Foo Fighters Drummer Taylor Hawkins’ Best Quotes About Fatherhood Before His Death: My Kids Were ‘My Win’

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Foo Fighters Drummer Taylor Hawkins' Best Quotes About Fatherhood Before His Death: My Kids Were ‘My Win’

Balancing rock ’n’ roll and parenthood. Taylor Hawkins, the late drummer for the Foo Fighters, had figured out how to manage his busy rocker lifestyle while raising his three children before his death.

“It’s always go, go, go,” the Texas native previously told Billboard in November 2019. “Plus, I have a wife and three kids.”

The “Everlong” musician married Alison Hawkins in 2005 before they welcomed three children: Oliver, Annabelle and Everleigh.

“I almost called [my solo album] Tales From Suburban Hell,” he told the outlet at the time. “Because it has a lot to do with being a 47-year-old man with a family who never thought he would be in that position. When I was 25, I never thought, ‘I’m going to be a suburban dad someday.’ But that’s what I am, so I can’t write about being young and going to clubs, and I’m not very political. It’s all sort of tongue-in-cheek though.”

Despite being a part of the legendary music group since 1997, Taylor remained down-to-earth as he focused on raising his family.

“So many people use that silly term [of ‘rockstar]’,” he recalled to Billboard. “Yeah, I’m a musician, but that doesn’t make me above anyone else. A friend said to me the other day, ‘You can get away with anything because you’re a rock star.’ Bull c–p, man. Those rules don’t apply as soon as I walk through the front door of my house.”

The “I Really Blew It” performer even frequently cited his little ones as a source of musical inspiration through the years.

“‘Middle Child’ is about my middle child [daughter Annabelle],” Taylor explained in an October 2019 Instagram video ahead of the single’s release. “There was also a song on the [Get the Money] record called ‘Son of Mine,’ which got [cut] because my son [Oliver] said if I put that out, he’ll punch me in the face [because] it was kind of soft and sweet.”

The “Crossed the Line” crooner continued: “He said, ‘If you’re going to make a song about me, it’s got to be heavy.’ ... I was recording that day and my [daughter] said, ‘You wrote a song about him, you have to write a song about me!’ So, ‘Middle Child’ is the song about my middle child. She’s my little twin and I love her so much and I’m happy to have a song about her on the record.”

Amid the Foo Fighters’ March 2022 tour in South America, Taylor died at age 50.

“The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins,” a statement on the Foo Fighters official Twitter page read. “His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever. Our hearts go out to his wife, children and family, and we ask that their privacy be treated with the utmost respect in this unimaginably difficult time.”

Scroll below for more of the late rocker's best quotes about fatherhood through the years:

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Oliver Is Ready to Follow in Dad’s Footsteps

“My son thinks he’s priming himself to take over my job in about 10 to 15 years, which is fine,” Taylor joked during a November 2014 interview with Entertainment Tonight Canada alongside the rest of the band. “So, I have a little practice kit set up behind me and he sort of plays along [during shows].”

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Balancing Rock 'N’ Roll With Dad Duties

As a rockstar, Taylor was used to jetting around the globe, performing music, which can be admittedly difficult after having children.

“Well obviously with the advent of FaceTime, you can see your kids every day,” the performer told Fox News in November 2017. “Also, we seem to like, sort of plan … [a] family holiday around one of the tours, usually something where the wives want to go of course, and this… all of our kids were in Greece at this juncture because it was the perfect place to have a little bit of a vacation.”

He continued: “You just learn to kind of mix the two together and it’s not always easy. You don’t always want to leave, and you do feel lonely when you’re not with your family and kids sometimes, but you know it’s how you buy mansions.”

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A 'Funny' World

“They trash the backstage much worse than we ever did,” he joked during a 60 Minutes Australia interview in 2017. “They have their own little cliques. It’s funny. They have their own little world.”

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Teaching Them About Music

“I … understand kids need to find some way for music to be rebellious for their parents not to like it,” he told SiriusXM’s “ALT Nation” in May 2019. “You know, I don’t need my kid to think everything I like is good. … And that’s OK, and my son can like whatever he wants and my daughter can like whatever."

Taylor noted at the time that son Oliver was a hip-hop fan while Annabelle was more interested in the “classics,” including Boston’s “More Than a Feeling.”

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Writing Songs for His Kids

“I had this song for my son,” he told blogger Joe Daly in October 2019. “It’s a sweet song. I’ve had the music for that for five or six years but I had a s—t lyric and I didn’t have a bridge and it didn’t end up on KOTA. I think I had it as far back as the Birds of Satan record, which was 2013 or something. … He was like, ‘If you’re gonna write a song about me, it’s gotta sound like Metallica! I don’t want some wimpy ass, p—sy song about me, Dad!’”

He then opened up about writing “Middle Child” and his bond with Annabelle, noting, “[My son's] always in trouble and the baby’s [Everleigh] cute as f—k, so [Annabelle’s] in the middle. But [she’s] like my twin, too.’ She really is.”

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Embracing the Suburban Dream

“When I was 25, I never thought, ‘I’m going to be a suburban dad someday.’ But that’s what I am,” Taylor gushed to Billboard in November 2019.

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His ‘Middle Child’

“How I love you, middle child / I see angels when you smile / And when I look into your eyes, I could stay forever with you,” he crooned on his 2019 “Middle Child” single. “While the day turns into night / As we drift slowly to the sky.”

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Fitting It All In

Taylor previously teased that he “stole” their family’s garage from his wife, transforming it into an at-home recording studio to help balance music production with his parenting duties.

“It’s really within this framework of four or five hours in between when the kids are at school and stuff,” he told presenter Laura Whitmore during a BBC Radio “Under the Spotlight” interview in January 2020. “It sounds very un-rock and roll but it’s life, I’m a 47-year-old man with three children and a wife. So, you have to fit it in. … It’s like your dad going out into the garage and working on his old car, it’s the same type of thing, essentially.”

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His Kids Were His ‘Win’

“I wrote a song about Annabelle called ‘Middle Child,’” he told the Sydney Morning Herald in July 2021. “There’s a line, ‘You clean your mess up almost every night,’ and she does. It’s tough being a middle child – but she is my win and I love her so much.”