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Somebody to Love: A Tribute to Taylor Hawkins

Somebody to Love: A Tribute to Taylor Hawkins. Dave Dierksen discusses the impact Hawkins’ had on his life as well as others, along with a Spotify playlist highlighting his body of work.

I heard about Taylor Hawkins’ death in the middle of the night, checking my phone while I let my dog out. While still in shock, I went back to sleep, maybe hoping it was a dream. The next morning, I woke up feeling a sadness like I’d never felt for any of the other many musical heroes that have passed since Kurt Cobain’s death rattled my 17-year-old self 28 years ago. 

And I couldn’t at first put my finger on why this one hurt so much more than all the others. 

Yes, Foo Fighters are my favorite band, but even by Taylor’s own admission, Foo Fighters are not a democracy. Dave Grohl writes the vast majority of the songs, and any additional flourishes presented by the other band members, including Hawkins, has to be blessed by him. In other words, Taylor Hawkins’ influence on the music of Foo Fighters is probably somewhat minimal.

Yes, Taylor Hawkins is a talented drummer, and I am a drummer, but speaking honestly, one of the reasons I lift so much of my playing from Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins is that it’s serviceable to the music and not overtly technical. In other words, as a drummer with a limited skill set, I feel like I can kinda sorta get close to what those guys achieve, unlike say, someone like Neil Peart whose talent as a drummer was awe inspiring because I could never do what he did.

Yes, I am a fan of Taylor’s solo/side projects. As much as I love the Foo Fighters, there have been times when I’ve wished they’d embrace their more abrasive punk and hard rock elements for a full album. And then I heard The Birds of Satan (man, what a name), the Taylor Hawkins 2014 project with his bandmates from cover band Chevy Metal. It’s heavy, it’s glammy, it’s proggy – it’s a stew of all of Taylor’s influences. It’s not completely out of the Foo Fighters’ wheelhouse, but it’s weird! Probably too weird for Foo Fighters. If the Foo Fighters were never to stray too far outside their pop sensibilities, this would be the next best thing. And it holds true for Taylor’s work with the Coattail Riders and NHC, a supergroup with Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney. 

Not for nothing, these solo records also allowed Taylor to really cut loose on drums in a way he rarely does on Foo Fighters records. I hope out of this tragedy, Foo Fighter naysayers take the time to dig into Taylor’s music because there is a lot there to love.

And yet, for all the big swings Taylor took with his relatively small side project/solo output, his hit-to-miss ratio on a personal level isn’t as strong as Grohl’s songs. I really dig the music, but its influence and impact on me is minimal compared to Foo Fighters.

So what is it?

I’ve recently started playing drums in a rock and roll band for the first time in a couple of decades. There were a lot of things I missed – the physical act of playing and the camaraderie – but one of the things I didn’t realize I missed until I started back up again is harder to describe. I’d call it “maximizing the rock.” It’s one thing to have great songs and to be able to execute them in a live setting. Sometimes that’s enough. BUT… the perfectly executed setlist, a goose-bump inducing song transition, the light show during a particular track – some would call this superfluous gravy, but for me, this is where the FUN resides. This is what makes the SHOW. Even outside the show, I think about how to add some spice to a song – a beat hiccup here, a monster fill there, a vocal break right here – things that you don’t hear coming. Could be subtle. Could be audacious. Always surprisingly gratifying. That’s what makes rock and roll fun for me. I am not a great musician, and I am not a great songwriter, but I like to think I am a good “idea guy.”

And that is one reason I loved Taylor Hawkins. He was THE “idea guy.”

Think about Foo Fighters before Taylor Hawkins joined. You had two members of Sunny Day Real Estate, who despite its name, was a VERY serious, earnest indie rock band that I suspect rarely played venues much larger than clubs before they initially imploded. You had Pat Smear, whose primary claim to fame was trudging the trenches of the LA punk scene in the Germs before years later joining Nirvana right at the beginning of the end. And then Dave Grohl, a lover of all things rock, but who had primarily cut his teeth in the punk rock scene. His “arena rock” pedigree was built within a 2-year period with Nirvana, and that rapid ascension is arguably what contributed to Kurt Cobain’s untimely demise. Kurt Cobain, at least in public, expressed disdain for the bells, whistles, and big to-do’s associated with the arena rock bands of his youth. To him, that kind of shit was superfluous gravy that distracted from the music. 

