Taylor Hawkins, the jovial, ferocious drummer for Foo Fighters for much more than two a long time, died Friday at the age of 50. The band announced the musician’s loss of life in a assertion but did not expose a trigger.
“The Foo Fighters household is devastated by the tragic and premature decline of our beloved Taylor Hawkins,” the team wrote. “His musical spirit and infectious laughter will are living on with all of us permanently.” Foo Fighters are currently on tour in South The usa and had been scheduled to carry out at Competition Estéreo Picnic in Bogotá, Colombia, at the time of Hawkins’ dying, a rep for the band explained to Rolling Stone.
Bogota municipal government issued a assertion Friday evening confirming that the city’s crisis services gained a connect with about a affected individual complaining of “chest agony,” the Linked Push stories. Ambulances were despatched to the Four Seasons Casa Medina resort, the place the band was remaining. Well being personnel “carried out resuscitation maneuvers” on Hawkins but “the affected person was declared useless,” Bogotá’s Secretary of Health and fitness tweeted Saturday morning.
According to the Legal professional Standard of Colombia, 10 substances have been located in Hawkins, including antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and opioids. “The Nationwide Institute for Legal Medication carries on to carry out the essential clinical research to verify the induce of demise,” the workplace wrote in a tweet on Saturday. “The Legal professional General’s business will keep on to look into and will duly inform the conclusions of forensic exams in thanks time.”
As news of Hawkins’ demise spread, a lot of musicians and superstars took to social media to honor the late drummer. “God bless you Taylor Hawkins. I loved your spirit and your unstoppable rock power,” wrote Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, sharing a picture of himself and Hawkins along with Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell. Miley Cyrus, a pointed out Foo Fighters lover, shared a photograph of herself and Hawkins to her Instagram stories, composing, “This is how I’ll constantly don’t forget you,” and extra that her future live performance would be focused to him. Slash wrote that Hawkins’ loss of life remaining him “devastated,” stating, “I’ve no phrases to convey all the thoughts I have about his passing.” Former Aspiration Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, Ozzy Osbourne and producer Steve Albini were amongst others who also shared tributes.
Born in Fort Worthy of, Texas, Hawkins relocated to Laguna Seaside, California with his household in his early childhood. Following a stint with Canadian singer Sass Jordan in the early Nineties, Hawkins rose to prominence as the touring drummer for Alanis Morissette all through the Jagged Very little Tablet period. “The second I heard ‘You Oughta Know,’ I was like, ‘I’m in that band!’” Hawkins instructed Rolling Stone past November. “I just understood.” Hawkins also appeared in the tunes video clips for the singer’s hit singles “You Oughta Know” and “You Discover.”
Right after inter-studio conflict led to the departure of primary Foo Fighters drummer William Goldsmith in the course of recording classes for the group’s breakthrough next album, The Color and the Form — forcing frontman Dave Grohl to cope with drumming obligations on the record — Hawkins formally joined the band at Grohl’s request in the spring of 1997.
Grohl would afterwards refer to the drummer as his “best buddy and companion in crime” in his 2021 autobiography, The Storyteller: Tales of Everyday living and Songs. “During his stint as Alanis Morissette’s drummer, extended ahead of he grew to become a Foo Fighter, we would bump into each and every other backstage at festivals all in excess of the planet, and our chemistry was so noticeable that even Alanis herself at the time asked him, ‘What are you heading to do when Dave asks you to be his drummer?’” Grohl wrote. “Part Beavis and Butthead, part Dumb and Dumber, we have been a hyperactive blur of Parliament Lights and air drumming anywhere we went.”
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Throughout his profession with Foo Fighters, Hawkins once in a while managed vocal responsibilities, singing guide on the group’s 2005 single “Cold Working day in the Sunshine” and “Sunday Rain” from 2017’s Concrete and Gold. Hawkins also often sang deal with music with the group, the two for Foo Fighters B-sides and through stay performances — including a potent rendition of Queen’s “Somebody to Love” for the duration of a January 2021 display for absolutely-vaccinated lovers in Los Angeles.
“He came into a band that was quite scrappy, in common, and type of acclimated to that for a 2nd, and then was like, ‘Hang on a next, what if we grow to be good?’” Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel said of Hawkins in the band’s modern Rolling Stone deal with story. “That was Taylor’s thing, like, ‘Why never we find out how to be better as a band and pay much more notice to what we’re doing stay?’” Hawkins also co-starred with his bandmates in the Foo Fighters’ horror-comedy film, Studio 666, produced past thirty day period.
Exterior of his work with Foo Fighters, Hawkins routinely collaborated with other musicians and teams, launching a number of facet jobs of his very own. In 2006, he embarked on a solo occupation with Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, reuniting with his former Morissette touring bandmate and Jane’s Habit bassist Chris Chaney. Hawkins would go on to release three albums underneath the Coattail Riders banner, tapping artists like Queen’s Brian May perhaps and Roger Taylor, Elliot Easton of the Vehicles, Perry Farrell, as properly as Grohl for collaborations. Hawkins also fronted address band Chevy Steel with friends Wiley Hodgden and Mick Murphy, with the trio finally releasing an album less than the moniker Birds of Satan in 2014.
Most lately, Hawkins joined forces with Chaney and Dave Navarro for NHC — a supergroup fashioned for the duration of pandemic jam periods at Hawkins’ dwelling studio in Los Angeles. “NHC was the first time any of us have been in a problem producing-smart where by we just throw the ball,” Hawkins advised Rolling Stone last year. “It’s like actively playing catch, literally. A producing session or recording session for us is all 3 of us taking part in actively playing baseball in a backyard.” The band’s debut album is slated for launch this 12 months.
“The drummer’s seat is the very hot seat,” Hawkins told Rolling Stone in 2020. “It’s the initially male to get fired. It is the 1st [guy] when all people goes, ‘We sucked tonight simply because he sucked.’ The drummer is truly the bathroom of the band, but also the most crucial portion on a particular amount. Your task is to be the pulse of the band.”
