Watch Foo Fighters Frontman Dave Grohl Create a Song by Himself in ‘Play’ Video

By Variety Staff

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Foo Fighter frontman and former Nirvana drummer isn’t just a one-man rock-and-roll preservation society — now he’s leading a campaign celebrating the joys of making music with live instruments.

In “Play,” a two-part mini-documentary released today, we see Grohl build a song from scratch, playing seven instruments himself in succession. According to an announcement, the goal is to celebrate “the rewards and challenges of dedicating one’s life to playing music.”

Part one opens with narrated discussion of the love of playing music and the lifelong relationship with an instrument — as well as the process and challenges of recording and filming this performance. The film then transitions to the titular 23-minute, one-man-band instrumental recording on which Grohl plays all instruments on the track, live, all the way through, for 23 minutes. Via an interactive video posted on Grohl’s Roswell Films website, viewers can isolate each instrument — we recommend the drum track, because although Grohl has many talents, he remains one of the greatest drummers in rock history.

A guide to the interactive experience appears below:

Visit  play.roswellfilms.com  for an interactive PLAY experience. Explore PLAY by choosing which audio and video you’d like to experience. Hover over “Choose Video” and click to select to view only one instrument. Once you do that, you can also hover over “Choose Audio” to listen to the isolated track of the instrument you are watching or the complete master audio. You can go back to the complete master performance video, or toggle between individual instruments and audio at any time. Download sheet music and find a growing directory of organizations who support music education.

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