A Boy Named Foo

"We don’t really look at it as a double record. We look at it as two records”. Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins is describing the band’s latest album, a two-part opus called In Your Honor. The first CD is a full on rock record, the second an acoustic collection, which features, among others, Norah Jones as guest vocalist. Did it ever cross their minds that the acoustic ‘album’ might alienate the kids who had grown up with Foo Fighters as a full-on rock group?

“No – because we’ve always done a few songs here and there like that,” explains Hawkins. “Really, in that sense, I don’t feel that it’s a huge departure. I feel that it’s just exploiting a side of us that we never really had a chance to exploit in an artistic way.
“When there is one song like that on a record,” he continues, “it turns into sort of a novelty song, like ‘Hey it’s a big rock record with this mellow song’, which is cool. But Dave was really into making this acoustic-y stuff and we all like that too, so we just figured, why not just make two records?
“The Foo Fighters have been a band for 10 years and we couldn’t go on just making the same type of thing: we had to do something a little special this time.”
The drummer does admit, however, that the band’s fans will probably “gravitate towards the rock record first and then they will discover the acoustic one”.
David Grohl, the band’s frontman, has described In Your Honor as the definitive Foo Fighters LP. Hawkins agrees, but confesses he’d “rather let other people make that assumption”.
“I would say the reason he [Dave Grohl] would say that is because these two records really show all the sides of The Foo Fighters, in the way of something like [Led Zeppelin’s] Physical Graffiti,” Hawkins muses. “I’m not comparing it to Physical Graffiti. But I think his feeling is if a kid comes up to him and asks what Led Zeppelin record he should get, Dave will say Physical Graffiti ‘cos it covers the whole thing.
“In ten years, if someone says to you, ‘I heard this Foo Fighters song on the radio or on my friend’s fucking iPod or whatever, what album should I get or download or get the computer chip for?’, he wants it to be In Your Honor. That’s his point.”
Grohl has also said that the previous Foos album, One By One, was rushed and lacked quality in places. The drummer agrees to a degree, describing it as the band’s “seven year itch”.
“Dave was really into being a drummer again with Queens of the Stone Age,” he says. “I don’t think he knew quite how to make that balance work yet. Now he does. He goes off and does stuff on other people’s records and then he comes back and does this, just as we all make the balance now. We all go off and make other records...we all have our thing.”
Side-projects keep a group fresh and sustain them over the long term, he feels.
“If you’re a band for 10 years and you just do this, you turn into fucking Metallica. If you have other things that please you artistically, you come back and you are pleased artistically with this.”
Foo Fighters are certainly pleased artistically again, having put a mammoth effort into In Your Honor: “We worked hard. We focused hard and we never let up. That’s the difference between this and the last one. The focus was not completely there last time.”
He’s not willing to dismiss the last album out of hand, however: “I can’t really discount any record, just like you can’t discount any girlfriend you’ve ever had. It was a process. If you hadn’t met her and gone through that crap with her, then you wouldn’t be as good with who you’re with now. It’s all learning and it’s all a picture of who you are at a certain time in your life.”
After all the success Foo Fighters have enjoyed, all the multi-platinum albums, all the Grammys, presumably the fire is still there. Is it hard to ignite the flames these days?
“Hell no, I think that’s sometimes a perception for other people,” he answers immediately. “To be honest, I think we lost that fire half way through making the last record and I think that’s ‘cos Dave was missing something, feeling like he wanted to do something else for a little while. And he went off and filled the gap that he was missing.”
Hawkin's passion to play is still as strong as ever: “I know that I still love music just as much as I ever did. I still love playing music. And I still have the most insane stage-fright before going on stage. That’s part of the fire. That’s part of caring. And I know that it’s still very fucking important to me. I don’t know when you lose the fire.
“Have U2 lost the fire? I don’t know. Do they make records as good as I think they used to make? Not really. Does that mean they lost the fire or does that mean they’re just into different shit now? I don’t know. Neil Young still has the fire. When I see him up on stage, he’s still just as heavy and gnarly as anyone. Any hardcore metal band, Neil Young can crush ‘em with just an acoustic guitar. It’s all relative and it’s all perception.
“I know we all still love making music and I know we all still bleed for it. I don’t find it hard to keep that fire. It might get harder to create something that we feel is new sometimes. That’s why the acoustic record was a lot easier to make than the rock record.”
Hawkins makes his Foo Fighters vocal debut on ‘Cold Day In The Sun’. Does he harbour dreams of being a frontman?
“Not necessarily,” he says. “But I’ve always harboured dreams of being a good songwriter. I like my place behind the drums and I don’t see myself in a leotard prancing across the stage. But I love recording my songs and to have the Foo Fighters at my disposal was even better”.
The drummer is “most definitely” looking forward to taking this record on the road.
“I don’t get sick of playing,” he explains. “You get sick of flying everywhere. You get sick of being away from home, not being in your bed and all that kinda typical crap that you hear from spoiled assholes like me.
“At the same time, it’s always a thrill being in a different city and it’s always a thrill to find a new record store, a new restaurant or to go and see an amazing sculpture. It’s the good, the bad and the ugly: it’s all there, just like life. ‘Cos sometimes being home can be a drag.”
When they come off the road after a big tour, is it very hard to settle back into normality?
“The big un-normal thing we do is get up in front of 30,000 people and have them be really into what we’re doing. The only other un-normal thing is that we stay in hotels all the time instead of staying home. For the most part, we’re pretty normal guys,” Hawkins says.
During the Foo’s first flush of success, the drummer flirted with the life of a rock’n roll debauchee but stopped before he became a sad stereotype.
“There was a time in our band where we sought, especially me, for more of a grandiose lifestyle, but luckily I found out quite early on that it’s more of a charade than anything else. It’s not very fulfilling. It’s not fun being hungover all the time. I’ve never got that far into it but we try to keep everything pretty fucking normal. It’s really like a job. We’re pretty family-like as a band, with our crew. It’s kinda like taking a construction team on the road: we go and build a rock show in a different city every night.”
They’re bringing that rock show to Ireland this summer for the Oxegen Festival at Punchestown (Sunday July 10). The Kildare gig is one date on their tour schedule that Hawkins is really looking forward to: “You’re the most passionate people in the world, whether it’s about a pint, about music or about fighting [cheers! – racial stereotypes ed]. You’re always passionate, no fucking half measures. I love that. The crowd, if they love you, they love you and if they don’t like you, you better fucking look out man.”b

In Your Honor is out now on Sony/BMG