The artist that Joe Walsh called a “spoiled brat”
For all of his good-natured humour, Joe Walsh has never been one to suffer fools gladly. He may be known as the knockabout uncle type of figure when working in the Eagles, but he always delivered whenever he stepped on that stage to play. Nothing would get in Walsh’s way when performing, and he wasn’t afraid to put Taylor Hawkins in his place when he thought Foo Fighters had become too much.
Then again, Walsh has been no stranger to band tension. Even though he had his own outfit with the James Gang and his eventual solo career, he was also on the stage the night that everything went to hell for the Eagles, culminating in Don Felder and Glenn Frey fighting in between songs.
Compared to every other ego-fuelled rock star, Walsh was known to lay back into the groove and let everything work itself out. Considering how little time he spent trying to argue with his bandmates, he was busy studying the guitarists that came before him, having the kind of delicate touch that can only come from years of practice.
It’s not like Hawkins never took that to heart, either. Throughout his time with Foo Fighters, Hawkins was known to put in 150% whenever they played live, even improving on the studio versions of the songs that he was playing. Though playing next to Dave Grohl is no small feat for any drummer, Hawkins was the only one who could fill his shoes after the expulsion of founding member William Goldsmith.
Over the course of his career, Hawkins would find himself becoming good friends with Walsh, having loved listening to the James Gang when he was little. Outside of seeing him live on various occasions, Hawkins marvelled at what Walsh contributed to the song ‘Outside’ from Sonic Highways, thinking a handful of notes from him were better than anything anyone else put on the song.
With all those years of wear and tear, though, there comes a moment when anyone starts to feel the fatigue. Instead of sitting around crying about being in pain, Hawkins would eventually get the kind of pep talk that he needed from Walsh, inspiring his solo song ‘Get the Money’ in the process.
When talking about his solo tracks, Hawkins remembered Walsh taking him to task for complaining about having the best job in the world, saying, “When I called Joe to cry about being on tour for too long and, ‘My legs are tired, my hands are tired, I miss my kids,’ and all that stuff, he said, ‘You know, get the money and shut the hell up, you spoiled brat’”.
Although Hawkins learned to live with some of the pain, he would only get the chance to play his heart out for a few more years, eventually passing away while on tour with Foo Fighters in 2022. Despite Walsh’s harsh assessment of Hawkins’s work ethic, he knew that he was in the presence of greatness whenever he watched him perform behind the drums.
