Dream Widow – the fictional band that appears in Foo Fighters' new horror movie, Studio 666 – will release a full album this week, courtesy of mastermind Dave Grohl.
The frontman had originally planned to have a full record ready for the movie's release on February 25, but this never materialized. Now, the LP is set to arrive this Friday (March 25), with a physical release later this year (per Variety).
Studio 666 sees Foo Fighters enter a dilapidated mansion in Encino, LA to record their 10th album, only to find supernatural forces threatening “both the completion of the album and the lives of the band”.
Grohl's character in the film finds a creepy basement, where he discovers a tape by the fictional band Dream Widow, which was recorded in the same mansion.
“When we started writing the script, we had the idea of there being this epic metal opus that – once completed – would release the demon in the house,” Grohl told Variety last month.
“I said, ‘Oh fuck, I've got a million riffs.’ So I recorded this 13- or 14-minute-long instrumental by myself that's very metal, and it's meant to be from the band Dream Widow. Then, I furthered that idea by making a whole record by Dream Widow that would be their lost album that they recorded before they were murdered.”
Earlier this month, Dave Grohl described the process of writing and producing a full Dream Widow album as “therapy” for his inner teenage metalhead.
“I get to release my inner thrash metal child,” he said in an interview with UK music newsletter The New Cue. “I grew up listening to punk rock and thrash metal in the early '80s [and] mid '80s, and I have a real soft spot in my heart for old-school bands like Venom and Slayer and Testament, Exodus, all those bands.
“I was really into that shit when I was a kid but I've never been in a band that plays that type of music so when I go into the studio by myself and I record these things, it's almost therapy, I'm finally getting it out of my system.”
We have to wait until the end of the week to spin the album as a whole, but Grohl's deep-seated metal influences can be heard in the meantime in thrashy, death metal-vibed cut March of the Insane, which arrived ahead of Studio 666's release in February.
The members of Foo Fighters are the stars of Studio 666, but the film also plays host to several cameo appearances, including legendary singer-songwriter Lionel Richie, and Steve Vai, who quite literally lends a helping hand to Grohl for some soloing.
“There's this one scene where Dave is trying to explain to the band what he wanted them to play, but he is half out of his mind and starts wailing wildly,” Vai wrote on Twitter last month. “Dave doesn't actually shred as a guitar player, and I actually live a three-minute walk from where they were filming.
“So Dave called me and asked if they could shoot my hands and shredding for the scene. It was a glorious blast of demonic shred pleasure and when I saw it in the theater, I had to throw my head back and laugh out loud.”
