This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Carnage. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.
LittleBigPlanet (LBP - stylised as LittleBIGPlanet) is a puzzleplatform video game series created and produced by British developer Media Molecule and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Most games in the series put a strong emphasis on user-generated content and are based on the series' tagline "Play, Create, Share". The tagline represents the three core elements of the series: playing alone or with others locally (on the same console) or online, creating new content using the in-game creation tools, and sharing creations and discoveries online with other players.
Tarsier Studios, Fireproof Games and Supermassive Games also contribute to the development of the PlayStation 3 games, creating in-game assets (downloadable content) including costumes, backgrounds, objects, and stickers. Some of these assets will also provide the player more tools and gadgets to use in the level editor.[1]
On 17 January 2015, it was announced that all LittleBigPlanet servers in Japan would shut down on 31 July, along with the PlayStation Portable version and LittleBigPlanet Karting in late August in all regions. Due to attacks on the online servers, all LittleBigPlanet servers were taken down in May 2021 (the Vita version had remained closed since March).[5] The servers for the PS4 version of LittleBigPlanet 3 were brought back up on 13 September 2021, however, in the same announcement, it mentioned that the servers for LittleBigPlanet, LittleBigPlanet 2, LittleBigPlanet PS Vita and the PS3 version of LittleBigPlanet 3 will remain closed permanently.[6] On 8 January, 2024, it was announced that, presumably due to more attacks on the online servers, the servers for the PS4 version of LittleBigPlanet 3 were being temporarily closed while they investigate them.[7][8][9]
On 19 April 2024, the servers for the PlayStation 4 version of LittleBigPlanet 3 were permanently shut down due to ongoing technical issues.[10]
In the first two instalments of the series, gameplay consist primarily of traditional two-dimensional look in a three-dimensional style platforming like jumping and avoiding obstacles to successfully navigate to the end of a level to win.[12] Since LittleBigPlanet 2, the series has included mini-games, including ones that do not follow the platformer genre. Most LittleBigPlanet games involve a player playing solo or co-operatively with friends to navigate through a level whilst collecting various "bubbles" along the way, which can take the form of either points or collectibles. In-game collectibles can be used in level creation or to customize Sackboy, the player character. There are also numerous co-operative parts of levels whereby certain prize bubbles can be earned. In LittleBigPlanet 3 and Sackboy: A Big Adventure,Collectables are also present, being used in various shops to purchase more costumes.
The Create component primarily refers to level creation in the game, along with other features like character customisation. Players can create their own levels with the built-in level creator. Many items that are collected while playing through the story mode and from LittleBigPlanet's community can be used to help with level creation.[13] These levels can remain as the original LittleBigPlanet platforming gameplay, or they can include other game types, such as racing, fighting, shooting and sports.[12] The player can also make non-gaming creations such as music and films (commonly known in-game as cut-scenes).[14] In LittleBigPlanet 2, Sackbots were introduced to give players more control over non-player characters in their levels as well as make the levels in their entirety more intelligent. The creation technique introduced on the game gave the possibility for logic, and it gave the ability to build sets of machines and complex contraptions.[14]
Lastly, the Share component relates to sharing creations with the game's community by uploading levels to the PlayStation Network. To-date there were an excess of ten million user-created levels available to play on the LittleBigPlanet server in the PlayStation 3 games.[15] After the release of LittleBigPlanet 2 and the LBP.me community website, the Share component also had a strong emphasis sharing discoveries. Players were encouraged to share levels they found with other players by writing reviews and comments in-game and by sharing links to creations' LBP.me pages via social networks.
The series takes place in a world known as LittleBigPlanet. Each curator is in charge of a part of LittleBigPlanet and they govern them independently. LittleBigPlanet has geography inspired by the real-life Earth. All games in the series follow the main protagonist Sackboy, a small anthropomorphic creature made of brown fabric with a zip fastener and button eyes. He can be customized to the player's liking using costumes that are either unlocked in the game or bought as downloadable content from the PlayStation Store. The player can control Sackboy's four emotions; happiness, sadness, worry and anger, each of which has three levels of intensity. The English language version of each game is narrated by Stephen Fry and in all formats Fry's scripts are written by Dean Wilkinson.
