MALIBU, CALIFORNIA - DECEMBER 02: Drummer Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters performs onstage during ... [+]
I can't tell you the first time I met Taylor Hawkins. I can remember one of my early Foo Fighters experiences was in 2007 when the MTV VMAs were in Las Vegas. I was covering for Rolling Stone so was given my choice of where to watch the show. Of course I chose the Foo Fighters suite. I walked in and the band said if I wanted to stay in there I had to shotgun beers from a funnel. So I did two.
Afterwards they laughed and said, "Oh s**t, you really did it?" They were just messing with me, but I did it and we all had a good laugh about that. But as memorable as that experience was I don't know if that was the first time I met Taylor. Nor can I tell you at what point in our working friendship we decided to exchange numbers.
Taylor was just one of those people who was always around in my world. I remember running into him at a Steely Dan concert, opening night at the Hollywood Bowl, and he fist bumped my friend's dad, who had not a damn clue he was fist bumping the drummer in the biggest band and Taylor didn't care. He was just happy to geek out with a fellow Steely Dan fan.
That was the thing with Taylor. He was as big a music fan as anyone you would ever meet. Last night after I heard the news I was unable to fall back to sleep so I listened to an episode of a podcast I host called My Turning Point. I went to Taylor's house in December of 2019 to record an episode. Listening back to it last night for the first time since March of 2020 I swear he name checked 25 artists, from King Crimson to Van Halen.
Over the course of the 41 minutes he also recounted his early days, from working at a mom and pop record store to playing with Sass Jordan and how that led to his days touring with Alanis Morissette. Though I have never promoted that podcast here on Forbes I am sharing the link to this one episode because it deserves to be heard.
It was such a memorable conversation. But I also cannot tell you how many times I interviewed Taylor. I did the first interview with him, Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney last October for their NHC supergroup. It was a blast. They joy and camaraderie between them was infectious.
But then the joy between Taylor and everyone was infectious. The dude loved life. And he made it a joy to talk to him, to be around him. It was a great privilege to get to talk music with him. And I will miss not seeing him out, not geeking out with him, not just saying hey.
I wanted to share some highlights of my many, many conversations over the years with Taylor. They show him as I remember him — a caring family man, passionate about music, amiable and one of the truly good guys in music. As he once told me, "My main priorities are my family and then the Foo Fighters."
Steve Baltin: How did the benefit you are doing tonight come about?
Taylor Hawkins: My sister-in-law and my brother have a child that has autism and they just moved down here from up north, San Francisco area for last six years or so. I said to her a few months ago, “You were really involved up there in the whole autism community, now that you’re down here if you want to get to know some of these folks I’ll offer up Chevy Metal for anything, let’s put together a benefit and do something.” I love doing that, we did something last night in Laguna, Wheels For Life. One of my buddies is a badass mountain biker and I love mountain biking. It’s for fun and we play a lot of Seventies and Eighties butt rock that people love and we have a good time doing it.
Baltin: What does Chevy Metal offer you that differs from Foo Fighters?
Hawkins: It’s Dave [Grohl’s]' band, we’re all sort of members of Dave’s band. I just show up and do my job for the Foo Fighters. I play drums for the Foo Fighters and sing a little background vocals, dress up as a chick every once in a while in a video. We’re all kind of part of his musical vision. He’s the Brian Wilson and we’re the Dennis Wilson’s and Carl Wilson’s and Mike Love’s. Dave is very laid back and easy going and everything is kind of a goof. Dave’s a good guy, one of the few good guys in this business, he knows how to run it well. But it’s his band and he makes all the decisions and they’re all his songs. I’m happy to do it, I make a great f**king living doing it and I f**king play Wembley Stadium and these things and we’ve done it together. So yes when I go do something like this or any of the other various little side things I do the pressure is low, it’s a goof. You get on stage to play some Van Halen and Stones songs it’s a goof. And I always try and remember that on those big pressure gigs with the Foo Fighters, just think of it like a Chevy Metal gig, just have fun because all of our favorite bands, Dave’s included, they were just having fun on stage.
Baltin: And how important is it to you to be able to help your nephew?
