Greenwich Entertainment
Before his tragic passing on March 25 of this year, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins sat down to be interviewed for the documentary Let There Be Drums! Directed by Justin Kreutzmann, the son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, the film (out Oct. 28) is a love letter to percussion, featuring drummers from great bands discussing how their kit skills have passed on from generation to generation.
Everyone from Kreutzmann and Ringo Starr to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and The Police’s Stewart Copeland share their thoughts on the art of drumming, while the documentary also boasts a treasure trove of rare and/or never-before-seen footage, such as Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham opening up about fatherhood and a teenage Starr messing around with a drum kit. But it’s Hawkins’ interview—one of the last he ever filmed—that stands out, as the drummer opens up about how seeing the Grateful Dead live in concert pushed him to greater heights.
“I saw them once,” Hawkins says in the film. “At first I was like, what’s going on? And everybody was, like, passing food around to each other and the song’s kind of starting, but have they even started the fucking song yet? They’re, like, jamming. Is everyone on stage yet? Everyone’s throwing energy and, you know, passing doobies… and I’m like, oh OK, they don’t know how they’re going to start this song. They just do this improvisational-jazz thing. That got me good.”