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Sunny Day Real Estate Drummer Accuses Dave Grohl of Holding Unreleased Album Hostage

William Goldsmith Accuses Dave Grohl of Shelving Sunny Day Real Estate Album

Sunny Day Real Estate and former Foo Fighters drummer William Goldsmith claims that head Foo Fighter Dave Grohl is holding on to an unreleased Sunny Day Real Estate album.

On Friday morning, Goldsmith shared a video of unidentified snippets of music paired along with a caption stating that “the greatest Sunny Day Real Estate record ever made” has been “silenced, abandoned and buried within the murkiest depths of David Grohl‘s sock drawer.” In 2010, reports surfaced that Sunny Day Real Estate were recording a new album, but that record never materialized. It’s unclear why Grohl would have possession of the recording given how he was never in Sunny Day Real Estate. Former Sunny Day Real Estate bassist and Foo Fighters member Nate Mendel told Spin “there is no truth to this story,” in a statement issued through the band’s rep. Grohl did not respond.

Here is Goldsmith’s post in its entirety:

Recently by way of objective ears I have been reminded of the fact that the greatest Sunny Day Real Estate record ever made remains silenced, abandoned and buried within the murkiest depths of David Grohls sock drawer. It’s both a shocking slap of reality and a swift kick in the balls. Gets harder to handle each time. Somehow someday – something has to be done. The tragedy of it is literally manifesting into physical pain. It honestly feels like someone has taken a part of me as a human being and locked it in a closet. My wife looked at me this evening and said “I am starting to understand what’s been haunting you for the past 6 years because it’s starting to haunt me as well.” This is not the first time I’ve had my voice taken from me. But now This music hasn’t just been taken away from me anymore – now it’s been taken away from my children. Unforgivable.

Spin has reached out to Goldsmith for additional comment and we’ll update if we hear back.

Both Goldsmith and Mendel joined the Foo Fighters in 1994, and Goldsmith left the band in 1996 after Grohl rerecorded Goldsmith’s drum parts on the band’s sophomore album The Colour and the Shape. Their relationship remains acrimonious with the vitriol mostly coming from Goldsmith’s side. Goldsmith was replaced by current Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

Sunny Day Real Estate’s last proper album, The Rising Tide, was released in 2000. The last time the band released new music was in 2014 as part of a split 7″ with Circa Survive for Record Store Day.

UPDATE 4:33 pm EST: Goldsmith has since published an additional Facebook update meant to clarify what happened to the unreleased Sunny Day Real Estate album he referenced in an earlier post and discussed circumstances where he claimed that his old band’s frontman Jeremy Enigk “did not receive the moral support as well as engineering that he deserved and I hold myself accountable just as much as everyone else involved for that mistake.” He also pushed back on former bandmate Mendel’s succinct statement from earlier today.

“For clarification purposes – Dave’s sock drawer was meant to figuratively represent studio 606. To clarify – there are many ingredients that resulted in the abandonment of LP5,” Goldsmith wrote in a lengthy statement. He later added: “So no I was not meaning to claim Dave single handedly prevented the record from being finished. He just owns the place where it was abandoned.”

Here is Goldsmith’s complete statement:

For clarification purposes – Dave’s sock drawer was meant to figuratively represent studio 606. To clarify – there are many ingredients that resulted in the abandonment of LP5. Ingredients that I had to put together myself and find out later on. One of the unfortunate elements being that Jeremy did not receive the moral support as well as engineering that he deserved and I hold myself accountable just as much as everyone else involved for that mistake. The reference to Dave’s sock drawer meant studio 606 which was where it was essentially left. If I come across as being a little bit outraged it’s simply because I’ve had the unfortunate experience of hard work being disregarded with no communication or explanation as to why. Trust me it would eat at you as well. I doubt many of these issues would become issues at all if there was a bit more communication as opposed to none at all. Anyone who claims that there is no unfinished Sunny day record collecting dust I would have to agree to disagree. But that’s my opinion about it – I heard it objectively and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I know that Jeremy is gonna be upset with me for speaking out about this again but when I hear those tracks through the ears of people who I respect i.e. Justin Tamminga and my wife Channeary and I see them feeling as devastated as I do over this whole thing it’s hard to stay quiet. Compound that with it being an important part of me that refused to be realized as what will be left for my children to ponder and you have something equivalent to heart break. So no I was not meaning to claim Dave single handedly prevented the record from being finished. He just owns the place where it was abandoned. However he wasn’t too thrilled when Nate played with the fire theft so I doubt he thought about making it so Nate had the time to see it through. But it’s misunderstandings like this that arise because people don’t communicate. At least not with me with the exception of Jeremy. Dave and I should have hashed this shit out through honest human interaction a decade and a half ago. And Nate – the last time I talked to you was when you guys said to be by the phone the next day to have a conference call about finishing LP5. The phone never rang and I haven’t heard from you since then which was 2011 if memory serves. Granted I went into deep solitude after that but where else are you going to go after constantly being disregarded like an old shirt.