The first game in the series was released on the PlayStation 3 platform in 2008 and was the first title developed by Media Molecule, under the name The Next Big Thing. The player controls Sackboy as he travels around the titular LittleBigPlanet, helping the eight creator curators of LittleBigPlanet with their problems in their own respective realms. Throughout the story, Sackboy tries to stop The Collector, one of the eight creator curators who has gone rogue, kidnapping the creations of LittleBigPlanet.[16] The game received widespread acclaim for its design, gameplay, and customization afforded to the player, particularly the built-in level editor. After its release, it received numerous industry awards.[17]
The second game in the series is a direct sequel to the first LittleBigPlanet and was developed by Media Molecule for the PlayStation 3 for a release in 2011. The sequel saw a major shift in the direction of the series, going from a primarily traditional platform game in the first two entries to a more varied style of gameplay called a "platform for games". The second game gave players a wider variety of options when it came to level design, which saw the creation of levels other than platforming such as racing, puzzles, and fighting games.[18] Following the events of the first two entries in the series, the game takes place when an antagonist known as the Negativitron invades LittleBigPlanet and begins to suck up all its inhabitants. Sackboy must team up with a secret organization known as "The Alliance", led by Larry Da Vinci, to save LittleBigPlanet from the Negativitron.[19] The game also supported the PlayStation Move, with an update post-launch.
LittleBigPlanet 3 is a game for the PlayStation 3[20][21][22] and PlayStation 4. Announced at E3 2014, it was developed by Sumo Digital and was released in November 2014. In the game, Sackboy is transported to another world, Bunkum, where he has to awaken its three missing heroes, OddSock, Toggle and Swoop, who are new playable characters. Sackboy travels through different worlds in order to free the 3 new characters and stop Newton.[23]
A portable entry of the series was developed primarily by SCE Studio Cambridge in association with Media Molecule for the PlayStation Portable. The game, released in 2009, shared the same name as the original game; however, it was not a port of the PlayStation 3 game, but rather a new entry in the series. It has a story-mode with levels and features many of the same mechanics of its PlayStation 3 counterpart, such as customizations, albeit without the multiplayer component of the game. The game takes place after the events of the PlayStation 3 version of LittleBigPlanet, in which The Collector has been defeated. A carnival is being held and Sackboy decides to go around the world to invite the eight curators of LittleBigPlanet to the carnival whilst finding materials for his own carnival float.[24]
The fourth game in the series was developed by Tarsier Studios, Double Eleven, and XDev for the PlayStation Vita handheld and had a 2012 release.[25] The game features the same core mechanics from LittleBigPlanet 2, with the focus being on a "platform for games" rather than a platformer like previous entries in the series before LittleBigPlanet 2. The game utilizes the unique controls of the PlayStation Vita by using its multi-touch touchscreen and its rear touchpad to navigate through various obstacles in stages as well as for level creation by users.[26] The game supports cross-buy of DLC costume packs between LittleBigPlanet 2, as well as LittleBigPlanet Karting.
