Foo Fighters and Paul McCartney have had an interesting relationship over the years. Frontman Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins grew up massive Beatles fans. However, their careers as rock stars allowed them to become friends with their idols. Eventually, they became close enough to be able to call Paul out of the blue and ask him to be their drummer on a Foo Fighters track.
The Foo Fighters song that has Paul McCartney on drums and Taylor Hawkins on vocals
In a 2021 interview with Rolling Stone, Hawkins said Dave Grohl “is a beast. There’s no competing. You won’t win. You can’t compete with Dave. He’s the winner.”
That’s something Hawkins learned firsthand. Hawkins said he was a “loudmouth kid” who bugged Grohl with his ideas. The drummer learned that Grohl would come to him if he needed ideas. One such time Grohl did, he had an outrageous thought.
“When he wants an idea — he said like the last album, ‘Hey, I got this song, ‘Sunday Rain.’ I want Paul McCartney to play drums on it. I want you to sing it and write it. Here’s the music. Here’s a little bit of a melody idea if you want it.’
“And I did. And I have a song on a Foo Fighter record with me singing my lyrics, putting my Eagles and Queen harmonies all over it, with Paul McCartney playing drums. I have my own Wings song, because of Dave.”
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl texted Paul about the collaboration
Grohl talked about the strange collaboration with PBS. Getting Paul to drum on one of their songs was as easy as texting the former Beatle.
Grohl explained, “We have a song on our record called ‘Sunday Rain’ that Taylor sings, and on the record, Paul McCartney plays the drums,” Grohl said. “I had written it, and demo’d it by myself, and we jammed it as a band. And, I love it when Taylor sings because he’s got such a great voice.
“I was gonna play drums on this song because Taylor was gonna sing it. And they said, ‘I don’t know, you know what? You should get Paul to come in and play drums.’ And not a lot of people know that Paul McCartney has played drums on a lot of songs that you’ve heard – Beatles songs too.
“I was like, ‘Hey man, you want to play drums on a new song on our record?’ And he texted back, he was like, ‘You’ve always got crazy ideas!’
“He came into the studio, had his drum set up, and just immediately starts doing that thing that he recognizes. He’s got a real swing to it! And the greatest part was watching him do it because he’s got this huge smile on his face. He was so into it when he was playing!
“And so Taylor sat on a stool and like conducted like ‘Chorus!’ ‘Pre-chorus!’ as we were tracking. I think our version of the song was maybe five minutes long. But Paul’s version was like twelve minutes. He just didn’t want to stop!
“So we did one, we’re like ‘Oh my god that’s amazing,’ and we had it. We went in and listened, and we were like, ‘Wow that was easy, man!’ He is amazing.”
The former Beatle inducted the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Foo Fighters and Paul have become even closer since they collaborated on “Sunday Rain.” Paul inducted the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.
Grohl and Hawkins talked about how they got him to do that for them during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show. “We didn’t call him personally,” Grohl said. “I think somebody else did it, but we know him.
“He’s a really sweet guy, and we’ve known him for a long time. So I think he agreed to do it because he wanted to do it for us because we’re friends.”
It’s uncertain if Foo Fighters will carry on in the wake of Hawkins’ death, but if they do, it’d be great if they collaborate with Paul again.
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