By Dave Grohl's own admission, Paul McCartney's links to Sound City Studios were somewhat tenuous, if indeed they existed at all. When promoting Sound City, his 2013 documentary charting the history of the legendary Van Nuys, California facility where Nirvana recorded Nevermind, Grohl initially suggested that McCartney's involvement in the project was justified on the basis that The Beatles might have rehearsed there ahead of playing the Hollywood Bowl in the summer of 1964, or maybe 1965, but he subsequently admitted that he didn't actually give a flying fuck whether or not there was any substance to said rumours.
"Everyone said, 'Did Paul record at Sound City?'" he told Empire magazine. "I don't care!"
Impressively, given the calibre and fame of the musicians involved in the project - McCartney, Stevie Nicks, Trent Reznor, Josh Homme, Rick Springfield, Corey Taylor to name but a handful - Grohl managed to keep news of Sound City under wraps while the cameras were rolling. But on December 12, 2012, the world would get to hear its most news-worthy collaboration, during Paul McCartney's show-closing set at the globally-televised 12-12-12 (A Concert For Sandy Relief) hurricane relief concert, which with a line-up that included The Rolling Stones, The Who, Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen and more, featured arguably the strongest line-up of artists assembled in one place on US soil since the star-studded Farm Aid benefit gig staged in 1985.
"This has got to be the largest collection of old English musicians ever assembled in Madison Square Garden," Mick Jagger noted during the Rolling Stones’ two-song cameo, joking, ‘If it rains in London, you’ve got to come and help us, okay?’
