The upcoming documentary Let There Be Drums! features what may be the final filmed interview with late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. As its title suggests, the film is all about the art of and love for drumming, with which, of course, Hawkins had a lot of experience.
Speaking with ABC Audio, director Justin Kreutzmann, the son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, shares that Hawkins “informed the film a lot.”
“I had my 10 Foo Fighters questions and he answered them, and they were all great and they were all really interesting,” Kreutzmann shares. “[But] when he started asking me questions and we started trading stuff, and then he started telling me about going to a Dead show … and his love of Jane’s Addiction and all that kind of stuff, I like to say we kinda went off script.”
Watching Hawkins in the film now, Kreutzmann is reminded that Taylor “should be here for all this.”
“Stuff that was really fun and hopeful, like about him talking about playing Foo Fighters songs when he’s in his 70s and his kids watching, [things that] were really fun when you watched it before now have this other thing going on,” Kreutzmann says. “I really wish that wasn’t the case, obviously.”
In the wake of Hawkins’ unexpected death earlier this year, Kreutzmann shares that “there was some talk about including more Taylor or changing the cut.” Instead, Kreutzmann followed in the footsteps of the iconic Who doc The Kids Are Alright, which was released shortly after the death of drummer Keith Moon.
“This is the cut Taylor saw, we didn’t change a thing,” Kreutzmann says. “This is the movie as it was.”
Let There Be Drums! premieres Friday.
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