“It’s so perfect”: The song Taylor Hawkins called his favourite drum track
There are a lot more limited options for a drummer when it comes to serving the song. Occasionally there will be band like Dave Clark Five that build out a song with the drums first, but when someone is stuck in the back for 90% of the time onstage, it’s hard for them to leave an impact without having to leather the crap out of every single drumhead they have in front of them on any given night. And while Taylor Hawkins gave everything he had to get the best drum sound he could for Foo Fighters records, he knew it was important to bow down to those he took influence from.
Then again, it was always going to be difficult expecting to keep up on the same level as Dave Grohl. The Foo Fighters frontman already turned in time in one of the greatest rock and roll bands to walk the Earth, so the idea of having him look over your shoulder to make sure everything’s sounding right is the kind of pressure most wouldn’t wish upon their worst enemy.
But from the minute Hawkins stepped behind the kit, he was joined at the hip with Grohl. Even when they managed to play drums simultaneously during the Sonic Highways era, you would hardly hear any difference when Hawkins was playing by himself, especially when he could fly off the handle as easily as Grohl could when hitting the massive drum break on ‘Best of You’ or the garage rock freakout in the middle of ‘Rope’.
Despite their commonalities, both Grohl and Hawkins are two very different drummers. Grohl was always willing to wear his funk and R&B chops on his sleeve when coming up with the iconic drum opening to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, but Hawkins was rock and roll to his core, always throwing in subtle homages to everyone from Neil Peart of Rush to Stewart Copeland’s virtuoso hi-hat playing in The Police.
By most people’s rock standards, though, hardly anyone can avoid the overarching shadow of Queen. They practically invented the modern idea of what stadium rock could be across their career, and while the main motivation behind most drummers in stadiums is to keep everything incredibly simple, Hawkins still found a lot to love about the finesse Roger Taylor had behind the kit.
Compared to other artists who were known for doing massive drum fills, Hawkins loved how melodic Taylor could be behind the kit, saying, “Queen’s Live Killers was another major influence, though I don’t play anything like Roger Taylor, who’s a really melodic, musical drummer. He’s got a great voice, and he’s a great songwriter. I always looked at him as being more than a drummer. Roger Taylor had personality. There’s a version of ‘Spread Your Wings’ on Live Killers that’s one of my all-time favourite drum tracks. It’s so pocket and so perfect.”
While there will always be some tone freaks who complain that the songs aren’t nearly as orchestrated as they are on the mainline Queen records, the spontaneity of the live show is captured perfectly here. Even if they did do a few touch-ups behind the scenes, there’s no way to replace the drums, and Taylor gives a masterclass in what can be done with a crowd of that capacity and two sticks in your hands.
If there’s one thing that Taylor taught Hawkins throughout his career, it’s about never taking a second of time for granted. And despite Hawkins no longer being with us, he always understood the importance of playing every single note like it was the last thing that he would ever get to play.
