Friday, September 30, 2005

taylor talks: a conversation with foo fighters drummer taylor hawkins

When it came time to replace former Foo Fighter William Goldsmith in the figurative hot seat – you know, the drum stool behind the most famous rock drummer since Keith Moon – Dave Grohl reached out and plucked a young Taylor Hawkins from the maelstrom that was Alanis Morrissette’s career. That was eight years ago. Hawkins is still strapped in as Grohl’s anchor and, from his hotel room in Germany as the band headlined its way through the European summer festival circuit, he’s got a few things to say about living la vida rock ‘n’ roll.

* * *

We’re in Munich right now, and we’re not even doing a show in Munich. Where are we doing a show? I don’t know where we’re doing a show. Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that typical?
Because we’re doing these festival shows it doesn’t feel like a tour. It feels like appearances almost or something. You know what I mean? That sounds strange, but it’s kind of the little things that make things different. The food, you know, and the language barriers, even though most people here speak a lot of English.
I enjoy it more now than I used to. I mean, the first time I came to Europe it was all really exciting, just because you’ve never been there, you know, and everything’s new and everything’s weird and everything’s different. And then like once you become a crusty old bastard, you know, a boring bunch, you’re kind of like, Ah, I wish I could have a fucking burrito right now. You know, the typical things, because it’s just work literally.
I mean, I look around a lot more now than I used to, because I used to be all about the nightlife sort of situation. When I was younger, in my 20s, it was about going out and getting fucking plastered and trying to get laid every night.
But now that I’ve grown up a little bit and kind of grown out of that I tend to spend more time kind of looking around. On show days, I really take it easy. I really don’t do much on show days. I try not to. I don’t go for long walks or anything because what I do is pretty physical. I find that I perform best when I’m sort of easy and calm all day.

* * *

A lot of hard things about shows for me are just dealing with stage fright and stuff like that. I mean, I still have the gnarly, insane butterflies before shows. What you try and do is kind of lose yourself in the show, you know. You play better if you’re not having to think about it.
It’s that thing where like you don’t want to lose that to a certain degree because I think it definitely creates a certain energy. But at the same time, it would be nice just to be really comfortable once in a while, because you know you play a little bit better when you’re a little calmer and more relaxed. So it’s just a combination of feelings that you get when you go onstage. It just can be exhausting mentally, really.
I mean, that’s the most exhausting thing on the road for me. It’s not the traveling. It’s the sort of – and this sounds like a wimpy fucking thing - but like it’s the mental anguish I go through every day before I go onstage.


* * *

Who’s my favorite drummer? Well, you know, I have three guys that I loved for all three different reasons when I was kid. I loved Stewart Copeland (The Police) for not only his technique but his energy. I mean, he was a ball of fucking energy, you know. He gave Sting balls basically, I think, which he doesn’t have anymore, in case you haven’t noticed. He’s a brilliant songwriter. I just think he needed that smartass American behind him going, You’re a fucking kook, dude, to make his music kind of have balls, you know what I mean? So Stewart Copeland’s probably my most major influence, and probably the guy I rip off most blatantly.
Roger Taylor (Queen) was a big influence on me. Partly because of his sort of musicality, his orchestrated sort of style of drumming, you know. Because of the music that Queen did, he almost was coming from almost like a Hal Blaine thing, you know. He played very orchestrated-wise. Plus, he had just an awesome rock voice. I don’t know if you know, but like he sang on almost every Queen record. And he had that really high voice. Nobody realizes in “Bohemian Rhapsody” the highest voice back there is his, this screeching witch voice. And you know, I just thought he was cool, too.
The other guy which, you know, God strike me down, I will be forever kicked out of the book of hipness for saying this, is Phil Collins. You say, Phil Collins, and everybody just all of sudden gets “Sussudio” in their heads, you know. But I got turned on to like the early prog rock Genesis stuff when I was a kid. Most people don’t realize that he is really and truly a gifted drummer.

* * *

I don’t really see myself as totally that famous. I see Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston as famous, you know. And I may even see Dave as famous to a certain degree, but I don’t see myself as famous. You know, all day long people don’t run up to me and go, You’re the drummer in the Foo Fighters. I mean, that happens every once in a while but not all the time.
And when someone asks for your autograph you feel like it’s kind of like a joke. It’s not like someone really signing an autograph. You’re just kind of writing on this piece of paper going, Oh God, that really means something. Right. It doesn’t mean anything. It’ll probably be in the trash on the way home, you know. And that’s the way I see it. Really I see myself as a fan who got lucky enough to be in a band, you know, that’s on MTV every once in a while.

* * *

One of the funniest memories I have when I was with Alanis is I remember I was off tour for, you know, three days or whatever because we never stopped, and I was driving somewhere with my brother and we were listening to the Foo Fighters record, and he said, You should be in this band. And I said, Fuck, I wish.
And then we did shows with them and I made friends with Dave and all the guys in the band, even the drummer Will, you know. I didn’t think, you know, he was going to get kicked out of the band or quit or whatever happened really. You know, I thought they were just going to be. They were a band, you know.
But when I joined the band I loved the first album so dearly. I mean, there were three albums I had that year that I just played over and over and over, and they were the first Foo Fighters album and Jeff Buckley’s
Grace – fucking beautiful, I think – and Supergrass’ first record, which I loved too. You know, I was just so overjoyed.
I was playing with Alanis, and that was cool and great and I saw the world and did lots of neat things and was in kind of the biggest act in the world at that period of time. But you were just kind of a piece of the machine sort of, and I feel less like that with the Foo Fighters obviously. I feel like, you know, one of the messengers of Dave’s music.
Now we’re all involved to a certain degree, but you have to let go of your ego a little bit. And you even have to let go of your ego when you’re creating music with Dave, you know, and realize that this guy’s got the vision, and part of that vision is his, you know, drumming style and stuff. We’ve gotten really comfortable with the last two records. It’s kind of realizing the drum parts together to certain degree. He comes up with the basic framework of what he wants the rhythm to be like, but he’s not a hoggish person in that way.
Fuck, I have a song on this record, on the acoustic record. One of the songs on that record is my song, which just goes to show right there that he is not the control freak that a lot of people kind of think he is.

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