"As we were coming down from the success of the last record, I thought, 'Now we have license to get weird,' " says Grohl. "If we wanted, we could make some crazy, bleak Radiohead record and freak everyone out. Then I thought, 'F- that.' "

Grohl says that the goal for the album is to make stadium anthems that startle instead of just "banging out these big choruses, because that's what we do, we're banging them out in the middle of instrumental sections that will take you by surprise," he says. "The music is a progression or an evolution, for sure, but it's a Foo Fighters record."