Over the past few months, the Foo Fighters have rocked for the environment, put out a new album, “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace,” and picked up five Grammy nominations. So it’s no surprise that the band took a break before embarking on a six-month long tour that will take them across the U.S. before heading to Europe and Australia.

While Dave Grohl spent time in Hawaii and Chris Shiflett and Taylor Hawkins took their own much-needed vacations, bassist Nate Mendel chose to hit the slopes in the mountains of Oregon.

We trudged through the snow to catch up with Nate and talk about the Foos’ plans for this year, and beyond.

You guys are on tour for the next six months, with only a couple of short breaks. What’s life like when you’re on the road for so long?
You get into kind of a rhythm. It’s definitely hard to be away from home, and we’ve all got families and children now, so that part can be kind of tough. You know, you just get in and slog through it. Now we bring our families along for a lot of it, so that makes it a bit easier. It’s more of a hippie, “Partridge Family” kind of thing now.

On this tour, at least for the U.S. dates, you’re playing mostly arenas. It seems like these days, it’s mostly bands on reunion tours, like Van Halen, playing these larger venues. What’s it like to be one of the few current bands playing at places this big?
You’re constantly watching your back wondering, “Why us? How in the hell do we get to do this?” We were playing in tiny places and clubs and van touring, and it’s incrementally grown over the years. Six years ago, we went out and opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers for a while, and that was really our first chance to play arenas, and we had to learn how to do it. We didn’t like it at first, it was awkward, and then Dave became more comfortable as a front man and then started to really enjoy it. He’s learned how to run a show at that capacity, and it’s kind of where we’re comfortable now.

You’re heading out with Against Me! and Jimmy Eat World this time. When you’re on tour, do you spend a lot of time with the opening bands, or do you just meet up at the venues, play and move on?
That’s the weird thing about the arena shows. Some of these venues are so big that you can literally play the show and leave and not have seen the other band members at all. That being said, we usually take out bands that we feel some kind of camaraderie with, either musically or personally or both. So we do end up spending a lot of time with each other. And you know, you get sick of your band mates, so it’s good to have some extra people around to distract you.

Has the band discussed any plans for the summer, following all the touring?
The band has a finite amount of energy and patience for touring because it can be a little—I don’t want to make it sound like tough work or anything, but it can be a little grueling, all the traveling. And you’ve got management on the other hand, who want you to go out and promote your record, so it’s a constant tug-of-war. The second half of this year is where all that plays out, and we’ll see who gets the upper hand.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about bands ditching record labels and releasing albums digitally, like Radiohead did recently. Is this someplace you could see the Foo Fighters going?
We’ve got another record or two, contractually, with the label that we’re on right now, so it’s not something we need to be immediately concerned with. And hopefully, if we’re lucky as a band, some of these bands like Radiohead that are experimenting with this now will get the new business model sorted out and by the time we’re through with a record label, there will be a workable business model for putting out records. As far as what that’s going to be, and whether we’re going to participate in it, I can’t really say.

Foo Fighters videos generally feature some pretty kooky costumes, from the Mentos guys in “Big Me” to the larger-than-life punk rockers in “Everlong” and the ‘70s mustaches in “Long Road to Ruin.” Where do these ideas come from?
“Long Road to Ruin,” that was Taylor’s idea. He just thought “Oh god, wouldn’t it be funny if we did a parody of those awful old ‘70s soap operas.” We thought, “Oh, that’s great.” So we contacted our friend Jesse Peretz, who has done a couple of other videos for us, and had him write it up from that point. We had a couple of ideas, then he wrote the story out and directed it. So it’s a combination of both. It can go all the way from Dave writing and directing it, which happened with “All My Life” and “Monkey Wrench,” to something like “Everlong,” which was completely the brainchild of the director.

The band has been one of the few constants in rock over the past decade or so. What’s it like to see all these different trends—rap-metal, pop-punk, emo—come and go while you guys just continue to do your thing?
You do look at that every once in a while. A band will come up from like, ’98 or something, and you’re like “Oh my god, I remember that trend,” and it seems like it took the entire music world by storm and it was all that existed for a while, and now it’s gone and it’s like we’ve lived through that cycle god knows how many times. You kind of feel like a grizzled old veteran and a survivor, and at the same time you’re like, “Damn, we’re fucking old.”