Session Information
On July 15th, 2001 Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic convened in Los Angeles at Conway Recording Studios to oversee mixing and mastering of the final song Nirvana recorded in 1994, ‘You Know You’re Right’. The song was initially due to be released as part of an anthology box set in September 2001, marking the 10th anniversary of their seminal album ‘Nevermind’, however, later disagreements and legal battles between the pair and Courtney Love would scupper these plans. The song would eventually see release on the 2002 compilation simply titled ‘NIRVANA’.
Mixing of the Nirvana track didn’t take too long and so with an entire room at their disposal, Grohl and Novoselic decided to take advantage of the situation. “We had a big room at Conway to ourselves for the day and we thought, let’s run tape and invite a bunch of our friends over,” Grohl recalled.
Those friends invited were an eclectic bunch – Foo Fighters bandmate Taylor Hawkins, Queens Of The Stone Age front man Josh Homme, session drummer Jim Keltner, L7 singer Donita Sparks, and Matt Sweeney, guitarist for several bands such as Chavez and Zwan.
The makeshift ‘supergroup’ spent the day working on various loose jams and ideas, with Grohl particularly impressed by Jim Keltner’s work - “He’s a legend you know, his meter, his vibe, he’s a real vibe player you know. So, he comes out, sits down behind a drumset, and does everything sideways, and backward. And as we’re jamming, I look over and he’s got a stick and a shaker in one hand, and a brush and a frying pan in the other and he’s playing the snare with his foot or whatever”, he recalled enthusiastically. “It was fucking crazy what he was doing, but it had this sound. And I watched it and I thought, THAT is messed up! And then I listened to it, and I thought, 'THAT is genius!’”
Whilst tape was known to be running throughout the impromptu recording session, no music from this day-long jam session has been released to date.