LittleBigPlanet Karting is a kart racing game developed by United Front and San Diego Studio in conjunction with series creator Media Molecule for the PlayStation 3.[27] In its story mode, the player ventures through worlds including: LittleBigPlanet, Monster Islands, Victoria's Laboratory, The Progress Emporium, Eve's Asylum, The Space Bass, and Hoard, Sweet Hoard, to put an end to the Hoard racers, who snatch many pieces of the different planets to stash them in the Garage at the End of the Universe. Sony Entertainment America shut down the North American LittleBigPlanet Karting online servers on 31 August 2016.[28]
The game was developed by XDev as a spin-off from the LittleBigPlanet series utilizing the PlayStation Move on the PlayStation 3. It was released in December 2010, as a downloadable title from the PlayStation Store and was later bundled with LittleBigPlanet 2. The game was described as a "demo" and featured 10 prehistoric inspired story levels. In the game, Sackboy must save Little Big Planet from the T-Rex. Unlike the main games, which can be played as a single-player experience, the game required a minimum of two players to work.[29] This was due to the main mechanics of the spin-off whereby one player would control Sackboy traditionally using the gamepad for platforming while a second player had to use a PlayStation Move similar to a pointer to move obstacles and objects out of the way in order to successfully navigate a level.[30]
Run Sackboy! Run! is a free-to-playendless running game developed by Firesprite and published by PlayStation Mobile that was released on iOS on 30 October 2014,[31]Android on 17 December 2014[32] and PlayStation Vita on 31 March 2015.[33] The game has no real plot, except for Sackboy running through Craftworld from the Negativitron. The game awarded players with exclusive costumes for LittleBigPlanet 3 (which was released at a similar time) by reaching point goals and collecting stickers.[34]
LittleBigPlanet Hub is an unreleased free-to-play game for the PlayStation 3.[35] It was planned to be a downloadable title from the PlayStation Store which would have allowed players to create levels and play a curated selection of community levels from LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2 as well as 16 levels from the games' story modes. LittleBigPlanet Hub would also have contained weekly challenges, not found in other LittleBigPlanet games. Downloadable content purchased in other games were to be compatible with LittleBigPlanet Hub, and users were rumoured to be also able to access additional content from the PlayStation Store.[citation needed]
Since its announcement in August 2013, no further details about LittleBigPlanet Hub were revealed.[36] In February 2024, a beta tester posted a video showing gameplay from a beta build onto YouTube, and shortly afterwards, with assistance, dumped it online for download. This makes the build playable through unofficial means, such as emulations like RPCS3 or PlayStation 3 homebrew.[37]
Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a 2020 platform game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5 and the PlayStation 4. It was announced at the PlayStation 5 reveal event on June 11, 2020, and was released on November 12, 2020; a version for Windows was released on October 27, 2022, marking the series's first release on PCs. Unlike previous LittleBigPlanet entries with 2.5D platforming, A Big Adventure features a range of perspectives and 3D movement.
Ultimate Sackboy is a free-to-playendless running game developed by Exient Entertainment and released on mobile on 21 February 2023. It is the first LittleBigPlanet game to feature limited-time paid subscriptions known as "Marathons." In contrast to Run Sackboy! Run!, it adopts the style from Sackboy: A Big Adventure and is played in 3D.
Most of the games in the series have been well received by critics with the LittleBigPlanet on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable gaining Metacritic scores of 95/100[38] and 87/100[39] respectively. LittleBigPlanet 2 garnered nearly as much acclaim as the first game, with an average score of 91/100.[48]LittleBigPlanet PS Vita also received very positive reviews and was the highest-ranked PS Vita game at the time of its release with an average score of 88/100.[49] However, the release of LittleBigPlanet 3 did not receive critical acclaim, garnering a mostly positive average of 79/100.[50]
Critically, LittleBigPlanet Karting is the worst-performing major game in the series so far but still gained a "mixed or average" Metacritic score of 74/100.[51] However, the mobile game Run Sackboy! Run! performed worse, with a Metacritic score of 65/100.[52] Additionally, the character of Sackboy is often seen as a PlayStation mascot.[53] In 2011, readers of Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition voted Sackboy as the 50th-top video game character of all time.[54]
Newgrounds is a company and entertainment website founded by Tom Fulp in 1995. It hosts user-generated content such as games, films, audio, and artwork.[1] Fulp produces in-house content at the headquarters and offices in Glenside, Pennsylvania.[2][3]
In the 2000s, Newgrounds played an important role in Internet culture, and in Internet animation and independent video gaming in particular. It has been called a "distinct time in gaming history", a place "where many animators and developers cut their teeth and gained a following long before social media was even a thing", and "a haven for fostering the greats of internet animation".[4]
The Newgrounds logo used from 2006 to 2018 with Tankman, the Newgrounds mascot. This logo and similar ones can be seen at the start of Flash games and videos on the website.
