Taylor Hawkins features in the trailer for “Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear“, a documentary more than ten years in the making.
Taylor Hawkins has been gone for four years. He turns up in the trailer for Travis Barker‘s documentary anyway, talking about what he saw in another drummer long before either of them knew how the story would end.
The late Foo Fighters drummer appears in “Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear“, which arrives on Thursday, August 13 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ in the United States, and on Disney+ elsewhere. Barker has said the film was more than a decade in the making, which is how Hawkins‘ contribution came to be recorded before his death in March 2022 at the age of 50.
In his clip, Hawkins describes what set Barker apart early on.
“He just had this, ‘Oh, you’re gonna get picked up by a band, and you will be a star attraction’ [quality],” Hawkins said.
The two men’s paths crossed repeatedly. Barker played both Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts in 2022, at Wembley Stadium in London and the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, and revealed the following year that he had asked Hawkins to sit down and play drums together shortly before he died.
The 90-minute film is co-directed by Justin Krook and Michael Dwyer and was produced by Media Weaver Entertainment. It premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York on June 13, followed by a conversation with Barker himself.
Its central subject is the plane crash of September 2008, which killed Barker‘s assistant Chris “Lil Chris” Baker, his bodyguard Charles “Che” Still and both pilots. Barker and Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein survived. Barker suffered third-degree burns across 65 per cent of his body, spent three months in hospital and underwent 27 surgeries. Goldstein was found dead in his New York apartment a year later.
“Che and Chris were like brothers to me,” Barker says in the trailer. “And then AM passing away a year later… why am I here, when everyone else isn’t?”
He also addresses the painkiller addiction that came out of years of constant touring.
“I was taking so many pills that I had a security guard whose only job was to watch me sleep and make sure I was breathing,” he admitted.
Barker has said the crash ended his prescription drug use, describing it as his rehab, though the years that followed brought post-traumatic stress, severe anxiety and depression, and he has spoken since about the survivor’s guilt that came with them. He has described the flashbacks as the worst he has experienced.
“I had to ask myself who I was gonna be after this accident.”
Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge both appear, recalling Barker‘s arrival in Blink-182. Hoppus says having him in the band felt effortless, while DeLonge looks back on what he calls a wild ride. Mötley Crüe‘s Tommy Lee features as well, along with Barker‘s wife Kourtney Kardashian and his children.
Barker described the project to Rolling Stone as “an unfiltered look at my journey after a life-changing experience” that “spotlights the amazing people I have in my life who carried me through it”.
“I feel incredibly lucky to be able to document it and be able to share it with all of you,” he added. “This documentary started over 10 years ago and it’s been a wild, wild ride, and I can’t wait to share it with the world.”
Barker was born in Fontana, California, joined The Aquabats in 1996 and stepped into Blink-182 two years later. He wrote about the crash and its aftermath in his memoir Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, And Drums, Drums, Drums.
He also confirmed while promoting the film that Blink-182 are working on a new album, the follow-up to 2023’s One More Time…, which reunited him with Hoppus and DeLonge for the first record by the original three in over a decade.
