Warpaint's Stella Mozgawa on Taylor Hawkins: "To get that kind of endorsement from Taylor Hawkins, this titan of the drumming world, was invaluable and unexplainable"

Music
02 May 22

Warpaint at National Concert Hall, Dublin, 23 August 2016. Credit: Heta Pöyry

The Hot Press Newsdesk

On March 25, 2022, the terrible news went out across the wires, the cables and the routers that Taylor Hawkins had died in his room in the Four Seasons Hotel Casa Medina Bogota, in the capital city of Columbia, Bogotá where his band Foo Fighters were on tour. As part of a special tribute in the current issue of Hot Press, some of Ireland and the world’s greatest drummers pay tribute.

Stella Mozgawa

Warpaint

When I was 19 years old, I was still in university in Australia. I was playing in a band that I’d played in since I was a young teenager. And this band got an insane opportunity to open for the Foo Fighters at a secret show they were playing in Sydney, at a place called the Metro Theatre. We were obviously very excited, the Foo Fighters were probably the most famous musicians that we’d ever met.

So, we played the show, and towards the end I looked to the right of the stage, and I saw two pearly white sets of teeth, almost disembodied, moving and headbanging. And I just immediately knew it was Dave and Taylor, watching us play.

In the middle of the Foos’ set that night, Taylor is full swing into a drum solo, and after about 20 seconds he slows down and stops. He gets up and walks over to the mic, and he says: ‘did anybody see that chick playing in the band before me? I didn’t even want to get up and play tonight. Everyone give her a round of applause, the rest of the set is dedicated to her’. I still can’t explain how much that meant to me in that moment. It was such a huge injection of confidence — to get that kind of endorsement from Taylor Hawkins, this titan of the drumming world, was invaluable and unexplainable.

When I found out that he had passed, I just felt so sad. Sad and incredibly grateful to have had that experience with him. The year after, I moved to New York, started playing music for a living and have lived in America ever since. Taylor Hawkins made a huge impact on me, and I’ll be forever grateful for that.

Read the full Taylor Hawkins tribute in our current issue: