 Recording began on March 2007 at Studio 606 in Dave Grohl's Virginia home's basement (the studio has since been moved to Northridge, California).As the band took a ten-day break in April, Grohl thought that the record needed another uptempo song, so he spent his time developing an unfinished song that became "The Pretender".The sessions wrapped in mid-June, and for the first time the band did not feel the need to rerecord any song.