{"id":21584,"date":"2014-05-23T08:47:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T22:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=21584"},"modified":"2014-05-23T08:47:33","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T22:47:33","slug":"taylor-hawkins-of-the-birds-of-satan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2014\/05\/taylor-hawkins-of-the-birds-of-satan\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Hawkins of The Birds Of Satan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\n<\/a>\u201cSo all I can say is right now as a band we\u2019re kind of at some point we\u2019re trying to get as good as we can to record as good as we can and then when we get to that level when we know we\u2019re as good as we can be then we leave it alone, then that\u2019s it, that\u2019s humanly possible what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of you, if not all of you will know Taylor Hawkins from his work in that somewhat popular band The Foo Fighters, but outside of one of the biggest bands in the world, Taylor keeps himself extremely busy playing and making music with other projects. This one in particular \u2018The Birds Of Satan\u2019 is his newest baby and they rock, their debut release is raw and a must listen, so\u2026 what are you waiting for? Go and listen (well, after you\u2019ve read this of course.)<\/p>\n

On a beautiful early evening in Southern California and discussing the weather and why dogs are man\u2019s best friend, we chatted to one of, if not the best rock drummer out there today in Mr Taylor Hawkins about his new band The Birds Of Satan as well as inspirations, touring, memories and The Foo Fighters\u2026<\/p>\n

Hey Taylor, thanks for your time today\u2026<\/strong>
\nTroyster, what\u2019s up buddy?<\/p>\n

Well firstly I need to know what the idea was behind putting The Birds of Satan together and how it all come about?<\/strong>
\nYou know, I just always like to have a little side fun escape from my normal life you know and this was just another one of them, I like writing songs for better or for worse, and I\u2019ve got to have some band to do it with. At one point I was like I\u2019ll just make my own, the Taylor Hawkins record and I\u2019ll play every instrument and all that stuff, because I was kind of like I\u2019d like to do that someday, I don\u2019t think it\u2019d be the Taylor Hawkins album but I am keen to do that at some point. Because I do my own demos, but I don\u2019t know, once I started playing with Wiley and Mick and we played all the time, and any way we could do it quickly and it sounded good, and we are who we are and it\u2019s tongue in cheek but it\u2019s great. We do Van Halen, we do The Stones, we do everything, it\u2019s a certain heavy metal filter that are all our influences, like with The Stones, we play \u2018Brown Sugar\u2019 because I like that song, Van Halen we play the songs, but we don\u2019t sound like Van Halen, we\u2019re a tribute. All the bands we play originally sound like the bands, but they sound like us, my crazy on top drumming and Wiley\u2019s scuzzy and dirty bass, and Mick\u2019s heavy metal histrionics\u2026 *laughs* so when you play a Stones song you can imagine what that sounds like, it doesn\u2019t sound like the fuckin\u2019 Stones. So that\u2019s how that sort of came about, well conceptually, I was like well ok, let\u2019s just do my songs through that same filter and see what happens, and that\u2019s what happened The Birds of Satan. I think it came out better than I thought it would to be honest. I think it\u2019s a fun record, and Chevy Metal is a fun band to go see do shows, we\u2019re fun, so you go see us play you\u2019re gonna have fun, they\u2019re good songs and we have a good attitude about it, we\u2019re laid back yet the music can get right up in your face, and hey if I can apply tat to this record then great you know\u2026<\/p>\n

What was the inspiration behind the songs that appeared on the album?<\/strong>
\nLyrically it\u2019s sort of dark, well a lot of it is, \u2018Thanks For The Line\u2019, \u2018Pieces Of The Puzzle\u2019, \u2018Nothing At All\u2019 all these are songs about fuck ups, and in a sense, I truly see myself as basically a fuck up that just got lucky, and I\u2019m not talking in terms of partying or anything like that, I just mean as kind of a dipshit you know? *laughs* and if you\u2019ve seen the teaser for the album, before we put the record out I put this little teaser out online, \u2018The Birds Of Satan\u2019 like an album teaser, and it kind of tells the story of a forty-something year old dude that all just let it fuckin\u2019 go to shit. I think a lot of my lyrics have come from that sort of paranoia, like oh my god, I feel like I\u2019m holding my life and everything together by one piece of duct tape, all the time, and I always have that\u2019s always been the way I lived *laughs* so I guess this is the forty something point of view of what can happen if it all really goes wrong, at least in my mind you know. So it built from that you know, and a lot of it comes from people, like \u2018Too Far Gone To See\u2019 I actually wrote that about five years ago, and that was something about someone really close to me, but you feel compelled to write songs about being an asshole, or fucking up or those kinds of things, but I think that you\u2019re compelled to do that because you can see it in yourself, and it\u2019 a scary feeling you know, as you look at someone and say \u2018oh my god, that could be me, why is it not me?\u2019 and all of that said, I just put a \u2018who gives a shit?\u2019 at the end of it, because at the end of it all it\u2019s one fuckin\u2019 life you know. Enjoy it while you can, don\u2019t think about it too much, don\u2019t over think it\u2026<\/p>\n


