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Taylor Hawkins Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins And The Coattail Riders

- Simon Young

For as long as he can remember, music has always been part of Taylor Hawkins’ life. Growing up on a diet of The Beatles, Bee Gees and “the pop of the day”, just as he began to play drums at the age of 10, he scored tickets to see Queen perform at the newly-built Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on September 11, 1982.

The band, who were touring North America that year in support of their latest album, Hot Space, irrevocably changed the young Taylor’s life. With a setlist which opened with Flash and closed with We Are The Champions, it’s not hard to see why it had such an emotional impact.

“After that concert, I don’t think I slept for three days,” he remembers today. “It changed everything, and I was never the same because of it. It was the beginning of my obsession with rock’n’roll, and I knew that I wanted to be in a huge rock band after seeing Queen. I was just starting to get into the drums, and [Queen skinsman] Roger Taylor became my hero. I remember telling my mom that I’d play there one day.”

Alongside Queen, albums by Rush, The Police, Genesis and Van Halen began to dominate his listening habits as he learned to play the drums.

“It was such a good time to be influenced by drummers,” he says. “I would steal stuff wholesale from [Rush drummer] Neil Peart licks, to Phil Collins and Alex Van Halen. Even the stuff that was on the radio, there was so much good music. Even the bad music was good back then.”