Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has slammed bands who play old albums live in their entirety. However, in the same interview, he also admitted that he had been tempted to revisit his band’s self-titled 1995 debut ahead of its twentieth anniversary next year.

Dave Grohl Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl has spoken out against bands who play their old albums in full live

Speaking to the NME in an interview ahead of the release of the band’s new album Sonic Highways next week, Grohl said that he had thought about re-recording the first album as a band – in July 1995, Grohl recorded Foo Fighters almost entirely by himself – but bandmate Taylor Hawkins talked him out of it.

As for playing old albums live, Grohl said: “I don’t like it when a band’s tour is just to play one past record. I hate that. I don't like it when bands do that. It’s presumptuous. It’s lazy. But going in and re-recording an album, just to piss everyone off? I think that’s a shitty idea! I don’t get why people do that.”

“We’ve already written that one off. I mean, I don’t mind playing a lot of those old songs just to revisit. But the best way to celebrate our 20th anniversary isn’t to focus on 20 years ago, but to focus on the last 20 years, meaning two years ago and six years ago and eight years ago."

The nostalgia dollar is certainly one of the strongest and most tempting trends in live music over the last half decade. It’s one thing for older artists who are no longer strictly relevant any more to relive their glory days by trundling through a thirty-year old album in order to keep up the mortgage payments.

More: Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins and Perry Farrell do impromptu Stones cover in New York

But quite a few of the more credible (or so-called) rock acts who still release new material are choosing to do this sort of thing. Muse did a one-off performance of their 2001 album Origin of Symmetry when they headlined Reading Festival in 2011, and Manic Street Preachers are about to undertake a series of performances of their 1994 masterpiece The Holy Bible to commemorate its twentieth anniversary.

Foo Fighters’ eighth studio album Sonic Highways will be released on November 10th. Ahead of that date, BBC Four and BBC iPlayer have been sharing the broadcasting of a series of TV documentaries that Grohl and co. made while recording in different studios around America.