Dave Grohl once wrote a crushing riff with Ozzy Osbourne in mind, it never made it to the Prince of Darkness though, instead it mutated into one of Probot’s heaviest cuts.
Speaking with Kerrang! Radio, the Foo Fighters frontman revealed that during a period when Sharon Osbourne was reaching out to musicians for material, he decided to throw his hat in the ring, Grohl didn’t lock in the exact year, but all signs point to the early 2000s (per Loudwire).
“I wrote this instrumental that was like super … it was almost like a Melvins song. It was like super duper heavy,” Grohl recalled. “And I thought this could be so cool if Ozzy sang over it.”
It didn’t pan out that way though:
“They never picked it. They never used it. But I ended up using it for this record that I made. It was called Probot.”
That riff eventually became ‘My Tortured Soul’, a sludgy standout on the 2004 Probot album, instead of Ozzy, the vocal duties went to Eric Wagner of doom metal lifers Trouble.
“The singer of a band called Trouble [Eric Wagner], a legendary metal band called Trouble, he sang on that track and it almost kind of has an Ozzy feel to it,” Grohl added.
“It never became an Ozzy song, but it has a killer riff, man.”
Where The Riff Landed
Probot was Grohl’s love letter to the metal he grew up worshipping, released in February 2004, it was a deliberate pivot away from the more melodic territory of Foo Fighters’ 1999 album ‘There Is Nothing Left to Lose’.
Grohl has said he started by writing heavy instrumentals with no clear plan for vocals, once the riffs piled up, he called in some big names including Lemmy Kilmister, Max Cavalera, King Diamond, Cronos of Venom, Tom G. Warrior, Snake of Voivod, and others.
‘My Tortured Soul’ wasn’t pushed as a single, but Probot performed it live on MTV2’s Headbangers Ball in 2004, some riffs find the right voice immediately, others take the scenic route.
Follow me on Facebook:
RELATED
MORE IN News
