Franz Stahl
Skezz
8,348 posts
Was anything ever recorded with him? I know nothing official was released but is their tape somewhere gathering dust with his playing on?
Did anyone see him live with the Foo's. How did you rate him?
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'Walking After You' (X-files version) and 'A320' i believe. both officially released.
i saw him play with the band a couple of times i think, but can't remember much of it
Ooh love those songs. Only time I saw him was my first show in May 1998.
This Edgefest set has been one of my favorites to watch and he’s in it:
https://youtu.be/NoruwGI8W5c
A320 was him, as was the re-done version of "Walking After You". I'd love to hear anything he contributed to in the early TNLTL sessions. He was fun to watch (I only saw him perform on TV), but is clearly not Shiflett, or even Smear. Shiflett is such a talent.
I saw him live once or maybe twice...not really memorable even though I liked him at the time.
The replies have covered the released stuff but in terms of unreleased, he did indeed spend time with them at Barco Rebar rehearsal studio before TINLTL, and they probably recorded some other practice/rehearsals during his time, so there should be demos of some stuff ready to be released some day.
I thought A320 but was told many years ago on some other foo forum that it was all Dave on guitar. That's cool I love that track.
I didn't know about walking after you being him at all though
Only seen videoclips, but i really enjoy his backing vocals. At the time (when he was in the band) he was more right for the band than shiflett, but with the progression they have made since then chris has provided a whole lot!
He's got a songwriting credit, so it suggests he also plays on the track
Franz was definitely on A320.
His firing was a very weird thing, that’s for sure
Taylor: "I have a damn good time playing music now. Yeah, a really good time. We have such a good time playing the live shows. We used to see how short we could make our sets. Serious. When I first joined the band and Franz was in the band and Dave and Franz were not diggin’ each other, they would walk on stage from separate sides. We wouldn’t jam or nothing."
I think they meant more for their shared past like how it soured and how they were unable to resolve it
The only real “explanation” I saw was that on the documentary, which barely even count as one. I understand how when chemistry just isn’t there things just don’t work, but then going from a known guy to a complete stranger found at open auditions makes you think that chemistry might not be the thing after all. Now the quote from Taylor you’re sharing sheds some light into it and kind of confirms it, we weren’t really given the real explanation. It probably stems from their sour past like mentioned above, what seemed to be resolved from the Scream days night not have been actually resolved.
The quote goes a bit of a way to filling in the gap between "new member of the Foo Fighters Franz Stahl" and "I got a fucking phone call". Not jelling in songwriting sessions seemed too vague, and Franz didn't corroborate that narrative in B&F, at least not in the final cut. That said, I can sort of understand why they kept the focus of interpersonal conflict. B&F was a highly curated history of the band and even that caused them great discomfort.
I guess it's like any friendship and it's going great until you decide to rent a place together, then suddenly you can't stand their face.
In any case, they seem to be on agreeable terms now:
"Were things rocky between you and Dave after you left the Foo Fighters?
Well, it didn’t end well, and I never saw him for years after that. It was only occasionally that I would run into him when I moved back here to L.A. Then, you know, after time, it all dissipated but nonetheless it was never really resolved. To be honest, we haven’t really talked about it. But at some point down the road we started texting each other and chatting. It became more like that when we did the record. There wasn’t anything said. But I’d certainly say we’re on much better terms than we were before."
It’s kind of common practice of these band documentaries to be a bit contradicting from the inside, because it is indeed a curated portrayal of the band’s history and people will offer different views of the more sensitive stuff. It felt that way with the Franz thing and it always bugged me, what Taylor says there fills the gap a little bit.
Good to know they’re on better terms now.
There is definitely something around Franz that hasn't been made public. When I talked to a guy who owned a rehearsal space they went to before TINLTL he basically told me that was the case, but it was something that he wasn't going to reveal and that Dave and the band had tried to keep private. Given that Franz after leaving never said anything and the fact he was the one leaving it was something he did, but we'll probably never know. Whatever it is, they've kept it secret for 21 years.
I would not be surprised if it was a chemistry thing not with him and Dave but with him and someone else.
We all are aware about Nate not being able to stand T when he joined.
Nah, Dave and him already had a history of clashing and Taylor’s quote seemed to point into that direction. Nate was just uneasy about T because of their personalities being so different, plus he was young and just starting out in a major band so he still had the high school band mentality with SDRE at that point, he matured a lot by being in a band with Taylor, they get along super well.
This is intriguing and incomplete. In appears Franz bailed them out initially, but quickly was revealed to be a jackass to work with, right? That live recording of "Damn You Damn Everyone" out there somewhere: is he playing on that?
it was played once, in 1998. at the show, Franz Stahl was the guitarist.
I never totally got why it didn't work. I think I saw them about 4 or maybe 5 times before Franz had joined and they became a much better live band once he was in, especially by the spring of 1998.
I remember I was outright pissed when he was out of the band. It worked out more than OK but at the time, I connected it to the drum stuff with Will and just figured "OK, Dave is just kindof a dictator with this band and he'll probably drive away and replace every musician at some point or another". I definitely got yelled at by Gus Brandt on a message board (maybe alt.music.foo-fighters?) for my 18 year old scorched earth takes on this at the time.