I’m far more intrigued by the story of Foo Fighters’ debut album than I am by the album itself.

Six months after the suicide of Kurt Cobain, Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl channeled his grief into a six-day recording session, hoping to have some fun in the studio and take his mind off the loss of his friend.

He recorded songs he had written during his time with Nirvana but never shared with the band for fear of not stacking up to Cobain as a songwriter.

Grohl played every instrument on the record, and came up with lyrics that were often stream-of-conscious nonsense just to get something down on tape.

He was happy enough with the results that he copied 100 versions of the album onto cassette tapes and distributed them to friends. He didn’t want his name attached to the project, so he attributed the music to a band he called Foo Fighters, a name he read in a book about UFOs.

A month later, Grohl performed live with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and was invited to join the band full time. But when Petty learned about the Foo Fighters side project, he encouraged Grohl to pursue that instead. So Grohl assembled a band to play the songs live, and the rest is history.

I love that story, especially now that Foo Fighters is a successful, Hall of Fame rock band.

As for the album, it does have a lo-fi charm but almost all of its songs are in that Nirvana grunge/punk style that has never been for me. And Grohl was right — these tunes don’t stack up to the ones Cobain was writing.

There is one exception. Today’s SOTD, ‘Big Me,’ is the lightest thing on the record, and sounds like a delightful 60s pop confection. It has a great video as well.