\nThe album has been out for a few weeks now, so if you had to use only one word to describe it, what would it be?<\/strong>
\nHmm\u2026 one word to describe this record\u2026 Quick\u2026 yeah, it\u2019s a schizophrenic kind of album, the songs, a lot of them are fast there are a lot of quick changes, a lot of them are quick, it\u2019s not a long album, it\u2019s a short album, twenty five or thirty minutes, which was still a record back in the late 80\u2019s, I mean \u2018Diver Down\u2019 is about the same exact length, people didn\u2019t complain about it back then. Yeah, so quick, quickly done, I made it in a week. So quick would be my key word for it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

You take on vocals with the band as you do with the Coattail Riders, when recording or playing live do you have to mentally prepare in a different way than when just behind the kit?<\/strong>
\nWell, you have to prepare for it, but hopefully by the time you\u2019re actually up on stage doing it you\u2019re pretty well versed.<\/p>\n

On touring, can we expect to see The Birds of Satan out on the road anytime soon, maybe a trip Down Under?<\/strong>
\nI would love to; maybe I\u2019ll just wait until The Foos come back down there. That\u2019s the most economically viable version of that scenario, I am busy with my other band, The Foo Fighters, so that\u2019s taking up most of my time, between that and my family, so actually unfortunately putting this record out at this point might not give me that opportunity, and no one really has that much free time, as I don\u2019t know if you saw the Sound City movie, we made that record and we all pitched in, I played on three songs, put together a couple of songs with Dave, and then we did a tour. We went right from that basically into pre-production of the new Foo Fighters record you know? We\u2019ve been writing songs for this new record for ages, for a year, so we can get the best of it, no pun intended, trying to find the best of us. We\u2019re in high gear right now, so trying to think about planning a west coast tour of America, and I\u2019d like to go to England and I\u2019d like to go to Australia\u2026 we could get on one of those little festivals of some sort, at least give us enough money and fly us down there and we\u2019ll stay at a crappy hotel, we don\u2019t care man, as long as we get to play for fans we\u2019ll do it, it\u2019s just making it happen and it\u2019s a long way to go. It\u2019s not really a financial thing, we could probably put that together, but it\u2019s really a timing issue, but I\u2019d like to, I\u2019d really like to.<\/p>\n

I wanted to ask about your love of Australia, being here more than a handful of times, do you have a favourite memory of a previous trip here?<\/strong>
\nYeah my favourite memories are of the hotel that\u2019s not there anymore, The Sebel, it was such a rock and roll hotel which is now apartments or condominiums I think, I have a lot of good memories of that place, that was the first time I ever came down to Australia and it was the first place I ever stayed in Sydney was The Sebel. You\u2019d walk into the bars in the hotel and there\u2019s pictures of everybody that\u2019s come to town on that wall, and it\u2019s a rock and roll hotel, and I just did a lot of damage at that place man, a lot, a lot, a lot of damage at that place, so with the partying and chicks, I\u2019ll always remember that man, so that\u2019s my earliest adult memory. Especially coming out there with Alanis Morissette funnily enough, we literally tore that place up, we had a good time man. So that was the most debaucheries tour I\u2019ve ever been on *laughs* I swear to God, we were fuckin\u2019 scumbags dude, you\u2019ve gotta remember, you\u2019re 23, 24 year old dudes with enough money in our pockets to do whatever the fuck we wanted, it was goofin\u2019 around money, I think it was like $2,000 a week when we were there and for a 24 year old who ain\u2019t got a house, ain\u2019t got a kid, that\u2019s pretty good money. So that was a wild tour, we had a lot of fun there\u2026 and man, a lot of girls like Alanis Morissette, so for the most part it was like \u2018ha ha\u2026 this is great.\u2019<\/p>\n

