Matt Cameron and Chad Smith apologize for “misleading” quotes used in Taylor Hawkins article
Both drummers say the Rolling Stone piece was "sensationalized" with their words "taken out of context"
Aux News Taylor Hawkins
In a Rolling Stone article published on Monday, Pearl Jam’s Matt Cameron and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith were interviewed about the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. Now, both musicians have released statements distancing themselves from the piece, with Smith calling the article “sensationalized.”
In the piece, both Smith and Cameron are quoted discussing the rigorousness of the Foo Fighters’ tour schedule. Cameron recalled a conversation in which Hawkins reportedly told him he “couldn’t fucking do it anymore.”
“He tried to keep up,” Cameron stated. “He just did whatever it took to keep up, and in the end he couldn’t keep up.”
In addition to pointing out an incident where Hawkins reportedly collapsed on a Chicago flight, Smith talked about a discussion he said Hawkins had with Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters management (which representatives for the band said never happened).
“That was one of the straws that broke the camel’s back,” Smith said in the piece. “After that, he had a real important heart-to-heart with Dave [Grohl] and the management. He said, ‘I can’t continue on this schedule, and so we’ve got to figure out something.’”
However, hours after the Rolling Stone article whent live, Cameron shared a statement on Instagram, writing, “My quotes were taken out of context and shaped into a narrative I had never intended.”
“I have only the deepest love and respect for Taylor, Dave and the Foo Fighters families,” Cameron continued. “I am truly sorry to have taken part in this interview and I apologize that my participation may have caused harm to those whom I have only the deepest respect and admiration.”
In a separate statement, Smith wrote, “I was asked by Rolling Stone to share some memories of our time together, which I thought was going to be a loving tribute he deserved. Instead, the story they wrote was sensationalized and misleading, and had I known I would have never agreed to participate.”
42 Comments
I believe Matt and Chad.
First of all, isn’t that Will Ferrell on the right?Secondly … FIRST!
You stinker!
I’m still waiting for Lars to show up for that ‘drum-off challenge’ issued by Chad Smith like 5 years ago and Lars accepted.Actually, I’m not entirely sure Lars could outdrum Will Ferrell.
I think we have a better chance of seeing the Axl vs. Vince Neil grudge match.
Whoever loses, we win!
I’m not embarrassed to have been a big Metallica fan but I am embarrassed that I used to think Lars was a good drummer.
If you go by his studio output you could very well think he was a great drummer. He’s certainly great at writing and arranging drum parts and guitar riffs, the problems start when he has to pick up the sticks to play them, without the safety net of studio multisessioning.
Actually, I’m not entirely sure Lars could outdrum Will Ferrell.Lars couldn’t out drum my mom’s dryer when she put my sneakers in it when I was a kid…that dryer could keep better time too.
“Secondly…FIRST”?
It’s the return of CancerAIDS?
It is. Only curable with lots of Dawes on repeat.
How is it that the TOPIC of the article doesn’t come up until paragraph seven of an eight-paragraph piece?
I love how the article the other day says “reportedly” in the title. I’m reportedly great in bed. I’m reportedly smarter than the average bear. I’m reportedly an expert on nuclear fusion. And fission. Reportedly, only one of these statements is true.
The word “reportedly” means nothing and yet the media (left, right and center…wait a sec, there is no center) continue to use it. It’s just a chickenshit way of getting a hit piece story in print and getting clicks.Reportedly, AV Club is better than that.
Nobody reports that AVClub is better than that. lol
I won’t argue with you.
“Reportedly, only one of these statements is true.”It’s the ‘average bear’ one, isn’t it?I see your pik-a-nik basket!
Hey Boo-Boo!
I’m notoriously bad at reading dry sarcasm on the internet (a real liability!) but just to be clear, there is absolutely right-up-the-middle, bias-free reporting happening every day. The Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart is an excellent resource during these uncertain times.
https://adfontesmedia.com/
Reportedly…but I will check that out.
If you want to know the actual reason it’s because sites are publishing posts based on news they didn’t report themselves but that would be relevant for their audience. So yes aggregation falls in here, but so can posts that add actual analysis and nuance and context to a basic development. It’s less a way to get falsehoods into the world for clicks than it is a way to avoid the appearance of breaking the news yourself and getting undue credit.Obviously this isn’t always the case, and some sites are worse than others. But in general this is why you’re seeing it so often. It’s denoting news that others reported first to avoid accusations of theft. Hence multiple links to source posts that most reputable sites do.
