Release and Promotion
On spring 1995, the Foo Fighters embarked on their first ever United States tour supporting Mike Watt along with fellow tour newbies Hovercraft, whose line-up included Vedder at the time. As well as performing with their own bands, Grohl and Vedder each picked up a role as a member of Watt's backing band throughout the tour, supplying drums and guitar respectively. On May 1995, radio stations KROQ-FM and KNDD started playing some tracks of the then-unreleased album before receiving a cease-and-desist from Capitol. On June 12, 1995, "Exhausted" and "This Is a Call" were sent to college and modern rock radio stations. One week later, "This Is a Call" became the band's first commercial single.
Foo Fighters was released July 4, 1995 on Roswell Records, distributed by Capitol Records. The band promoted the release that summer by completing another US tour with Wool and Shudder to Think, with 25 concerts in little over a month. The Foo Fighters also made their network television debut on the Late Show with David Letterman in August 14, where they performed "This Is a Call". Afterwards, the band played several of their largest shows up to that point, making their debut on the European festival circuit with performances at Pukkelpop, Reading and Lowlands.
"I'll Stick Around" was issued as the second single on September 4, 1995 and would also mark Foo Fighters music video debut, directed by Gerald Casale. That fall, the band continued to tour extensively, with a European tour with Built to Spill, and visits to Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The tour was wrapped with a performance at the Phoenix Festival on July 20, 1996. The Foo Fighters performed nearly 100 concerts throughout 1995, and over 70 dates the following year.
Three more songs of the album were issued as singles: "For All the Cows" in 1995, and both "Big Me" and "Alone + Easy Target" in 1996. "Big Me" was the first commercial single made available in the US, and the second song from the album to see release as a music video, a parody of the Mentos television commercials directed by Jesse Peretz.
Read more about this topic: Foo Fighters (album)
Famous quotes containing the words release and, release and/or promotion:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“I am asked if I would not be gratified if my friends would procure me promotion to a brigadier-generalship. My feeling is that I would rather be one of the good colonels than one of the poor generals. The colonel of a regiment has one of the most agreeable positions in the service, and one of the most useful. “A good colonel makes a good regiment,” is an axiom.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)