Ahead of the release of Foo Fighters' highly anticipated new album, Medicine At Midnight, we're sharing a teaser from the band's in-depth interview in the current issue of Hot Press – in which Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins talk to Stuart Clark about Covid, insurrection, Joe and Jill Biden, the band's 25th birthday, David Bowie, Stevie Nicks, Duff, Ozzy, Ricky Gervais, and, of course, the new LP, which his esteemed colleague Pat Carty reviews here.

"I knew this record had to be something special," Grohl reveals. "I looked back on all the music we’ve made and thought, ‘Okay, we’ve covered a lot of ground since 1995. We’ve made fast, noisy, heavy, dissonant punk and hard rock songs. We’ve also made gentle, beautiful, orchestrated acoustic music and these four-minute blasts of bubblegum. But the one thing we’ve never done is explore groove-oriented songs.’ Whether it was Motown, Sly & The Family Stone, David Bowie or the Rolling Stones, it’s a type of music we all grew up listening to. We love bands that have feel and groove and make people dance. Not that we wanted to make a disco or a fucking EDM record, but after 25 years, let’s start the fucking party now!"

Asked which track is likely to result in the most eyebrow raising, Dave immediately nominates ‘Cloudspotter’.

“That is entirely rooted in ‘70s, ‘80s disco,” he says gleefully. “I was a radical fucking punk rock kid, but there’s something about the simplicity of disco rhythm I’ve always loved. You gotta poke a couple of holes in the box so your influences don’t suffocate. Whether it’s, y’know, the Dazz Band or fucking ZZ Top you’ve got to let them breathe. We’ve kept a lot of those influences at fucking bay for decades – but no more! At this point, the most important thing is that when you hit ‘play’ on something you’ve been working on for twelve hours, everybody smiles. That to me is the sign of real accomplishment, and there were a lot of smiles in the room making Medicine At Midnight.”

• Medicine At Midnight is out tomorrow, February 5.

Pick up your copy of the new issue of Hot Press, featuring the full interview with flip cover stars Foo Fighters, in shops now – or order online below: