Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins has died

Taylor Hawkins, the jocund, ferocious drummer for Foo Fighters for further than two decades, has failed at the age of 50, according to a statement from the band. 

 

 “ The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the woeful and early loss of our cherished Taylor Hawkins,” read the communication, which was posted to social media. “ His musical spirit and contagious horselaugh will live on with all of us ever.” Foo Fighters are presently on stint in South America and were listed to perform at Festival Estéreo Picnic in Bogotá, Colombia, at the time of Hawkins’ death, a rep for the band told Rolling Stone. No cause of death was given. 

As news of Hawkins’ death spread, multitudinous musicians and celebrities took to social media to recognize the late drummer. “ God bless you Taylor Hawkins. I loved your spirit and your impregnable gemstone power,” wrote Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, participating a print of himself and Hawkins alongside Jane’s Dependence’s Perry Farrell. “ Rest In Peace my friend.” Miley Cyrus, a noted Foo Fighters addict, participated a snap of herself and Hawkins to her Instagram stories, jotting, “ This is how I ’ll always remember you,” and added that her forthcoming musicale would be devoted to him. Slash wrote that Hawkins’ death left him “ devastated,” saying, “ I ’ve no words to express all the passions I've about his end.” Former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, Ozzy Osbourne, patron Steve Albini and musician Finneas were among others who also participated paeans. 

 Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Hawkins dislocated to Laguna Beach, California with his family in his early nonage. He first rose to elevation as the touring drummer for Alanis Morissette during the Jagged Little Pill period. “ The alternate I heard‘You Oughta Know,’I was like,‘I ’m in that band!'” Hawkins told Rolling Stone last November. “ I just knew.” Hawkins also appeared in the music vids for the songster’s megahit mates “ You Oughta Know” and “ You Learn.” 

 Afterinter-studio conflict led to the departure of original Foo Fighters drummer William Goldsmith during recording sessions for the group’s advance reader, The Colour and the Shape — forcing frontman Dave Grohl to handle drumming duties on the record — Hawkins officially joined the band at Grohl’s request in the spring of 1997. 

 Grohl would latterly relate to the drummer as his “ stylish friend and mate in crime” in his 2021 autobiography, The Fibber Tales of Life and Music. “ During his stint as Alanis Morissette’s drummer, long before he came a Foo Fighter, we'd impinge into each other confidentially at carnivals each over the world, and our chemistry was so egregious that indeed Alanis herself formerly asked him,‘What are you going to do when Dave asks you to be his drummer?'” Grohl wrote. “ Part Beavis and Butthead, part Dumb and Dumber, we were a hyperactive blur of Parliament Lights and air drumming wherever we went.” 

 

 Throughout his career with Foo Fighters, Hawkins sometimes handled oral duties, singing lead on the group’s 2005 single “ Cold Day in the Sun” and “ Sunday Rain” from 2017’s Concrete and Gold. Hawkins also constantly sang cover songs with the group, both for Foo Fighters B sides and during live performances — including a important rendition of Queen’s “ Notoriety to Love” during a January 2021 show for completely-vaccinated suckers in Los Angeles. 

 “ He came into a band that was enough scrappy, in general, and kind of shaped to that for a alternate, and also was like,‘ Hang on a alternate, what if we come good?'” Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel said of Hawkins in the band’s recent Rolling Stone cover story. “ That was Taylor’s thing, like,‘Why do n’t we learn how to be better as a band and pay further attention to what we ’re doing live?'” 

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 Hawkins alsoco-starred with his bandmates in the Foo Fighters’ horror- comedy film, Studio 666, released last month. 

 Outside of his work with Foo Fighters, Hawkins regularly banded with other musicians and groups — and indeed launched several side systems of his own. In 2006, he embarked on a solo career with Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, reuniting with his former Morissette traveling bandmate and Jane’s Dependence bassist Chris Chaney. Hawkins would go on to release three compendiums under the Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders banner, tapping artists including Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor, Elliot Easton of the Buses, Perry Farrell, as well as Grohl for collaborations. Hawkins also faced cover band Chevy Metal with musketeers Wiley Hodgden and Mick Murphy, with the triad ultimately releasing an reader under the moniker Catcalls of Satan in 2014. 

 

 Most lately, Hawkins joined forces with Chaney and Dave Navarro for NHC — a supergroup formed during epidemic jam sessions at Hawkins’home plant in Los Angeles. “ NHC was the first time any of us have been in a situationwriting-wise where we just throw the ball,” Hawkins told Rolling Stone last time. “ It’s like playing catch, literally. A jotting session or recording session for us is all three of us playing playing baseball in a vicinity.” The band’s debut reader is slated for release this time.