User-generated content can be uploaded and categorized into either one of the site's four web portals: Games, Movies, Audio, and Art. A Movie or Games submission entered undergoes the process termed "judgment", where it can be rated by all users (from 0 to 5 stars) and reviewed by other users. The average score calculated at various points during judgment determines if whether the content will be "saved" (added onto the database) or "blammed" (deleted with only its reviews saved in the "Obituaries" section).[5][6]
Since Adobe Flash Player was shut down on most browsers by late 2020, Newgrounds uses the Ruffle emulator, an Adobe Flash emulator written in Rust and sponsored by Newgrounds along with other popular sites like Cool Math Games and Armor Games.[7] In 2022, Ruffle supported most Flash content written in ActionScript "1.0" and 2.0, and only a select few Flashes written in 3.0,[8] which meant to play then unsupported content, users had to use the "Newgrounds Player", the site's previous downloadable Flash end-of-life solution which it used prior to Ruffle for playing content.
Art and Audio are processed using a different method called "scouting", which the site describes as "a way to vet users and weed out spam, stolen works, low quality submissions, etc." All users can put art and audio onto their own page, but only those that are "scouted" will appear in the public area. Like the judgment system, it stops stolen content, spam, or prohibited material reaching the public area, relying on users and site moderators. Once an individual is scouted, they are given the privilege to scout others, though users caught scouting other users who regularly break the site's terms of service and/or guidelines ("abusing the system") get unscouted themselves.[9]
Content and context are liable to be reported for review to the moderators and staff members by flagging it for violations to the site's guidelines.[10] A weighted system recognizes experienced users and gives their flag more voice.[11] Newgrounds' homepage includes featured submissions from each category, as well as awards and honors to users whose submission that fall under the site's requirements to earn them.[12] Members of Newgrounds also organize animations called "collabs" through the discussion forum on the site.[13][14] Some scholars noted that while hundreds of these "collabs" are produced every year, only 20% are completed due to stress on those making the animations, while other scholars said that animators maintain a "strong sense" of authorship and ownership of what they produce, especially solo animators.[15][16][17]
Although the site hosted animations about Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and the Taliban, some scholars argued that the site has had a "relatively balanced" conversation on politics, even though those with right-wing views reflected a "sizable part" of the site's user base at the time.[18][19]
Banner for the yearly event "Pico Day", depicting two of the site's mascots and various other characters associated with Newgrounds.
In 1991, at the age of 13, Tom Fulp launched a Neo Geofanzine called New Ground and sent issues to approximately 100 members of a club originating on the online service Prodigy.[20] Using a hosting service, he launched a website called New Ground Remix in 1995, which increased in popularity during the summer of 1996 after Fulp created the BBS games Club a Seal and Assassin while a student at Drexel University.[21] He then created Club a Seal II and Assassin II, along with a separate hosting site titled New Ground Atomix.[22] The 1999 release of Pico's School, a Flashbrowser game that "exhibited a complexity of design and polish in presentation that was virtually unseen in amateur Flash game development"[23] of the time helped establish Newgrounds as a "public force."[24]
1999 also saw the consolidation of both sites into one domain name (newgrounds.com), and the creation of "The Portal", a place on the site for Fulp to put his Flash projects that were smaller and more unfinished. Site visitors began to reach out through e-mail with their own Flash content that they had nowhere online to put, which were manually given a webpage on the site in The Portal to showcase it.[25] By 2000, there were so many Portal submissions that submitting Flash content to the Portal would become an automated process with the help of Fulp's friend Ross.[26] Tom has stated that the automated Portal "ultimately defined [Newgrounds]'s purpose".[27]
While Macromedia Flash Player was required for Newgrounds in order to play games, the site also brought together members who were interested in producing Flash games and gained "considerable online influence" as a result.[19] It subsequently became one of the most "active Flash creator communities in the English-speaking Internet" and served as a place that video game developers could begin their careers.[19] Flash was once described by Newgrounds as the "driving force" behind the site.[28] Even so, those on the site had a "low tolerance for poor quality work", referring mainly to humor and storytelling instead of animation quality. Some animators on the site moved to YouTube by the mid-2000s.[29]
