Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins dies: Details emerge about emergency response to Colombia hotel

There have been few rapid particulars on how Hawkins died, though the band said in a statement Friday that his loss of life was a “tragic and premature loss.”

Foo Fighters had been scheduled to play at a pageant in Bogota, Colombia, on Friday evening. Hawkins’ last live performance was Sunday at one other pageant in San Isidro, Argentina.

“His musical spirit and infectious laughter will reside on with all of us perpetually,” mentioned a message on the band’s official Twitter account that was additionally emailed to reporters. “Our hearts exit to his spouse, youngsters and household.”

The Bogota municipal authorities issued a press release Saturday that town’s emergency heart had acquired a report of a affected person with “chest ache” and despatched an ambulance, although a non-public ambulance had already arrived on the resort in northern Bogota.

Well being staff tried to revive him, however have been unable to take action. It mentioned the reason for loss of life was beneath investigation.

“It was a band I grew up with. This leaves me empty,” Juan Sebastian Anchique, 23, informed The Related Press as he mourned Hawkins exterior the resort.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota additionally expressed its condolences in a tweet.

After Grohl, Hawkins was probably the most recognizable member of the group, showing alongside the lead singer in interviews and taking part in outstanding, often comedian, roles within the band’s memorable movies and their current horror-comedy movie, “Studio 666.”

Hawkins was Alanis Morissette’s touring drummer when he joined Foo Fighters in 1997. He performed on the band’s greatest albums together with “One by One” and “In Your Honor,” and on hit singles together with “My Hero” and “Better of You.”

In Grohl’s 2021 e book “The Storyteller,” he referred to as Hawkins his “brother from one other mom, my finest good friend, a person for whom I might take a bullet.”

“Upon first assembly, our bond was rapid, and we grew nearer with every single day, each track, each word that we ever performed collectively,” Grohl wrote. “We’re completely meant to be, and I’m grateful that we discovered one another on this lifetime.”

It is the second time Grohl has skilled the loss of life of a detailed bandmate. Grohl was the drummer for Nirvana when Kurt Cobain died in 1994.

Tributes poured out on social media for Hawkins.

“God bless you Taylor Hawkins,” Rage Towards The Machine guitarist Tom Morello mentioned on Twitter together with a photograph of himself, Hawkins and Jane’s Habit singer Perry Farrell. “I liked your spirit and your unstoppable rock energy.”

“What an unimaginable expertise, who did not additionally should be so sort and beneficiant and funky however was all these issues too anyway,” tweeted Finneas, Billie Eilish’s brother, co-writer and producer. “The world was so fortunate to have his items for the time that it did.”

On the pageant the place Foo Fighters had been scheduled to carry out, information of the loss of life leaked out slowly, mentioned Diego Báez, a 33-year-old fan.

A live performance organizer first introduced the efficiency was cancelled for medical causes. Minutes later, followers discovered from social media of Hawkins’ loss of life.

“Some cried. Others have been unhappy, astonished, moved. It was a really highly effective second,” Baéz mentioned.

A display screen projected the phrases “Taylor Hawkins perpetually” whereas the track “My Hero” performed.

Born Oliver Taylor Hawkins in Fort Price, Texas, in 1972, Hawkins was raised in Laguna Seaside, California. He performed within the small Southern California band Sylvia earlier than touchdown his first main gig as a drummer for Canadian singer Sass Jordan.

Hawkins informed The Related Press in 2019 that his early drumming influences included Stewart Copeland of The Police, Roger Taylor from Queen, and Phil Collins, who he mentioned was “considered one of my favourite drummers ever. You realize, folks neglect that he was an ideal drummer in addition to a sweater-wearing good man from the ’80s, poor fella.”

When he spent two years within the mid-Nineties drumming for Morissette, he was impressed primarily by the taking part in of Jane’s Habit’s Stephen Perkins.

“My drums have been arrange like him, the entire thing,” Hawkins informed the AP. “I used to be nonetheless kind of a copycat at that time. It takes some time and takes a short time to kind of set up your personal kind of type. I did not sound precisely like him, I sound like me, however he was a giant, enormous affect.”

He and Grohl met backstage at a present when Hawkins was nonetheless with Morissette. Grohl’s band would have a gap quickly after when then-drummer William Goldsmith left. Grohl referred to as Hawkins, who was an enormous Foo Fighters fan and instantly accepted.

“I’m not afraid to say that our probability assembly was a form of love at first sight, igniting a musical ‘twin flame’ that also burns to today,” Grohl wrote in his e book. “Collectively, we have now change into an unstoppable duo, onstage and off, in pursuit of any and all journey we will discover.”

Hawkins first appeared with the band within the 1997 video for Foo Fighters’ hottest track, “Everlong,” though he had but to affix the group when the track was recorded. He would, nonetheless, go on to pound out epic variations of it a whole bunch of instances because the climax of Foo Fighters’ live shows.

In one other spotlight of the group’s reside exhibits, Grohl would get behind the drums and Hawkins would seize the mic to sing a canopy of Queen’s “Any individual to Love.”

“The very best a part of attending to be the lead singer of the Foo Fighters for only for one track is I actually do have the best rock ‘n’ roll drummer on the planet earth,” Hawkins mentioned earlier than the track in a March 18 live performance in Chile.

Grohl may be heard telling him to close up.

Hawkins additionally costarred in Foo Fighters’ just lately launched movie, “Studio 666,” wherein a demonic pressure in a home the place the band is staying seizes Grohl and makes him murderous. Hawkins and the opposite members of the band are killed off one after the other. The premise got here out of their work on their tenth studio album at a house in Los Angeles.

He additionally drummed and sang for the side-project trio Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders. They launched an album, “Get the Cash,” in 2006.

Hawkins is survived by his spouse Alison and their three youngsters.

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Related Press Writers Astrid Suarez and Manuel Rueda contributed to this report from Bogota, Colombia.