So my God, how much of a beacon in the night must Taylor Hawkins have been? On the surface (though sadly, maybe not underneath), he was the antithesis of Kurt Cobain. He was the guy who convinced Foo Fighters to use a similar lighting rig as Queen when they went out with the Chili Peppers on tour. He encouraged the band to be bigger and bolder, to aspire to be one of the greats – Van Halen, Queen, Rush, The Police, Bowie – he wanted to be THAT BIG. And give fans the spectacle and joy those bands brought him. Big lights, big show, big antics – this was not superfluous gravy – these turned good bands into live legends. He wanted the Foo Fighters to be legendary!

And look, that’s not to say Dave Grohl wasn’t an “idea guy” himself or didn’t want Foo Fighters to be fun before Taylor joined. Foo Fighters showed a sense of humor right out the gate with their Mentos commercial-inspired “Big Me” video. But the other guys in the band were the straight men (check out Foo Fighters documentary “Back and Forth” to hear bassist Nate Mendel’s initial reticence about super outgoing Taylor joining the band). One thing about being an “idea guy” is that it’s a lot easier to get said ideas off the ground if there is at least another “idea guy” in the band to co-sign your ideas. 

Enter Taylor Hawkins. His similar mentality to Dave’s not only would have made it easier to steer the band in a “big rock” direction, but it gave Dave a partner-in-crime off whom to bounce ideas. The result, for better or worse depending on who you ask, is a band that releases Bee Gees cover records, still films hilarious videos, and includes multiple covers of classic rock bands in their sets. Foo Fighters didn’t have to be this way. They could have allowed their public persona to be as earnest as many of the songs they write, but that would not have been as fun for the rest of us!

Taylor Hawkins was so in awe of his classic rock idols that when he acquired the clout to do whatever he wanted on the side, he formed a cover band that allowed him to play the songs of his heroes to whoever would show up. One of the features of recent Foo Fighters tours is the mid-set band introduction/mini-set of covers that allows Dave to play drums and Taylor to sing. While this diversion admittedly takes time away from hearing more Foo originals, the nightly stunt immediately turns a huge concert into an intimate house party. It breaks down the barrier between “big rock star” and ordinary fan, showing the audience, “Hey, we’re just fans of rock and roll like you.”

And that’s just it. Taylor was just like us. He wasn’t a rock star. He was an uber-fan who Dave Grohl metaphorically picked out of the crowd to play drums, and he just kept on doing it, never taking it for granted. When you look at the numerous tributes that have come in, I’m struck by the wide array of artists he impacted not on a musical level but something much deeper – Death Angel, Metallica, Anthrax, but also Brandi Carlisle, but also Huey Lewis and the News, BUT ALSO Richard friggin’ Marx! They don’t comment on how great a drummer he was. They comment on what a beautiful human he was. If he loved your music – and he loved soooo much music – he loved you. 

That’s why it hurts so much. We mourn the artists whose art brought us so much joy and comfort over the years. We mourn them even though we didn’t know much about them personally, maybe even if they were inscrutable weirdos or assholes. But who is more impactful – the artist who creates a singular, immutable work that makes you feel good for a while, or the person who accomplishes the same just by being in your presence? For me, it’s the latter. Good art can make me feel less lonely but not as much as a direct relationship with another human being. 

When an artist whose work I love dies, I hurt for me. When a Taylor Hawkins dies, I hurt for everyone who knew him. I can only imagine how those who actually knew him are feeling right now. I suspect the impact will be resonating for years. Godspeed, Taylor. I don’t know why the brightest souls sometimes harbor the deepest demons, but I do hope your spirit is still out there continuing the good work.

RIP Taylor Hawkins, 1972-2022

Taylor Hawkins Playlist

 

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