By November 2008, Newgrounds had over 1.5 million users and over 130,000 animations.[16][30] This had increased by August 2010, when it was reported that the site had over 2.2 million users and over 180,000 games and animated films, most of which were animations made by only one person, with others collaboratively made by various individuals.[31] It was also said in 2013 that users had created "hundreds of thousands of animated movies and online games".[32]
Time ranked the website at No. 39 on its list of "50 Best Websites" in 2010.[33]
In 2018, Newgrounds began to encourage contributors to submit their games in an HTML5 format rather than Flash.[19] In November and December, it experienced surges of new members originally from Tumblr when that site began restricting adult content after illegal child pornography was found on it, resulting in the Tumblr iOS app being removed from the App Store.[34][35]
In the summer of 2019, with the discontinuation of Flash upcoming, the administration of Newgrounds unveiled the Newgrounds Player for Windows, which was described as a "solution for playing Flash games and movies" hosted on the site.[19] The application would launch via the website upon a request to view Flash content and play it.[36] The player would later be followed up with the Ruffle Flash emulator in August 2019, with the two options being offered in tandem as development on Ruffle progressed.[37]
In April 2021, an update for the browser game Friday Night Funkin' was exclusively released on Newgrounds at the time, causing the site's server to become overloaded after an influx of site traffic.[38]
In July 2021, Fulp received the Game Developers Choice Awards Pioneer Award for his contributions to establishing Newgrounds and subsequent work in The Behemoth.[39]
In September 2023, an update to the site's Art Portal was rolled out, implementing it in the existing Project system for animation, games and audio, as well as adding the ability to use multi-author credits on Art submissions and adding multi-art support in either Inline, Strip or Gallery formats.[40]
^Paolillo, John C.; Warren, Jonathan; Kunz, Breanne (2010). "Genre Emergence in Amateur Flash". Genres on the Web. Text, Speech and Language Technology. Vol. 42. pp. 277–302. doi:10.1007/978-90-481-9178-9_13. ISBN978-90-481-9177-2.
^Warren, Jonathan; Stoerger, Sharon; Kelley, Ken (February 2012). "Longitudinal gender and age bias in a prominent amateur new media community". New Media & Society. 14 (1): 7–27. doi:10.1177/1461444811410390. S2CID28962153.
^ abYardi, Sarita; Luther, Kurt; Diakopoulos, Nick; Bruckman, Amy (November 2008). Opening The Black Box: Four Views of Transparency in Remix Culture(PDF). CSCW Workshop on Tinkering, Tailoring, & Mashing: The Social and Collaborative Practices of the Read-Write Web. San Diego: Association for Computing Machinery. p. 3. Archived from the original(PDF) on December 21, 2018. Retrieved April 30, 2021.
^Williams, Andrew (2017). History of digital games: developments in art, design and interaction. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, an A K Peters Book. p. 219. ISBN9781138885554.
^Salter, Anastasia; Murray, John (2014). Flash: building the interactive web. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. p. 76. ISBN9780262028028.
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This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
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Grohl created Foo Fighters after the breakup of Nirvana in 1994 to release solo material. Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 eponymous debut album, he recruited Mendel and Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, and Smear, who had played with Nirvana on tour. The band made their first public performance in February 1995. Goldsmith quit during the recording of their second album, The Colour and the Shape (1997). Most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl. Smear departed soon afterward.
Smear and Goldsmith were replaced by Stahl and Hawkins. Stahl was fired before the recording of the group's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999). The band briefly continued as a trio until Shiflett joined after the completion of There Is Nothing Left to Lose, solidifying the core of their lineup. Foo Fighters released their fourth album, One by One, in 2002. It was followed with the two-disc In Your Honor (2005), which was split between acoustic songs and heavier material. Foo Fighters released their sixth album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, in 2007.
