Travel is the best education there is. Thanks to the Internet, you dont have to be the one traveling to get educated. Some journeyed a lot, not to learn but to make music, and wonderfully so. The Foo Fighters is a celebrated American rock band formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. In their eighth album, dubbed Sonic Highway, released on November 10, 2014, the band tried something new.
They fused the album’s making with a documentary miniseries directed by Dave Grohl himself. Fascinatingly, they made music in a series of American cities, concurrently writing and recording a new song along the way. Visiting eight cities across the country and making a documentary of the same was quite the task embarked on.
There are no shortcuts to success, but there are reward points. According to an Apple Music interview with Jane Lowe, making this helluva musical masterpiece possible was a bank of 6 million travel reward miles on the band’s American Express card that made this stupendous trip possible and, in a way, breathed life into their 2014 album “Sonic Highways.” Assuming their Amex was a Platinum Card and not the coveted Black card, the band would have still enjoyed many benefits, which includes lounge access to all major airports and, most important of all, for a touring band reward point maximiser on hotel and airline bookings. Afterall, the band had been using the card since the beginning of the band and, over the years, had accumulated millions of miles.
Six million miles can get them $60,000 in hotel bookings or flight tickets. The points would reap even more perks when transferred to Delta for flights and Starwood for hotels. The Foo Fighters explored eight U.S. cities, including Austin, Los Angeles, and New Orleans, to highlight their respective musical histories. Grohl shared, “After making Sound City, I realized that the pairing of music and documentary works well because the stories give substance and depth to the song, which makes for a stronger emotional connection. So I thought, ‘I want to do this again, but instead of just walking into a studio and telling its story, I want to travel across America and tell its story.”
