Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters drummer who has passed away suddenly aged 50, was a throwback to an older kind of rock star. When the Foos played Dublin’s RDS in August 2019, Hawkins was as much the star as frontman David Grohl.
Whether laying down the sort of flamboyant, look-at-me solos that supposedly went out out of fashion circa Queen or Mötley Crüe or leading the audience through a Freddie Mercury-style call and response routine he was more than the guy behind the drum kit. He was the group’s heart and soul – a rock n’ roll bad boy in an age when musicians are increasingly dull and “relatable”.
It was that larger-than-life irascibility that drew Hawkins to Grohl, as, in 1997, Foo Fighters began their transformation from post-Nirvana grunge moochers to the stadium rockers who would one day headline Slane.
Having left Alanis Morissette’s touring band to become Grohl’s lieutenant, Hawkins, lanky and with flailing strawberry blond hair, immediately changed the chemistry of Foo Fighters.
This became clear to Grohl as they went on tour. When they checked in at their first hotel, Hawkins asked that they be upgraded to more luxurious accommodation because they were rock stars. Grohl was appalled. Having come up through the Washington DC punk scene and then the grunge movement in Seattle, this, for him, was a textbook example of selling out.
Still, the hotel gave the upgrade and Hawkins flashed his winning smile and Grohl had a vision of Foo Fighters growing into something more than an angsty afterword to Nirvana.
Hawkins, who grew up in <a class="search" href='javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:"7.1213540", $action:"view", $target:"work"})' polopoly:contentid="7.1213540" polopoly:searchtag="tag_location">Laguna Beach</a> <a class="search" href='javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:"7.1213540", $action:"view", $target:"work"})' polopoly:contentid="7.1213540" polopoly:searchtag="tag_location">California</a> and brought a glamorous California sensibility made being a rock star look fun. And he never saw himself as a rival to Grohl
Along with the dynamic drumming, Hawkins had a charming irascibility. I saw this for myself interviewing the band in 2011. In a hotel lobby in London, a French journalist, unhappy with how his time with the musicians had gone, started to shout and sputter.
Everybody stopped and stared. Except for Hawkins who immediately strode across the room and gave the man a hug. “Duuuude ...” he began and something about the way he drawled the word made it feel like a panacea to the journalist, who immediately calmed down (though he did still depart in a strop).
Later that morning Hawkins spoke about what he and Dave Grohl had in common – and how their friendship was a catalysing force for the Foo Fighters.
“In some ways, we’re like brothers. We’re very alike. Okay, Dave is a lot more together than I am. But our sense of humour is identical. When we first met , it was like, ‘oh we’re long lost brothers. Are you sure my mom’s not your mom?’ When you’re that close, more family than friend, well ... families fight way worse than friends do. I don’t think we argue a lot, necessarily. But the tendency to be [argumentative] with each other from time to time is way more there. On the other hand, I would kill somebody for Dave.”
They had their ups-and-downs along the way. When Grohl put the Foo Fighters on hiatus to drum with Queens of the Stone Age, Hawkins feared that was the end. Instead they came back better – and bigger. The lesson Hawkins took away from that brief falling-out was that friendship was more important than success.
“Dave has to go out and not be a frontman every now and then. Sometimes he has to go out and be a drummer – not be the one writing the songs,” he told me.
“There’s a lot of pressure there. After that happened, the band opened up a lot more. It became less us against the world, everybody is the competition. Which was kind of lame. But look, we were young. I was in my 20s. I wanted to be the biggest band in the world at the time. Now,it’ s not really part of my scope.”
Drumming with a group as big as the Foos – their latest album Medicine at Midnight went to number one in Ireland and they recently released a spoof horror-film Studio 666 – had obvious pressures.
But Hawkins, who grew up in Laguna Beach California and brought a glamorous California sensibility made being a rock star look fun. And he never saw himself as a rival to Grohl, who, as stickman in Nirvana, was regarded as one of the great drummers ever.
“Our drumming styles are completely different, so you can’t really even compare us,” he told me once. “Plus, there are advantages. If you’ve got two drummers in the studio, well – let’s just say, we really know how to rock out.”
