Rockers fume over Taylor Hawkins article in Rolling Stone
Earlier this week, Rolling Stone magazine released a piece entitled “Inside Taylor Hawkins’ Final Days as a Foo Fighter,” detailing the weeks leading up to the shocking death of the drummer who was found dead in his hotel room March 25 before Foo Fighters played a show in Bogota, Colombia.
The lengthy article quoted a number of sources close to Hawkins who claimed he had major reservations about the amount of live performances the band were making in the wake of the recent Covid-19 pandemic, and that at 50 years of age he was tiring of the grind. Many of those quoted were unnamed at their request, but others went on record, including two well-known fellow rock drummers.
Matt Cameron, who sits behind the kit for Pearl Jam and played with Soundgarden until singer Chris Cornell’s death in 2017, told Rolling Stone Hawkins relayed to him that he, “couldn’t do it anymore — those were his words,” and said the drummer had a heart to heart with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl about it.
Like the majority of the assertions in the piece, Foo Fighters representatives said nothing of the sort ever took place and Hawkins never raised any objections to the band’s touring schedule.
Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith was also quoted in Rolling Stone, saying Hawkins had a scary incident on a plane ride to Chicago in December which further exacerbated his need to scale back.
“He just said he was exhausted and collapsed, and they had to pump him full of IVs and stuff,” Smith said. “He was dehydrated and all kinds of stuff.”
Understandably, the article caused quite a bit of controversy, both due to the revelations that Hawkins wanted to dial it back and was rebuffed, as well as the spokespeople for the band denying almost everything said. Hours after the story was published, both Cameron and Smith took to their respective social media platforms intimating they were misled as to the true nature of what Rolling Stone were looking to accomplish.
“When I agreed to be featured in a Rolling Stone article about Taylor, I assumed it would be a celebration of his life and work,” Cameron posted to Instagram. “My quotes were taken out of context and turned into a narrative that I never intended. Taylor was a dear friend and next level artist. I have the deepest love and respect for Taylor, Dave and the Foo Fighters families. I am sincerely sorry that I took part in this interview, and I apologize that my participation could cause harm to those for whom I have only the deepest respect and admiration.”
“Taylor was one of my best friends and I would do anything for his family,” echoed Smith on his own Instagram. “Rolling Stone asked me to share some memories of our time together and I thought that would be the tribute he deserved. Instead, the story they wrote was sensational and misleading, and had I known, I would never have agreed to participate.”
“I apologize to his family and fellow musicians for any pain this may have caused,” he added. “I miss Taylor every day.”
To date, there hasn’t been an official cause of Hawkins’ death revealed, although a preliminary report out of Bogota stated 10 substances were found in his system including marijuana, opioids, antidepressants and benzodiazepines. It also said the drummer had an enlarged heart up to two times its normal size.
Neither Grohl nor any of the other Foo Fighters have spoken yet publicly about Hawkins death other than an official statement following his passing. All the band’s live dates for the foreseeable future were cancelled.
VINYL OF THE WEEK
Keep an eye on this spot as each week we’ll be looking at new or soon-to-be-released vinyl from a variety of artists. It might be a repressing of a landmark recording,
special edition or new collection from a legendary act. This week, it’s a reissue campaign from a unique pop rock outfit experiencing a resurgence in popularity.
SPARKS: ‘21ST CENTURY SPARKS’
There’s never been a better time to be a Sparks fan, as levels of interest in the work of Ron and Russell Mael are at a height unseen since their 1970s breakthrough. Much of it is due to last year’s acclaimed career-spanning documentary film on the Southern California duo, ‘The Sparks Brothers.’
Most casual fans know how Sparks’ career moved through many phases, including art rock, glam, big band swing, electrodisco, new wave and synthpop, taking in collaborations with the likes of Todd Rundgren, Tony Visconti, Giorgio Moroder and Franz Ferdinand along the way. Their popularity spiked unpredictably in different territories at different times in places like Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Japan and here in the United States.
Sparks are celebrating their postmillennial renaissance with the ‘21st Century Sparks’ collection of five deluxe reissues from, well, their new millennia output. Already released in late April were ‘Balls’ (2000), ‘Lil’ Beethoven’ (2002) and ‘Hello Young Lovers’ (2006). Next Friday sees the remainder in ‘Exotic Creatures of the Deep’ (2008) and ‘The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman’
(2009).
All the releases — a number of which have been out of print for years and much sought after by Sparks collectors — have been specially remastered for the collection, with an array of bonus material, much of it previously unreleased. The two most recent releases — ‘Hippopotamus’ (2017) and ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’ (2020) — complete the collection on 21st Century material and are both available now.
If there’s a gap in the knowledge of Sparks newcomers or even longterm admirers, it might be from the crucial period in the 2000s between the “Crackerjack Years” of their first flushes of fame and their current success, when the duo rediscovered their muse and released some of their finest albums. In a way, it also served to plot out the path of an extraordinary renaissance for the Mael brothers. Now into their sixth decade of making music, Sparks have never been more relevant. The ‘21st Century Sparks’ collection shows exactly how they got here.
‘21st Century Sparks’ can be found online and in stores from all respectable retailers who carry vinyl.