Foo Fighters Demos Surface From Scrapped Version of ‘One By One’
Some rare early versions of ‘Have It All’ and ‘Come Back’ from the Foo Fighters “Million Dollar Demo” — the unreleased album which was later re-recorded as ‘One by One’ — have surfaced online.
As documented by the Foo Fighters documentary ‘Back and Forth,’ the band began recording the follow-up to 1999′s ‘There is Nothing Left to Lose’ near the end of 2001. After four months and a million dollars had been spent, the band was left with a completed album that they didn’t want anyone to hear.
It was a particularly rough patch for the band, who went their separate ways before reconvening six months later and re-recording the disc in just 10 days. The second pass at recording the album that became ‘One by One’ was a success. Powered by hits like ‘All My Life’ and ‘Times Like These,’ the disc shot to the top of the rock charts. But what ever happened to the scrapped version of the album?
The unreleased disc, known as the “Million Dollar Demo,” has begun surfacing online in small pieces. After a few instrumentals from the sessions surfaced recently, complete versions of ‘Have It All’ and ‘Come Back’ have now been posted to YouTube. While the demo of ‘Have It All’ just sounds like a messier version of the final product, ‘Come Back’ actually differs greatly from the version on ‘One by One’ — featuring a more straightforward hard rock arrangement.
Dave Grohl teased that the Foo Fighters may begin working on their eighth studio album in 2012, but is currently working on the ‘Sound City’ documentary with a variety of other musicians. The documentary and its eclectic soundtrack are projected for an early 2013 release.