While he was at home in between their weekend shows promoting the release of Sonic Highways – their highly anticipated new album out November 10th – I caught up with Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins to talk about the epic record, their upcoming return to Australia, that time they played Goat Island, the state of vinyl, how they feel about Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace seven years later, why Taylor loves Jack White and much more…
Hey Taylor, thanks for chatting to us today – are we catching you at home?
Yeah I’m at home at the moment, getting ready to go to Austin in a few days.
Yeah you seem to be back to how you probably toured in the early days – shows on weekends, work and promo during the week…
Yeah definitely. Some breaks here and there and going out and doing some shows wherever the TV show takes us.
I watched some footage from Voodoo (Fest in New Orleans) over the weekend too.
Yeah, that was amazing that was super fun. New Orleans is about as crazy as anything could be! Truly amazing, I don’t even know how you can even describe that place.
There’s nowhere like it.
There really isn’t.
You played (New Orleans) Jazz Fest in the middle of the day down there a few years back. That must have been an interesting experience.
Yeah, it was pretty hot if I remember correctly. I love it that way.
The last run of shows you guys really did were the Sound City ones… looking back to that period of time, at what point after that did Dave decide to that he’d do Sonic Highways in the way it was done?
Funnily enough, I swear I feel like he had this idea to do the record like this before we did Sound City. Because they’re so connected, it just makes sense that it was before, or around the same time. But I feel like it was before for some reason.
So when the process began, was the order it was done based on studio availability or was there a more concerted decision to say, start in Chicago and end in New York City?
I feel like Chicago was first because that’s where Dave had his first eye opening experience with music that drew him to become a full on musician. But I don’t know how it happened, I don’t know exactly why Chicago was first, or even why “Something From Nothing” was the song for Chicago. Dave seemed to have the whole thing slightly mapped out in his head and we went along with him.
You almost show up and go along with it?
Kind of! In a way yeah. My job is to be the drummer, play a somewhat supportive role… that’s my gig! I don’t do the conceptualizing necessary.
Had you done the conceptualizing would you have mapped things out any differently? Would you have taken the band to, say, Des Moines, Iowa?
*laughs* I don’t know where I would have gone. It probably would have been similar. Maybe Dallas, because I was born there. Maybe Detroit? But I don’t think we needed to do anything different really, I think we kind of nailed it. When you focus on America, there are a handful of cities that are important to us as a band or to the development of American music.
Chicago is there because it’s where the Blues began, but that’s where also where Dave saw Naked Raygun at the Cubby Bear *laughs*, which for his is just as important as the Blues.
The music that I love, most of comes from either Los Angeles or England. There’s California rock and that could be anything from The Byrds to Janes Addiction, or England which is where a lot of my favourite music comes from. So for me, maybe I’d go and do one in England. We can do a whole UK one next. Ireland, Wales, Scotland… let’s do a full UK one. I think someone should do it, someone like the Arctic Monkeys should do a UK version this. If anyone would do it it’d probably be them.
That would be very cool. So let’s talk about the record as a whole. Firstly, one thing I noticed is that you get this feeling, especially on some tracks like the one you recorded in Austin (“What Did I Do/God As My Witness”) that you couldn’t stop jamming. You even fade out as the music continues! This is more of a Jam record than any record I’ve heard from you guys before. Would you agree?
Yeah I think so. The songs are definitely a little broader in their arrangements, like the song from Austin, it went on for another minute or so, with Gary Clark Jr just ripping over that descending, Queen outro. At least that’s the way I hear it. And then not many of these songs are under 4 1/2 minutes, they’re all over that for the most part. In a way, these songs will take more than one listen. It’s not totally immediate.
I feel like “Something From Nothing” worked out really well as the first single, wouldn’t you agree?
Yeah definitely, it serves as a good bridge into the concept and the world that the rest of the record embodies.
It was exciting enough, there was enough of the familiar Foo Fighters thing, but a bit more interesting a well. But all the songs as you mentioned have long jams in the middle, and I like it. It definitely suits me and the stuff that I grew up loving. Everything from old Queen to old prog rocky stuff, Allman Brothers… I like that kind of stuff.