For Foo Fighters' seventh studio album, Wasting Light (2011), produced by Butch Vig, Smear returned as a full member, after having appeared frequently with the band since 2005. Sonic Highways (2014) was released as the soundtrack to the television miniseries directed by Grohl. Concrete and Gold (2017) was the second Foo Fighters album to reach number one in the United States and the first to feature Jaffee, their longtime session and touring keyboardist, as a full member. Their tenth album, Medicine at Midnight (2021), was the last before Hawkins' death in March 2022. Freese was announced as the band's new drummer the following year. Their eleventh album, But Here We Are, was released in June 2023.
Foo Fighters have won 15 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album five times, making them among the most successful rock acts in Grammy history.[3] In 2021, the band was announced as recipients of the first "Global Icon" award at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, their first year of eligibility.
Dave Grohl (pictured in 2019) founded Foo Fighters after his band Nirvana disbanded in 1994.
In 1990, Dave Grohl joined the grunge band Nirvana as the drummer. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs, but was too intimidated to share them with the band. He was "in awe" of the songs written by Nirvana's frontman, Kurt Cobain.[4] Grohl occasionally booked studio time to record demos and covers, and released an album of demos, Pocketwatch, under the pseudonym Late! in 1992.[5]
Nirvana disbanded after the death of Cobain in 1994. Grohl received offers to work with various artists. Press rumors indicated he might join Pearl Jam,[6] and he almost accepted a position as drummer in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Grohl later said: "I was supposed to just join another band and be a drummer the rest of my life. I thought that I would rather do what no one expected me to do." He instead entered Robert Lang Studios in October 1994 to record 15 of his own songs.[5] With the exception of a guitar part on "X-Static", played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Grohl played every instrument and sang every vocal.[7] He completed an album's worth of material in five days and handed out cassette copies of the sessions to his friends for feedback.[5]
Grohl hoped to stay anonymous and release the recordings in a limited run under the name Foo Fighters, taken from foo fighter, a World War II term for unidentified flying objects.[5] He hoped the name would lead listeners to assume the music was made by several people. He said later: "Had I actually considered this to be a career, I probably would have called it something else, because it's the stupidest fucking band name in the world."[8] The demo tape circulated in the industry, creating interest among record labels.[9][10]
Grohl formed a band to support the album. He spoke to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, about joining the group, but he decided against it. Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together, but would have been "weird" for the others and place more pressure on Grohl.[11] Instead, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both of the recently disbanded Seattle group Sunny Day Real Estate. Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear joined as the second guitarist.[12] Grohl licensed the album to Capitol Records, releasing it on his new label, Roswell Records.[5]
Foo Fighters made their live public debut on February 23, 1995, at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, California, followed by performances at Satyricon in Portland on March 3 and the Velvet Elvis in Seattle on March 4. The show on March 3 had been part of a benefit gig for the investigation of the rape and murder of Gits singer Mia Zapata. Grohl refused to do interviews or tour large venues to promote the album.[12] Foo Fighters undertook their first major tour in the spring of 1995, opening for Mike Watt. The band's first single, "This Is a Call", was released in June 1995,[7] and its debut album Foo Fighters was released the next month. "I'll Stick Around", "For All the Cows", and "Big Me" were released as subsequent singles. The band spent the following months on tour, including their first appearance at the Reading Festival in England in August.[12]
After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes to Los Angeles, intending to finish his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with the drumming and replaced most of Goldsmith's drum tracks with his own.[13] Though Grohl hoped that Goldsmith would still play on the tour, Goldsmith felt betrayed and left the band.[14]
Long-time drummer Taylor Hawkins(pictured in 2017) joined the band in 1997.
In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins for a recommendation. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered himself.[4] Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong" and "My Hero".
