The greatest drummer of all time, according to Taylor Hawkins
The late Foo Fighters member Taylor Hawkins was a maestro behind the drum kit, leaving an irreplaceable gaping hole in the musical landscape. Throughout his career, Hawkins was always willing to give credit to those who helped mould him into one of the finest drummers of his generation, and there’s one particular name he often referenced more than most.
Hawkins was unapologetically obsessed with prog-rock, and his first love was the Canadian group Rush. Rush were the gateway into a new world for Hawkins, and soon enough, his taste in music began to delve deeper into the genre. While his adoration of Rush’s Neil Peart was critical to his career, the future Foo Fighters man developed a new favourite drummer once he discovered Phil Collins and Genesis.
Both Peart and Collins were always listed by Hawkins whenever the topic of his favourite drummers came up, along with Queen’s Roger Taylor and Yes’ Stewart Copeland. While they were all his heroes, whenever Hawkins discussed the work of Collins, there was a different tone to his words compared with the rest.
That distinction speaks to something deeper than simple admiration. For Hawkins, Collins wasn’t just a technically gifted drummer but a complete musician who blurred the line between rhythm and melody, proving that a player behind the kit could also command the front of the stage without sacrificing any of their musical identity.
It’s that duality that clearly resonated most. Where others inspired Hawkins to refine his technique, Collins seemed to unlock a broader perspective on what a drummer could be, encouraging a sense of musicality that went beyond precision and into expression. In that sense, his influence wasn’t just audible in Hawkins’ playing, but embedded in the way he approached music as a whole.
During an interview with the AP, Hawkins once referred to Collins as “one of my favourite drummers ever”. Detailing further, he added: “You know, people forget that he was a great drummer as well as a sweater-wearing nice guy from the ’80s, poor fella.”
Meanwhile, in an interview about his music taste, Hawkins told Louder Sound: “It was thanks to Rush that I got into Genesis. After listening to Neil, I bought the Seconds Out live album, which was released in 1977. It’s just amazing. Not only hearing Phil Collins playing the drums, but also singing. He gets a really bad rap from some people for ‘daring’ to take over after Peter Gabriel quit, but you just hear the way he sounds here. The beauty of this album is that it’s got songs from A Trick Of The Tail, the first album Genesis did without Gabriel.”
In the same interview, Hawkins described Collins as “an incredible drummer” and said everyone who has aspirations to become a drummer needs to “check him out”. Additionally, he rounded off the message by simply saying, “the man is a master”.
Following Hawkins’ tragic death, Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme fondly remembered his late friend’s obsessive love of Collins. In a statement, he recalled: “Taylor used call me at 6:30 in the morning to tell me what a great drummer Phil Collins was. He was such a fan of music…and Phil Collins. I used to tell him how I’d kill him if he ever called me that early again… so, he called me kept calling me at 6:30… for years….bastard. How I miss those calls.”
It’s unclear whether Collins knew how deeply his music impacted Hawkins and if they ever got to hang out or even jam together. However, if it wasn’t for the Genesis man, the late Foo Fighters drummer’s approach to his instrument likely would have been completely different.
