Kaki King Meets the Beaconsfield Miners
Dave Grohl's "Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners" honors trapped Australians, and Kaki King's fingerpicked guitar on the track links her "Playing With Pink Noise" to its emotional core.
Tracklist
- Playing With Pink Noise — Kaki King
- Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners — Foo Fighters
Transcript
Playing With Pink Noise — Kaki King
How did Kaki King’s own song find its way into a Foo Fighters show? In 2007, Dave Grohl invited the guitarist to play on “Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners,” his tribute to two miners rescued in Tasmania. King’s “Playing With Pink Noise” was already on her album Legs to Make Us Longer. At a London show later that year, King and Grohl played the ballad together; then Grohl asked her to play “Playing With Pink Noise.” Hear Playing With Pink Noise by Kaki King.
Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners — Foo Fighters
At a Sydney show, Dave Grohl dedicated a solo performance of the miners’ ballad to Todd Russell, whose death had been reported earlier that day, according to Rolling Stone Australia’s Jade Kennedy. Go back to 2006: while trapped underground with Russell, miner Brant Webb asked for an iPod loaded with Foo Fighters songs. Grohl later said he wrote the acoustic instrumental as a tribute. After the miners were rescued, he played it for Webb at the Sydney Opera House and promised to put it on the next Foo Fighters album. In early 2007, Grohl invited Kaki King to play on the album recording, where she contributed fingerpicked guitar. Hear Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners by Foo Fighters.