It seems unlikely there will ever be another drummer to nail the balance between awesome and funny like Taylor Hawkins is able to. The Foo Fighters’ drummer cheekily pays tribute to early eighties kitschiness in his music video for “Range Rover Bitch,” the funky, hard-rocking lead single from his recently released solo effort KOTA (which stands for “King of the Assholes”).
The video really indulges in the nostalgia (or is it bawdiness?) of the 80’s with closeups of keyboards, guitar, and, obviously, a cowbell before turning its focus onto the star of the video, Hawkins. With flowing blond hair and dark mustache, even Hawkins’ appearance is reminiscent of days past.
Many of the video’s features are so iconic to the era that even those who haven’t experienced it can recognize its most retro moments. For example, at one point the video shows a superimposed line of Hawkinses and, for no reason other than to dive deeper into the retro well, a zebra.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Hawkins said that “Liam Lynch did an incredible job on the ‘Range Rover Bitch’ video. I think our shared love of that pre-MTV late ’70s/very early ’80s direct-to-video late night television Don Kirshner/Midnight Special vibe really shines through on this video. He really captured that Kim Carnes, nick Gilder feel.”
“‘Range Rover Bitch’ came from the fact that I live in Calabasas,” Hawkins said in an interview with Consequence of Sound. “I live in the neighborhood where the Kardashians live. I look around at my life, and outside of being onstage and all the wonderful crazy fucking shit that we get to do as a band, I lead a very normal life. I have three kids, a wife and we have a date night every week. … So I look around and think how I never ever thought that picking up this pair of drumsticks would make me one of these well-to-do adults. [Laughs] I’m looking around going, ‘Look at these idiots, and how did I become one of them?'”
Check out the video below.
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