“Really cool to watch”: The Britpop drummer Taylor Hawkins called the new Keith Moon
Is talent innate within us all? It’s certainly a wide-ranging debate to be had but if you look at it from a musical perspective, there’s certainly a compelling case to be made for drummers, the backbone of every live outfit and the beating heart of every record. For Taylor Hawkins, growing up on the sun-soaked streets of California was not only a muse for creative energies and free spirits, but also a self-taught education on a trajectory from pots and pans to a proper kit, that would ultimately change his life.
As he gradually climbed the ranks of the industry, providing the beat to Alanis Morisette before making the leap to join the Foo Fighters, Hawkins truly whipped up an appetite not just for his own sonic rapture, but to guide the next generation of drummers through the world and eventually on to the stratospheric heights that he was getting to experience. But every so often within this, he’d find a special soul whose rhythm and purpose flowed straight from their sticks off the stage, as if the whole reason they’d been put on Earth was to play the drums – and Danny Goffey was that special one.
The Supergrass stick-smith bore a searing resemblance to Hawkins’ own drumming prophecy, learning the ropes of the instrument not through professional experience but by jamming out with his friends, hammering chopsticks on lunchboxes in the school cafeteria to capture a beat. What with having such a divine talent, his progression to sitting behind the kit as a career was only natural – and was exactly the circumstances under which he fell into Hawkins’ orbit.
Recalling the experience of first setting eyes on Goffey, Hawkins enthused in a 2006 interview: Danny is a great guy, he’s really cool to watch. Danny is the new Keith Moon of drumming, he will never keep the same tempo playing to the same song twice.” It was high praise indeed, but one that was not unjustified given the hungry eye that the Foo Fighters drummer always had for fresh talent behind the kit.
Moon was an obvious comparison to make in this case, as a figure of religious worship and a guiding light to both Hawkins and Goffey in their respective careers, paving the way for a series of drumming protégés through every erratic smash of the hi-hat. But as much as Moon was the seminal inspiration to the pair, what was most fascinating was how Hawkins and Goffey would spark off on each other, having largely been cut from the same cloth.
They were both self-taught wonders of the game, battering out beats on household objects during their halcyon days of childhood before the real world came along and their dreams took flight. Perhaps it was their similar beginnings or simply drummer’s intuition, but the pair gravitated towards each other and subsequently formed a magnetic friendship over the years that no doubt was a vital support network as much as it was also a musical muse.
With Goffey sadly now the sole surviving member of that drumming lineage, the responsibility now weighs on his shoulders to find the maestro of the next generation and harvest their talent forward into the light. If he ever doubts himself, he only has to look to the stars of Moon and Hawkins for guidance, as the path already laid for future drummers by them can only continue to keep being drawn.
