Foo Fighters (photo: Danny Clinch)
Tragic news broke late Friday night, as Foo Fighters reported their drummer Taylor Hawkins had been found dead in his hotel room in South America at the age of 50. In a statement, the band said, “The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins. His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever. Our hearts go out to his wife, children and family, and we ask that their privacy be treated with the utmost respect in this unimaginably difficult time.” The Foos were scheduled to perform at Festival Estéreo Picnic in Bogotá, Colombia on Friday as the festival’s headliner.
Hawkins joined the Foo Fighters in 1997, replacing drummer William Goldsmith behind the kit, with the difficult task of playing with the band’s founder Dave Grohl, one of the most acclaimed rock drummers of his era thanks to his time in Nirvana. He had previously been in Alanis Morissette‘s band, touring behind her massive breakthrough album Jagged Little Pill.
In last year’s memoir The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, Grohl called Hawkins his “best friend and partner in crime.” Hawkins played on every Foos album from 1999’s There Is Nothing Left to Lose onward, taking lead vocals on a handful of songs over the years, as well as as singing lead on numerous classic rock covers in concert. Most recently, the band had taken to covering Queen‘s “Somebody to Love” with Grohl and Hawkins swapping places on stage.
Hawkins also had his own side-project, Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, and recently had been making music with Jane’s Addiction members Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney under the moniker NHC.
The BBC‘s Beatriz De La Pava, who was on-site at the festival, reported that “While we were backstage, I saw the Foo Fighters team was packing up everything,” adding, “The organizers of the festival arrived and then they all went on to the stage after Nile Rodgers had finished and said they had some very sad news to share. A message was then published on the big screens that Taylor had died and everyone was silent. A few of the other stages started playing ‘My Hero’ by the Foo Fighters. They placed candles on the stage where the Foo Fighters were supposed to play. A lot of people were crying and some DJs who were supposed to play sets cancelled, although people just wanted more and more Foo Fighters music.”
The Foo Fighters had been very busy over the past year and a half, celebrating their belated 25th anniversary, delayed by the pandemic, as well as releasing their also-delayed 10th album Medicine at Midnight. The band was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last fall, and just a month ago, put out the horror/comedy film Studio 666.
Hawkins is survived by his wife, Alison Hawkins, and their three children, Oliver, Annabelle, and Everleigh.
