Late Taylor Hawkins Reminisces on the First Time He Played the Drums in Final On-Camera Interview
Taylor Hawkins reflected on his love for the drums in his final on-camera interview. On Thursday, Greenwich Entertainment released the trailer for Let There Be Drums!, a documentary about the world’s greatest percussionists, and it features a sit-down chat with the late Foo Fighter.
“The second I sat on the drums, it was like a bolt of lightning went through my body,” he says in the trailer. “I’ll never forget that day.”
The two-minute trailer teases interviews from some of his fellow iconic musicians, including the Beatles’ Ringo Star, Grateful Dead’s Bill Kreutzmann, and Guns N’ Roses’ Matt Sorum. Filmmaker Justin Kreutzmann, the son of Bill Kreutzmann, directed the picture, which will come out Oct. 28.
“Some might say this was ‘the film I was born to make,’ others might call it therapy,” Justin told Rolling Stone over the summer. “Since I was young and my dad gave me that first Super-8 camera, filmmaking is all I’ve wanted to do.”
“It started as a fun little film with all the drummers I’ve gotten to know over the years,” he added. “It wasn’t until Taylor Hawkins stopped our interview and said, ‘Maybe this isn’t for this documentary, but what was your home life like?’ I found from then on, I was having a dialogue with these amazing drummers instead of just a Q&A. They were as interested in hearing about my dad, Jerry Garcia, and the Grateful Dead as I was about their bands and their lives. So a really interesting thing happened, the film became more about family, but these families just happened to be drummers.”
The documentary’s trailer comes just several weeks after the Foo Fighters hosted a tribute concert to honor Hawkins’ life, featuring appearances from the likes of Alanis Morissette, Miley Cyrus, Motley Crue, and Def Leppard.
“If any of you have ever had the blessing to have spent time with Taylor Hawkins, you’ll know that that dude could make you fucking smile and dance and laugh and sing,” Grohl said onstage in L.A. “So what we’ve done is we brought an even fucking crazier cast of characters for you tonight… by the people that Taylor loved and by the people that loved Taylor.”
Foo Fighters also performed “My Hero” with Hawkins’ 16-year-old son Shane.
Hawkins died in late March at age 50. A toxicology report indicated that at the time of his death, Hawkins had ten substances in his system, including opioids and benzodiazepines.
