Shortly after sound checking his “70s dirt rock cover band” Chevy Metal for a performance on the eve of Metallica’s second Orion Music + More festival during June of 2013 in Detroit, Taylor Hawkins spoke — effusively, as was his nature — to this writer about his musical ventures and adventures to that point.
“Man, I just wanted to play music all the time, and I’m doing it and it feels great,” said the multi-faceted performer. At that point, Hawkins was five albums into his career with Foo Fighters, after tenures with Alanis Morissette and Sass Jordan, and had also launched another band, the Coattail Riders — thus stacking up a resume of high profile collaborations.
“Y’know, I wanted to be in a great band. I’m in one,” Hawkins said. “I wanted to play with great people. I am. I wanted a life in music, and…look at it. It’s there. I’m just really, really happy. And fortunate.”
There’s no doubt those who played with him or got to see Hawkins perform felt the same way.
Like his bandmate and friend Dave Grohl, Hawkins — who died unexpectedly Friday (March 25th) in Bogota, Colombia, at the age of 50 — regularly tops any list of the world’s most-liked and even loved rock ‘n’ rollers. His enthusiasm was insane and insanely infectious.
A combination of energy, abandon and — not to be discounted — great skill, he was a real-life incarnate of the Muppets’ Animal; Hawkins behind the drums was all adrenalin, flailing limbs and a smile brighter than the lighting rig — but don’t for a minute mistake that for recklessness.
A true prisoner of rock ‘n’ roll from an early age, he cited Queen’s Roger Taylor and the Police’s Stewart Copeland as his first major influences and grew from there, becoming a hybrid of Ringo Starr’s pocket, John Bonham’s power and Neil Peart’s precision, along with the daring-do of countless others.
“I really just make music to amuse myself more than anything else, because I have to have something to do,” Hawkins told Consequence in 2016, before the release of his solo EP Kota. “I am a creative person. I’m trying to make catchy music.” He elaborated that he was “trying to make the best music I can, but I like to do it quickly… enjoying the process is the most important part to me.”
Hawkins did indeed make a great deal of music during his too-short life. Foo Fighters was terra firma, of course — eight studio albums and a live set, along with some EPs, films (Back and Forth, Studio 666) and a TV series (Sonic Highways). The Foos also put Hawkins in a position to induct Rush, with Grohl, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, and while accepting Foo Fighters’ induction in October 2021, Hawkins thumped the drum for George Michael, Jane’s Addiction and Soundgarden to be voted into the shrine in the future.
He always had a clear view of Foo Fighters and his role in the band as well. “One of the main things about Foo Fighters is it really is Dave’s baby,” he explained in 2006, while supporting the self-titled debut album from Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders. “And I consider me and Nate [Mendel] and Chris [Shiflett] the sort of messengers for Dave’s vision — and I don’t mean in a bad way. He’s just pretty sure about the way he likes the songs to come across and the parts and all that.
“A lot of the weird or quirkier, odd-time stuff I get to do in this setting, with my little band here, wouldn’t really fit with the Foo Fighters.”
Surprisingly, Hawkins said he found his occasional roles as frontman, including the odd song during a Foo Fighters show, to be less stressful than his regular position behind the kit. “I feel less pressure going up there and shaking my ass and singing a song than I do playing the drums,” he said. “The drummer’s got the hardest job, man, ’cause if the drummer fucks up, the band is done. It’s over. It sounds awful.”
Hawkins found a lot of settings in which to make other music, in both roles. Coattails Riders released three albums, while the Birds of Satan, a progressive-minded hard rock side project that paid homage to many of Hawkins’ influence, released a self-titled set in 2014.
He filled the drums stool for Coheed and Cambria briefly, on 2007’s Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World For Tomorrow, and contributed his talents to recordings by Slash, ex-Jane’s Addiction bassist Eric Avery, Foos guitarist Chris Shiflett’s Jackson United and others.
He joined forces with Queen’s Taylor and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith as the SOS Allstars for the 2007 Live Earth concert in London, and was working with Jane’s Addiction’s Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney in another “supergroup,” NHC, which debuted in September 2021 at Eddie Vedder’s Ohana Festival and recorded an EP that’s expected out later in 2022.
“He’s crazy, but everybody loves Taylor,” Smith said a few years ago. “The guy’s just a… riot. He loves to play — LOVES to play. And when you’re around somebody like that, that joy and enthusiasm is so infectious.”
That’s certainly what a legion of Foos and beyond-Foos fans felt about Hawkins over these past nearly 30 years, and what will likely be what resonates after the grief. He was a musician’s musician as well as a fan’s fan, a guy who could make your jaw drop but who you also felt you could have a beer with and talk about your favorite bands — if you could get a word in edgewise once Hawkins started rolling. But listening to that would surely be as much fun as listening to him play.
