LOS ANGELES—Taylor Hawkins, for 25 years the drummer for Foo Fighters and best friend of frontman Dave Grohl, has died during a South American tour with the rock band. He was 50.
There were few immediate details on how Hawkins died, although the band said in a statement Friday that his death was a “tragic and untimely loss.”
Foo Fighters had been scheduled to play at a festival in Bogota, Colombia, on Friday night. Hawkins’ final concert was Sunday at another festival in San Isidro, Argentina.
“His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever,” said a message on the band’s official Twitter account that was also emailed to reporters. “Our hearts go out to his wife, children and family.”
The Bogota municipal government issued a statement Saturday that the city’s emergency center had received a report of a patient with “chest pain” and sent an ambulance. A private ambulance arrived as well, it said.
Health workers tried to revive him, but were unable to do so. It said the cause of death was under investigation.
Police vehicles, an ambulance and fans were gathered outside the hotel in northern Bogota where Hawkins was believed to have been staying.
“It was a band I grew up with. This leaves me empty,” Juan Sebastian Anchique, 23, told The Associated Press as he mourned Hawkins outside the hotel.
The U.S. Embassy in Bogota also expressed its condolences in a tweet.
Hawkins was Alanis Morrissette’s touring drummer when he joined Foo Fighters in 1997. He played on the band’s biggest albums including “One by One” and “On Your Honor,” and on hit singles including “My Hero” and “Best of You.”
It’s the second time Grohl has experienced the death of a close bandmate. Grohl was the drummer for Nirvana when Kurt Cobain died in 1994.
Tributes poured out on social media for Hawkins on Friday night.
“God bless you Taylor Hawkins,” Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello said on Twitter along with a photo of himself, Hawkins and Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Ferrell. “I loved your spirit and your unstoppable rock power.”
Born Oliver Taylor Hawkins in Fort Worth Texas in 1972, Hawkins was raised in Laguna Beach, California. He played in the small Southern California band Sylvia before landing his first major gig as a drummer for Canadian singer Sass Jordan.
Hawkins told The Associated Press in 2019 that his early drumming influences included Stewart Copeland of The Police, Roger Taylor from Queen, and Phil Collins, who he said was “one of my favorite drummers ever. You know, people forget that he was a great drummer as well as a sweater-wearing nice guy from the ’80s, poor fella.”
When he spent two years in the mid-1990s drumming for Morrissette, he was inspired primarily by the playing of Jane’s Addiction’s Stephen Perkins.
“My drums were set up like him, the whole thing,” Hawkins told the AP. “I was still sort of a copycat at that point. It takes a while and takes a little while to sort of establish your own sort of style. I didn’t sound exactly like him, I sound like me, but he was a big, huge influence.”
He and Grohl met backstage at a show when Hawkins was still with Morrissette. Grohl’s band would have an opening soon after when then-drummer William Goldsmith left. Grohl called Hawkins, who was a huge Foo Fighters fan and immediately accepted.
Hawkins first appeared with the band in the 1997 video for Foo Fighters’ most popular song, “Everlong,” although he had yet to join the group when the song was recorded. He would, however, go on to pound out epic versions of it hundreds of times as the climax of Foo Fighters’ concerts.
In another highlight of the group’s live shows, Grohl would get behind the drums and Hawkins would grab the mic to sing a cover of Queen’s “Somebody to Love.”
“The best part of getting to be the lead singer of the Foo Fighters for just for one song is I really do have the greatest rock ‘n’ roll drummer on the planet earth,” Hawkins said before the song in a March 18 concert in Chile.
Hawkins is survived by his wife Alison and their three children.
