EXCLUSIVE: Greenwich Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Let There Be Drums!, a music documentary that features what may have been the final filmed interview with late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.
Justin Kreutzmann, son of The Grateful Dead’s drummer Bill Kreutzmann, directed the documentary which “examines the essential role drumming plays in great bands and how music passes from generation to generation.”
Hawkins, who died in March at the age of 50 while visiting Bogotá, Colombia, appears in the documentary, along with fellow percussion luminaries Ringo Starr, Stewart Copeland of The Police; Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann of The Grateful Dead; Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction; Chad Smith of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Matt Sorum of Guns N’ Roses.
Greenwich plans to release the film in theaters on October 28. There’s a personal dimension to the documentary; the younger Kreutzmann took on the project “to talk to the world’s most influential drummers in hopes of better understanding his father and the instrument that defined his life.”
“The idea of doing the movie Let There Be Drums! really came to me as a gift. Literally,” Justin Kreutzmann said in a statement. “It started Christmas Day, 1977 when I was given a Super-8 film camera. The first home movies I filmed were of my Dad on stage at Winterland in San Francisco. They were shot from my perspective, sitting right behind him on the drum riser so he could keep an eye on me during the Grateful Dead’s performances. Drums, and the drummers that play them, have been a major component of my entire life.”
The documentary is a production of AOMA Sunshine Films, the company that produced the acclaimed 2017 Grateful Dead documentary Long Strange Trip. AOMA’s Alex Blavatnik produced Let There Be Drums! Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann serve as executive producers.
Greenwich’s Andy Bohn negotiated the acquisition with Submarine’s Dan Braun on behalf of the filmmakers.