Conor Guilfoyle on Taylor Hawkins: "There is no Beatles without Ringo, and there is no Foo Fighters without Taylor Hawkins"

Opinion
25 Apr 22

The Hot Press Newsdesk

On March 25, 2022, the terrible news went out across the wires, the cables and the routers that Taylor Hawkins had died in his room in the Four Seasons Hotel Casa Medina Bogota, in the capital city of Columbia, Bogotá where his band Foo Fighters were on tour. As part of a special tribute in the current issue of Hot Press, some of Ireland’s greatest drummers pay tribute.

Conor Guilfoyle

Jazz drummer and founder of the Jazz programme at Newpark Academy of Music

Back about 10 years ago, I was asked to do a load of transcriptions to help write the drum curriculum for a music college in town. Among that stack was Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters, and I was immediately struck by how unusually he constructed his rhythms.

What I quickly realised with Hawkins was that the drum stuff he played was part of the music, and the music was a part of the drums. It was such an intrinsic part of the band, completely symbiotic. It’s like Ringo Starr with The Beatles: he’s part of the sound. There is no Beatles without Ringo, and there is no Foo Fighters without Taylor Hawkins.

No innovations, or great drummers, come from clinics; it happens from inside the music. So the fact that Taylor Hawkins is self-taught is another element, because it means he’s caught up in his soul. It’s not as if he learned some beats in his bedroom and has this rote technique, speed and flash - he’s a very creative, musical guy himself. People are still aspiring to be as good a drummer as Taylor Hawkins.

He was part of the Foo Fighters, and the Foo Fighters were part of him. To have that unique bond taken away – it’s a real tragedy.

Read the full Taylor Hawkins tribute in our current issue.