I
t’s a warm October afternoon when
I knock on the thick wooden door of
a sprawling, upscale estate at the end of
a quiet cul de sac, a half hour’s drive north-
west of Los Angeles. A beat-up ’86 Toyota
pickup sits in the driveway. The door opens, and
Taylor Hawkins greet me with a broad smile and
a warm handshake. Wearing board shorts and
a beat-up T-shirt, his long blond hair bouncing
behind him, he takes me through his bright and
stylish home, out to the back patio and into his
home studio – a hip, two-bedroom guest house
with a high, arched ceiling. The walls are festooned
with guitars and basses of every size and make.
A drum kit sits in the middle of the room, and
iconic photographs of artists including Neil Young,
the Eagles, Chris Cornell, Queen and the James
Gang hang from every space. There are also four
Grammy awards. “Make yourself at home,” he
says. Flopping down on a giant couch in the
middle of the room, he points out: “I’ve made
a couple of records in here. We did the demos for
[Foo Fighters’] Run in here.”
To gain entry into Hawkins’s community, I had
to go through a gate, past
a security booth where my
driver’s licence was examined
and my appointment confirmed.
Small, winding roads thread
through the enclave, with stately
mansions at every turn. Drake
lives here, as do the Kardashians
and many other A-list celebrities.
While Hawkins appears
comfortable in his own home,
he’s not necessarily on board
with all that his neighbourhood
implies. “I’m not in love with this
area, per se,” he says. “I like it
down south a little bit more. It’s
a lot more ethnically diverse in
LA, and I like that. Not to try and
sound like a man of the people,
but it freaks me out when
everyone’s too white [laughs].
I like diversity.” Still, he’s happy
here, gushing that “the mountain
biking around here is unbelievable!
That’s what I do for exercise. I do push
ups and pull ups and a few things here
and there, but my main source of
exercise is mountain biking.”
‘Down to earth’ doesn’t begin to
describe how easygoing and
conversational Hawkins comes across in person.
He laughs loudly and often, and his stories take on
hugely dramatic dimensions. His answers will
splinter into complicated, far-flung tangents, yet no
matter how far afield we go, Hawkins is able to
resume the conversation at the precise point where
he left off. And he checks in a lot, often interrupting
himself to ask me questions about myself, perhaps
as a way of gauging how well I can relate to what
he’s saying.
His house, he explains, has a colourful history.
“It was [country singer] Kenny Rogers’s house in
the early seventies,” he says. “When he lost all of
his bread, before he started doing The Gambler and
all that, he and his ex-wife lived here. I read his
biography, and she was fucking taking acid and
having sex orgies here! Apparently there are
gunshot holes in the old master bedroom...”Considering the otherworldly affluence of his
community and the residents within, Hawkins
finds it all entertaining. “I’ve made a couple of
friends in here,” he explains, “and they find the
whole thing slightly hilarious too. The Range
Rover lady, with her yoga outfit on, making sure
her kids are going to the right school... Keeping
up with the Joneses is so important to them. But
it’s not important. Really, it’s just fucking weird.”I
t’s this weird dissonance between Hawkins
the wholly unpretentious rock star and this
life that he’s created which fuels much of his
latest album, Get The Money. The third release
from Taylor Hawkins & The Coattail Riders, it
sees Hawkins, along with his co-producer/
percussionist John Lousteau, bassist/keyboard
player Chris Chaney and guitarist Brent Woods
joined by a jaw-dropping roster of guests. Get
The Money features contributions from Foos
bandmates Dave Grohl and Pat Smear, plus Roger
Taylor, Joe Walsh, Duff McKagan, Nancy Wilson,
LeAnn Rimes and many more. Like the musicians
involved, each track occupies its unique world.Having spent two years touring the planet in
support of the Foo Fighters’ chart-topping Concrete
And Gold, working on a side project might sound
like piling on unnecessary work, but that’s not
how Hawkins sees it.
“It’s not work,” he explains. “When I’m in the
Foo Fighters, that’s work because that’s Dave’s
project. Dave’s fun project is the Foo Fighters. I’m
not saying the Foo Fighters isn’t fun, it’s very fun.
I’m saying that my job in the Foo Fighters is to
make sure that Grohl is happy with what I’m doing
on the drums. But I’m a songwriter, and I have
ideas, and there’s not enough room in the Foo
Fighters for that. There just isn’t. Dave’s one of the
most generous people in the world, especially with
money. But when it comes to the tunes, he’s in
charge, you know? It’s his band, and everyone in
the band knows that.”So for Hawkins, the Coattail Riders gives him an
outlet for channeling his own musical vision on his
own terms, without the weight of creative or
commercial expectations. “It’s just something
I have to do. I have to do it. And it’s not a career
thing, because, believe me, this record’s not going
to be paying for this house. It’s not going to be
paying for anything. I’m not trying to make a
modern record that’s going to sound good next to
Post Malone and the Cigarette Smokers or
Chainsmokers or whatever.”
This view badly undersells just what he and his
collaborators have created with the new record.
Put simply, Get The Money is the best collection of
original music that Taylor Hawkins has ever done.
Drawing from influences ranging from prog, glam,
new wave, classic rock and reggae, these supremely
talented musicians have put together a collection
of ambitious and unabashedly hooky rock’n’roll.
First single Crossed The Line offered a taste –
a proggy and joyfully chaotic romp, powered by
Hawkins’s tumbling polyrhythms and the meaty
guitar lines of Dave Grohl. With its cheeky nod to
Best Of You, the track builds to a sweeping climax
that bursts with sparkly melodies
and lush vocal harmonies,
simultaneously reminiscent of
both ELO and Bad Brains.
Amid a clutch of 10
legitimately strong tracks,
Hawkins’s unlikely duet with
American singer-songwiter/
actress LeAnn Rimes is among
the album’s oddest – and best.
“That was an odd one,” he
explains. “I happened to be at
one of these school fundraisers
for our kids, and she was the
talent that night. I knew who
she was, but I’d never really
heard her. I said: ‘I’ve never met
you, but I’ve seen you at soccer
practice or whatever, and your
voice is fucking amazing. I’m
making a record, wanna come
sing a duet with me?’”
Rimes, who literally lives
down the street, agreed, although
somewhat hesitantly at first. A blazing
stoner-prog saga, Hawkins explains that
“it’s about two people who either
committed some sort of murder or had
some sort of affair or did something so
bad that, as they’re parting ways, their
last words to each other are: ‘I’ll see you in hell’.
“The track recalls the luxuriant production of
Queen and the concussive heft of Soundgarden, and,
powered by Hawkins and Rimes’s scorching duet, it
becomes an absolutely breathtaking outlaw epic.
The album also captures Hawkins’s strongest
recorded vocal performances yet, powerfully
showcased in his duet with Nancy Wilson on Don’t
Look At Me That Way and on the absurdly catchy
title track, a soulful reggae belter, featuring the
vocals of Chrissie Hynde and some scorching
guitar playing from Joe Walsh.
Each track builds to its own captivating climax,
aided by innovative melodies, sturdy production
and lyrics of real substance. Ultimately what
underpins the strength of these tracks is their
emotional authenticity, and no song exemplifies
this better than Middle Child, a sweetly affecting“I’m a songwriter, and I have ideas,
and there’s not enough room in the
Foo Fighters for that.”
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