Smear left Foo Fighters in 1997, citing exhaustion and burnout, and was replaced by Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl.[15] Stahl toured with Foo Fighters for the next few months and appeared on two tracks recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You", also released as a single, for The X-Files and "A320" for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover", appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album in 1998 included performances at Glastonbury Festival (on the main stage) and the Reading Festival.[16]
In 1998, Foo Fighters traveled to Grohl's home state of Virginia, to write their third album. However, Grohl and Stahl were unable to co-operate as songwriters; Grohl told Kerrang! in 1999, "in those few weeks it just seemed like the three of us were moving in one direction and Franz wasn't." Grohl was distraught over the decision to fire Stahl as the two had been friends since childhood. Shortly after that, Mendel called Grohl to say he was quitting to reunite with Sunny Day Real Estate, only to reverse his decision the next day.[17] The remaining trio of Grohl, Mendel, and Hawkins spent several months recording the band's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, in Grohl's home studio. The album spawned several singles, including "Learn to Fly", the band's first to reach the US Billboard Hot 100. Other singles included "Stacked Actors", "Generator", "Next Year", and "Breakout".[citation needed]
Before the release of the album, Capitol Records president Gary Gersh was forced out of the label. Given Grohl's history with Gersh, Foo Fighters' contract had included a "key man clause" that allowed them to leave the label upon Gersh's departure. They left Capitol and signed with RCA, who later acquired the rights to the band's Capitol albums.[17]
Chris Shiflett(pictured in 2017) joined as guitarist in 1999.
After recording There Is Nothing Left to Lose was completed, the band auditioned a number of potential guitarists and settled on Chris Shiflett, who performed with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and California punk band No Use for a Name. Shiflett initially joined as a touring guitarist but achieved full-time status prior to the recording of the group's fourth album.[18]
In January 2000, Mendel led a benefit concert in Hollywood for the AIDS denialist group Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, with a speech by the founder, Christine Maggiore, and distribution of free copies of her self-published book, What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong?.[19][20] The Foo Fighters website featured a section devoted to Alive & Well.[21]Sandra Thurman, the director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, stated this was "extraordinarily irresponsible behavior... There is no doubt about the link between HIV and AIDS in the respected scientific community."[22] All links and references to Alive & Well were finally removed from the Foo Fighters website by March 2003.[23]
Around 2001, Foo Fighters established a relationship with the English rock band Queen, as the band (particularly Grohl[24] and Hawkins[25]) were fans. That March, Grohl and Hawkins inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame[26] and joined them to perform the 1976 classic, "Tie Your Mother Down", with Hawkins playing drums alongside Roger Taylor.[27] The guitarist Brian May added a guitar track to Foo Fighters' second cover of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar", which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Mission: Impossible 2. In 2002, May contributed guitar to "Tired of You" and the outtake "Knucklehead". Foo Fighters and Queen have performed together on several occasions since, including VH1 Rock Honors and Foo Fighters' headlining concert in Hyde Park.[28]
Near the end of 2001, Foo Fighters reconvened to record their fourth album. After spending four months in a Los Angeles studio, the album "just didn't sound right" and the band had no confidence it would sell well. With the album not reaching their expectations amid much infighting, Grohl spent some time helping Queens of the Stone Age complete their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf. Once that album was finished and touring had started for both Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, the band was on the verge of breaking up entirely. Grohl reunited with Hawkins, Shiflett, and Mendel to play the Coachella Festival, alternating days with Queens of the Stone Age. Hawkins and Grohl talked about resuming work on One by One and after a very satisfying performance the following day, they agreed to stay together. The group re-recorded nearly all of the album in a ten-day stretch at Grohl's home studio in Alexandria, Virginia, the following month.[18] The original version of One by One, referred to by the band as Million Dollar Demos, has never been released in its entirety although seven tracks were leaked online in 2012 and 2015.[29]
For most of its history, the band chose to stay away from the political realm. However, in 2004, upon learning that George W. Bush's presidential campaign was using "Times Like These" at rallies, Grohl decided to lend his public support to John Kerry's campaign, saying, "There's no way of stopping the president playing your songs, so I went out and played it for John Kerry's people instead, where I thought the message would kinda make more sense."[30] Grohl attended several Kerry rallies and occasionally performed solo acoustic sets. The entire band joined Grohl for a performance in Arizona coinciding with one of the presidential debates.[31]
Having spent a year and a half touring behind One by One, Grohl did not want to rush into recording another Foo Fighters record. Initially Grohl intended to write acoustic material by himself but eventually the project involved the entire band.[32] To record its fifth album, the band shifted to Los Angeles and built a recording studio, dubbed Studio 606 West. Grohl insisted that the album be divided into two discs – one full of rock songs, and the other featuring all acoustic tracks.[33]In Your Honor was released in June 2005. The album's singles included "Best of You", "DOA", "Resolve", and "No Way Back/Cold Day in the Sun".