You mentioned pre-production of the new album, can I ask the status of The Foo Fighters at the moment and can you tell us much more?<\/strong>
\nI can\u2019t really tell you much more, I mean to be honest I don\u2019t really know when the release date is\u2026 we\u2019re working on new music, we\u2019re putting it together, we\u2019re doing it in a really interesting way and it\u2019s gonna be great and it\u2019s gonna be an interesting way to put out a record and hopefully it\u2019ll work. The music\u2019s really good, we\u2019re really tight right now, we\u2019re a tight rock and roll band right now. Also I think we\u2019re really enjoying the sound of the good and the band with our band if that makes any sense, I feel like there was a couple of years in our existence when we were trying to\u2026 especially with \u2018In Your Honor\u2019 and \u2018Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace\u2019 we were trying to sound better than we were, whatever that means\u2026 Pro tools was around and those two records are the most sort of pro tools we ever got, recording on computers with the ability to fix things very easily. So there was too much bullshitting with those records for me to really listen to them and feel honest about them\u2026 that\u2019s the one thing I really don\u2019t like about computers and music, there\u2019s a dishonesty that it brings to the table, because you don\u2019t really know how good that drummer is, you don\u2019t really know how good that singer is, or how bad\u2026 and I like that, you know I like The Rolling Stones, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re bad, I think they\u2019re the greatest rock and roll band of all time, but I like listening to \u2018Brown Sugar\u2019 and the part when the whole band goes out of time for a second, that\u2019s the shit I remember when I was a kid.<\/p>\n

So all I can say is right now as a band we\u2019re kind of at some point we\u2019re trying to get as good as we can to record as good as we can and then when we get to that level when we know we\u2019re as good as we can be then we leave it alone, then that\u2019s it, that\u2019s humanly possible what we can do. I finish drum tracks sometimes and Dave\u2019s like, \u201cwell, I guess that\u2019s about as good as you can do\u201d *laughs* \u201cI guess that\u2019s all we\u2019re gonna get from you\u2026\u201d and that\u2019s ok man, because in there, in that striving for perfection, somewhere between the striving for perfection and the failure is where to me are the heart and the soul, that make sense? Somewhere in there, that\u2019s the X Factor, what you can do and what you can\u2019t do and when you just barely make it, that\u2019s the great moments you know. So I\u2019ve got fills all over the place on this music that we\u2019re doing right now that are just barely fuckin\u2019 making it, just barely, I mean, one of my favourite records of all time is \u2018Zenyatta Mondatta\u2019 by The Police, they just lose their shit man, and on this Birds Of Satan record, there\u2019s a song called \u2018Wait Til Tomorrow\u2019 which on the record is kinda like a Van Halen type song you know, that\u2019s one take, at the very end I drop my drumsticks and go \u2018Done!\u2019 and that\u2019s because I sat down and tried to figure out how to put it together, me, Dave Grohl and Mick and we said \u2018OK it should go like this\u2019 and I said \u2018OK let\u2019s run one down\u2019 and we recorded and that\u2019s what it is, one take. Now it\u2019s perfect BUT it\u2019s honest and it\u2019s real and it\u2019s muddy and it\u2019s dirty and smelly and it kicks ass too, and it\u2019s funny I was mixing it with Drew Hester and I was like \u2018oh my god dude, I was just spazzing so hard\u2019 but it\u2019s awesome, it\u2019s crazy, it\u2019s out of control. It\u2019s like a car running down a street and the brakes don\u2019t work and the guy is just missing every single car you know what I mean. That\u2019s what it should be you know\u2026<\/p>\n

Lastly, the year is well underway now, so let\u2019s predict the rest of it, so if you can finish this sentence for me, by the end of 2014 Taylor Hawkins will\u2026<\/strong>
\nBe a lot fuckin\u2019 older\u2026 no\u2026 Taylor Hawkins will\u2026 be in Australia\u2026 we\u2019re gonna get there.<\/p>\n

Essential information<\/strong><\/h2>\n

From: <\/strong>Southern California, USA<\/p>\n

Band members:<\/strong>\u00a0 Taylor Hawkins, Wiley Hodgden, Mick Murphy<\/p>\n

Latest Release:<\/strong> The Birds Of Satan (Out Now – Shanabelle Records \/ Kobalt)<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> \u00a0http:\/\/www.thebirdsofsatan.com<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t