RCA RecordsFoo Fighters' fifth studio album, In Your Honor, was released June 14, 2005 -- 10 years ago today. In Your Honor debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 -- the band's highest charting position at the time -- and spawned the huge hit single "Best of You."
"I wrote that song in my garage," frontman Dave Grohl says in a video for NME. "I used to smoke cigarettes in my garage, because I couldn't smoke them in the house. So I had this little welcome mat that said 'go away' on the floor next to a boombox and a bunch of tapes, and then just a pile of cigarette butts. I'd just sit there smoking with the guitar, and I came up with the melodic idea."
"I wrote the lyrics after I went on a campaign trail with Senator John Kerry when he was running for president a long time ago," Grohl continues. "And I wrote the lyrics after coming home from that. And then we recorded it, and we shelved it. We didn't think it was any good."
When the Foo Fighters' manager heard "Best of You," he suggested that it be the single, but drummer Taylor Hawkins was convinced that the song "No Way Back" would be In Your Honor's big song. He says he "wasn't really sure people were going to like ['Best of You']."
Grohl was also skeptical when the band's manager suggested that "Best of You" be the single. "'Oh that? Really?'" he recalls saying.
"This is why we're not A&R men," Grohl says. "It's better we're on this side of the deal."
"I see now what it was," Hawkins adds. "It was this big, huge anthem."
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