During September and October 2005, the band toured with Weezer on what was billed as the Foozer Tour.[34] Foo Fighters played a headline performance at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals. On June 17, 2006, Foo Fighters performed their largest non-festival headlining concert to date at London's Hyde Park. Motörhead's Lemmy joined the band on stage to sing Shake Your Blood from Dave Grohl's Probot album. As a surprise performance, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen appeared to play part of We Will Rock You as a lead in to Tie Your Mother Down.
In further support of In Your Honor, the band organized a short acoustic tour for the summer of 2006. Members who had performed with them in late 2005 appeared, such as Pat Smear, Petra Haden on violin and backing vocals, Drew Hester on percussion, and Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers on keyboard and piano. While much of the setlist focused on In Your Honor's acoustic half, the band also used the opportunity to play lesser-known songs, such as Ain't It The Life, Floaty, and See You. The band also performed Marigold, a Pocketwatch-era song that was best known as a Nirvana B side.
In November 2006, the band released their first ever live CD, Skin and Bones, featuring fifteen performances captured over a three-night stint in Los Angeles.
For the follow-up to In Your Honor, the band recruited The Colour and the Shape producer Gil Norton. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was released on September 25, 2007. The album's first single, "The Pretender", was issued to radio in early August. In mid-to-late 2007 "The Pretender" topped Billboard's Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks. The second single, "Long Road to Ruin", was released in December 2007, supported by a music video directed by longtime collaborator Jesse Peretz (formerly of the Lemonheads).[35] Other singles included "Let It Die" and "Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)".
In October 2007, Foo Fighters started their world tour in support of the album. The band performed shows throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, including headlining the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore on August 9. At the European MTV Music Awards in 2007, Pat Smear confirmed his return to the band in a touring capacity.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 2008. Foo Fighters went home with Best Rock Album and Best Hard Rock Performance (for "The Pretender"). The album was also nominated for Album of the Year, while "The Pretender" was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Song.
On June 7, 2008, the band played Wembley Stadium, London, and was joined by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to play "Rock and Roll" (with Grohl on drums and Hawkins on vocals) and "Ramble On" (sung by Grohl, drums by Hawkins). As Page and Jones left the stage before a final encore of "Best of You", an ecstatic Grohl shouted "Welcome to the greatest fucking day of my whole entire life!".[36] Throughout the tour for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Foo Fighters had been writing and practicing new songs at sound checks. After Foo Fighters had completed this tour in September 2008, they recorded 13 new songs in Studio 606, shortly after announcing a hiatus from touring (which would last until January 2011). These sessions likely lasted from late 2008 – early 2009. While the members of Foo Fighters had initially planned for their new album (composed of songs from this recording session) to have come out in 2009 with almost no touring support, they ultimately decided to shelve most of the songs from these sessions. Three of these songs were later released — "Wheels" and "Word Forward" (on their 2009 compilation album, Greatest Hits); and a newly recorded version of "Rope" (which ended up making the final cut of Wasting Light).[37]
Foo Fighters in 2009. From left to right: Hawkins, Shiflett, Grohl, Mendel.
In August 2010, the band began recording their seventh studio album with producer Butch Vig, who had previously produced the two new tracks for the band's Greatest Hits album.[38] The album was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using only analog equipment. The album won five Grammys and was nominated for six. The recording was analog to tape and used no computers, not even to mix or master.
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