I apologize; I’ll not single out the AV Club for this. But it’s still a chickenshit way to promote “news” or at the very least, an extremely lazy way to promote a story…which gets clicks…which generates revenue…which I am not opposed to in a general sense. But if you’re (not you, media conglomerates) going to do that, expect to get called out on it.
Hey, single out whoever you want, haha. It’s a really fucked industry/revenue system at the moment, so basically every site churns out as much as possible. It’s just not usually a signifier of malicious practice so much as it is a symptom of how all of this sausage gets made.
Hey, single out whoever you want, haha. It’s a really fucked industry/revenue system at the moment, so basically every site churns out as much as possible. It’s just not usually not a signifier of malicious practice so much as it is a symptom of how all of this sausage gets made.
I’m reportedly better in bed than the average bear. But then again, bears have spiny penises – so that gives me a pretty big leg up from the get go.
Theres only right and centre media you dumb prick
Ha. You’re funny!
now go back to the other post and read everyones comments. Everyone is so thirsty for blood its sickening.
The impulse to be “tragedy adjacent.” Everyone doesn’t need your take on why a tragedy happened. If you were asked to share some memories of your time together for “a loving tribute,” what part of “he hated his tour schedule and said he couldn’t fucking do it anymore” seemed to you to constitute “a loving tribute”? It sounds like you just wanted to make yourself a part of the story, which was shitty, because it ended up with you blaming his bandmates.
Not his bandmates just Dave Grohl who disregarded what his “best friend” told him and worked him literally to death.
Or: they just answered journos’ questions honestly, naively, and with good intentions. I’m sure the questions were a little bit more specific than just “tell me about your friendship with him”.
I’ve interviewed some decently notable people, and sometimes I have a particular angle for a larger piece or a separate story that’s different than the one they’re showing up to talk about. I usually try to be upfront about it (“hey, we’re interviewing you because X” or “hey, I’m also working on a story about [thing you’re adjacently relevant to], what do you think about it?”). But if I wanted to, I could easily slip in a question that seems innocuous and use it to build a completely different narrative than stated main topic of the interview.
It’s entirely possible the “Taylor was exhausted and wanted to quit” part was some small anecdote in a much larger conversation that the reporters latched on to (or purposely elicited to fit a narrative they were already crafting) and the interviewees thought nothing of it until they read the piece and were like “wait, what happened to all that other stuff I talked about?”
Maybe for Sass Jordan and the lesser-known producers/session musicians, but Cameron and Smith have been in the biz for thirty-plus years – they should know by now to choose their answers wisely and that at this point, Rolling Stone is desperate for clicks.
I mean, according to what he said, he was asked to “share some memories of their time together,” so that’s all either of us knows about what he was asked. You can be “sure” all you want, but based on what he said, what he was asked was for memories of their time together. And regardless, it was on him to be circumspect in his answers so as to spare the feelings of Hawkins’s bandmates and closest friends. Whatever the question was, there was literally no reason to share this.“Naively,” please. As if this is their first media interview.
If you are living in a world where you think your words can’t be twisted out of context and are performatively angry about folks saying otherwise, it sounds like you just wanted to make yourself a part of the story, which was shitty.
1. Where did I say I believed that I live in a world where words can’t be twisted out of context?2. In what way were his words “twisted”?3. What about my comment indicated to you that I was angry?4. If something about my comment did indicate to you that I was angry, what about it indicates to you that said anger was “performative”?If you can answer these questions I’ll have a fuller understand of what you’re trying to say here and be able to form a response.
Stunning insight! Yes, the drummers for three of the biggest bands on the planet (Cameron’s in PJ and Soundgarden) needed attention.
I don’t know, unless they want to share the context of those quotes they did seem to have plenty of people talking about how Hawkins thought the schedule was rough. The story doesn’t hinge on just those two.
Journalism 101 time
Why do that when you can just disappear the first article and stick this new one at the very bottom of the page?
Come on Rolling Stone, we *just* talked about this…https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dead-and-company-tour-future-1334902/
The life of a music man ain’t always what it’s supposed to be