my wife, also helped out. You know, those association you have with those you know through the years. There wasn’t like a wish list of guys or a song where I needed to have them to come in. More of just a mixture of those who were mostly an opportunity.
Probably the one that’s closest to you is Jeremy Egnik, who was in Sunny Day Real Estate with you.
Yeah, I’ve known Jeremy forever. We are not super-close but we do stay in touch here and there, and I did do the Sunny Day reunion tour with him three years before we did the recording. He is one of my musical mentors; I love the way he sings. And I think he is a brilliant musician.
My feeling was that the weakest part of the record was the vocals just because I was so inexperienced with it. He was a natural choice for me to call up and lean on. I just sent the record to him and ask, “What do you think man? Do you mind putting some back up vocals on this?” I was surprised, he acted really well to it and wanted to take over and sing on the record (Laughs). He wanted to do over my vocals which is in one way flattering because you like the music so much it’s inspiring but another when I said “I already sang on it. It’s not that bad!” (Laughs). We compromised and had him do backing vocals. He also gave me some advice on singing which was great.
I was going to ask about the vocals, since that’s definitely a new endeavor for you. How’s that going?
Oh, no. Have you ever sung before?
Only drunk or in the shower.
(Laughs) Yeah, it’s like doing a puzzle in the dark, or playing chess in the dark. You can kind of feel the pieces out and kind of get an idea to whether you’re constructing the thing properly or not. But what happens in between your teeth and your diaphragm is a fucking mystery. It’s internal, so I kind of like that. It’s massively frustrating. I nearly broke my hand while recording. I would get so fucking frustrated trying to do the thing and I’m in there thinking, “Okay, this is what I want to sing in this song. I know how it sounds in my head. I know it can do this thing and good.” Then I’ve got Toshi (Kasai) constantly saying in my headphone “a little sharp. A little sharp. Nope now flat.”
I feel like I am getting it but its just tough because it is this weird game and most people who have a desire to express themselves through singing figure it out when they’re younger. They’re kind of singing somewhere like in the car or in the shower and whatnot. Finally when they decide to go and create some music, they have this background of having played with what their voice can do. I am a pretty reserved, shy person and I didn’t speak that much, much less sing so it was really challenging. But I am getting there. It’s fun I tell you that though. Whenever I think it’s challenging or I question what the hell I am doing, that’s what I fall back on just the fact that I like the challenge of doing it and I could enjoy singing even if I hear what comes out of my mouth and feel weird about it.