Hawkins: It is personal to me. He [my nephew] lived up north the last five or six years, they just moved down to Orange County the last few months, so we will see them more, we have seen them more, and he’s beautiful, he’s wonderful and he’s the sweetest kid in the world. It’s such a little thing I can do, getting up on stage and playing, I would do it for free, for no cause, and I have, many a time. But if I can just get a few people to come spend a few bucks of course I’ll do it.
Baltin: Tell me about turning Chevy Metal, which was a covers project, into Birds Of Satan, which are originals.
Hawkins: It just started out as kind of a goof like I told you before. And it still really is a goof, but if we can go do a fun trip or if I can go do an autism benefit or scoliosis benefit or cancer benefit or if I can have fun and play all of those things are good. It wasn’t meant for anything other than to keep my hands loose in between Foo Fighters gigs. That’s how it started really. Obviously it’s not my first priority in life, but it’s fun. And as I sent you that Birds Of Satan track I just got the band so well-oiled I thought screw it, “Let’s have these guys make a record.” So, in a way that’s kind of the offshoot of it. We’re finalizing a way to put it out and that’ll be soon. The funny thing is that’s the great thing about the Birds Of Satan record, it’s a cover band making a record. So all the influences that are there, they’re on the sleeve, there’s no question, “That sounds a little bit like Halen, this sounds a little bit like Queen, or this sounds a little like Jane’s or Rush.” In a way it made perfectly good sense for me to do it, plus I’d always wanted to do a record with Wylie [Hodgden], my buddy who sings in Chevy Metal and plays bass, because he’s one of my best friends and he wants to be on a record.
Baltin: What have you brought from Foos to your own projects?
Hawkins: The funny thing is as we say, it’s all about making music with friends. That’s kind of the ethos with the Foo Fighters really. The Foo Fighters is a ramshackle sort of band, it’s not Steely Dan. Dave could do the whole record himself, no question, obviously he’s done it before. Or he could have a crack perfect studio band come in there and play as well. But part of the joy of having the Foo Fighters, and this is unspoken, it’s from what I can tell, it’s doing it with your friends for better or worse. And that’s kind of how I feel about this as well. It’s all about the hang, period, which is just so much more important than anything else, it really is.
Baltin: I love that you view music as being fun first. And that comes through in everything you do.
Hawkins: You can’t really analyze it, because if you do it’ll blow your mind. I think good music comes out of either a certain amount of joy or friction. So the fact that the Foo Fighters has a family-oriented kind of vibe or whatever and that’s the way Dave likes it is natural. The fact that Chevy Metal is like that it’s natural. There’s either a joy or a friction and it’s been long documented. We could go through every single band that me and you both love and they either love each other or they hate each other or both at one time or the other. There was tension in Queen as well. Come on you get four grown-up men, five grown-up men together, live in each other’s back pocket and act like they’re 14 for the rest of their life there’s gonna be tension. It’s just not natural necessarily. But going back to what you said most music is born out of some sort of joy or friction and there’s both in most bands, as there is in Foo Fighters, not necessarily in Chevy Metal, but that’s just a fucking cover band.
Baltin: How does being in a band with Dave influence you?
Hawkins: It’s heady if you think about it, and you can’t let things like this go to your head. Luckily I’m in a band with Dave Grohl so I’m completely always humbled and I never feel like I’m that awesome. If you’re on a team with Michael Jordan or someone like that you’re always gonna feel you’re not as great as him. It’s humbling, so that’s good. I’m very humble. That’s the best way to keep your head in this business and the best way to keep in this business, to not think you’re anything other than a lucky person. You might have a little bit of talent playing music and were in the right place at the right time, and that’s all there is to it.
Baltin: What keeps you doing these cover shows?
HawkinsL There are a lot of these cover bands now, it’s funny, like these professional guy cover bands, like Camp Freddy and all that kind of shit. I was like, “F**k it, it’s something I can do that’s fun, keeps me playing and I can still make some dough cause life doesn’t end.” I want to be able to, when I hit 55, say, “I’m only going to play drums when I want to now.” I have three children now so I have three colleges to think about and all this other kind of s**t, I have a big house." And it brings you down to the basic core of why you did it in the first place, the initial reason behind being on stage, being in a band or playing music in the first place. It brings you down to the basic core of that, which is for the love of playing and interacting. There’s no tour, there’s nothing, you just get up and play. It’s a shot of adrenaline, it’s new and exciting. Who wouldn’t do it?