So with those jams in mind, I have to imagine this translates pretty naturally on the stage, in spite of the production?
It does actually. In fact, there’s only a couple of songs that, production wise, might be hard to redo. We’ve already played the first three songs live, The Chicago and DC songs are working really well, “Congregation” from Nashville does too. Maybe the Seattle one and the New York one will probably be the two that will need the most facelift, to make its way to the live stage. New York (“I Am a River”) is such a broad piece of music… it has a crazy string section at the end and has a big production to it. Seattle too.
But looking at, say, “Something From Nothing”, you’ll be missing some of the guitar overdubs but what you hear on the record is pretty much how we play it live. Same can be said for the DC track and “Congregation”. They were both cut in a live fashion.
This is the way that we’ve felt since our last record, Wasting Light, that we need a sound that sounds like we sound. With the record before, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, there were some longer songs there too but the arrangements and the production got so produced to a degree. The guy who produced that record was a stickler for everything being so fucking perfect, mixed through protools and all that kind of shit – and he got it perfect. We didn’t enjoy that experience. That record really led us to Wasting Light, which eventually led us to this approach… a live approach.
And again that reflects my favourite music too. Van Halen’s first record, Black Sabbath and Jane’s Addiction’s first record… they were all basically cut live with a few overdubs. That’s how I like my records. I like some production, but I want to hear what the band sounds like. I want to hear the band.
That’s why I really love people like Jack White, I think he’s had a big part in reminding people of what it sounds like when the drums and guitars are a bit wild and not perfectly in tune. But it has something else.
And he’s helped in the vinyl growth too with Third Man – I know you’re releasing no less than 9 versions of the record in vinyl…
I think vinyl is something that has really organically grown again. CD’s are not things to buy anymore, not a lot of CD stores anymore. They either buy it digitally or they buy the vinyl. I might be off a bit, I don’t know the exact numbers, but it seems to me to be that way. Kids are into really into buying vinyl, if you go into an Urban Outfitters or a store like that here in the States, they sell records (alongside the clothing)! Which I think is a good thing. People are experiencing records, as opposed to an iPod shuffling in the background while they’re shuffling through Facebook.
You mentioned “I Am a River” before, and what an epic way to end the record… you can almost see the New York Firemen and Policemen in a slow motion, black and white music video.
Yeah, it’s almost sappy huh?
But I couldn’t think of a better way to end a record that’s musically sentimental in its very concept.
Yeah, right? I agree. It’s a big ending.
Well we can’t wait to see you down here in Australia. The biggest shows you’ve ever played in our country, especially in Sydney – you thought the last stadium was big!
Yeah, but I also think we’ll fit in some club gigs while we’re there. I love playing stadiums… it’s fun and a spectacle. I think we’ve finally gotten to a point where we’re good at it, and Dave is a great front man, he’s got balls and he can be “that guy”. That bigger than life front man. But I like doing the club shows, too, so hopefully we can fit in all the sizes you know what I mean?
I remember Dave saying that he wanted to do that the next time you came down here, so hopefully you can indeed pull it off! It would be great to see you at the Metro again, or even on an island. How cool was that!
Goat Island was so fucking cool. That was great. We have a picture of that in our studio. I think that was the first ever three hour show we’d ever played. Maybe even more. We like to prove to all those young kids that we could handle it… we can go the distance.
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Sonic Highways airs weekends on GO!. The album is released worldwide on November 10th. The band will be coming to Australia in the New Year. All shows are All Ages. General public on sale from Thursday 13 November with Frontier Members pre-sales on the 11th.
Feb 18, 2015: AMI Stadium, Christchurch
Feb 21, 2015: Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland
Feb 24, 2015: Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Feb 26, 2015: ANZ Stadium, Sydney
Feb 28, 2015: Etihad Stadium, Melbourne
Mar 02, 2015: Derwent Entertainment Centre, Tasmania
Mar 04, 2015: Coopers Stadium, Adelaide
Mar 07, 2015: nib Stadium, Perth
Photo by Johnny Au.
