Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, in a new interview with LiveXLive promoting the Rock in Rio 2019 festival, discussed the time period when Dave Grohl almost quit Foo Fighters. This Dave Grohl punching ‘Threat’ at a recent Foo Fighters show was just dropped. During the interview, Hawkins discusses with the interviewer, Matt Pinfield how the band went through a rough period in time and recalled one of the few moments in Foo Fighters’ history that the band considered: “maybe we won’t be around”. The Foo Fighters drummer also revealed how much Dave Grohl pays them during the same interview.
Taylor Hawkins: We’ve just been around for so long and we just kind of keep hammering. I mean, there’s only a few times where it’s like: “Okay, maybe we won’t be around.”
Matt Pinfield: I mean, yeah it was documented well in that documentary, Back and Forth. I love that documentary.
Hawkins: Yeah, Back and Forth. We went through a rough period, sort of a seven-year-itch if you will and I think it was the seventh year of the band. We made it through all of that crap, then after that, we just never stopped and have never stopped. Well, we all have side projects that we talk about. For example, I have my cover band Chevy Metal, I’m always making records and Dave [Grohl] does his own things, he did that play thing last year as well the band with John Paul Jones and Josh [Homme]. Those things, as we grow older, instead of seeming like: “Oh, they are gonna break up because Dave is playing on the Queens of the Stone Age record”, it’s not really a factor anymore. Dave Grohl revealed if this Foo Fighters member was fired last month.
Pinfield: Not at all, right? Because you guys know you’re always gonna go back to what’s the “real thing” that you guys do.
Hawkins: To quote Roger Taylor and what he always said about Queen, that for us, Foo Fighters are “The Mothership” and it really is. It’s more family, almost now, as we have most of the same people that we’ve always had working for us. Dave’s had the same manager since Nirvana and John Silva, the same monitor enginers since Nirvana.
Pinfield: And people who run the studio, like “Lou” [John “Lou” Lousteau].
Hawkins: Yeah, for the most part, we try and keep it family – recognizable, comfortable and treat everyone well.
