There are no immediate details on how Hawkins died, although the band said in a statement on Friday that his death was a “tragic and premature loss”. The Foo Fighters were scheduled to perform at a festival in Bogota, Colombia, on Friday night. Hawkins’s last concert was on Sunday at another festival in San Isidro, Argentina. “His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live with us all forever,” he said in a message on the band’s official Twitter account, which was also emailed to reporters. “Our hearts are with his wife, children and family.”

“This leaves me empty”

Police vehicles, an ambulance and fans gathered outside the hotel in northern Bogota, where Hawkins is believed to be staying. “It was a band I grew up with. It leaves me empty,” Juan Sebastian Anchique, 23, told the Associated Press as he mourned Hawkins outside the hotel. Authorities in Colombia have not commented on Hawkins’ death. The US Embassy in Bogota expressed its condolences in a tweet. Hawkins, left, and Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl react as they introduce Rush to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 in Los Angeles. (Danny Moloshok / Invision / The Associated Press)
After Grohl, Hawkins was the band’s most recognizable member, appearing alongside the singer in interviews and playing prominent, usually comedic, roles in the band’s memorable videos and recent horror comedy at Studio 666. Hawkins was the touring drummer for Alanis Morrissette when he joined the Foo Fighters in 1997. He played on the band’s biggest albums, such as One by One and On Your Honor, and on successful singles such as My Hero and Best of You. In Grohl’s 2021 book The Storyteller, he called Hawkins “his brother from another mother, my best friend, a man for whom I would take a bullet.”

“We are absolutely destined to be”

“With the first meeting, our bond was direct and we were closer with every day, every song, every note we ever played together,” Grohl wrote. “We are absolutely destined to be and I am grateful to be in this life.” This is the second time Grohl has experienced the death of a close teammate. Grohl was the Nirvana drummer when Kurt Cobain died in 1994. Tributes surfaced on social media about Hawkins on Friday night. pic.twitter.com/ffPHhUKRT4 – @ foofighters
“God bless you, Taylor Hawkins,” Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello wrote 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.” “What an incredible talent, who also did not have to be so kind and generous and cool, but it was all anyway,” wrote Finneas, Billie Eilish’s brother, co-writer and producer, on Twitter. “People were so lucky to have their gifts for the time they had.” Born Oliver Taylor Hawkins in Fort Worth, Texas in 1972, Hawkins grew up in Laguna Beach, California. He played in the small Southern California band Sylvia before his first big concert as a drummer for Canadian singer Sass Jordan.

Influenced by Phil Collins

Hawkins told the Associated Press in 2019 that his first drum influences included Stewart Copeland of The Police, Roger Taylor of the Queen, and Phil Collins, who he said was “one of my favorite drummers. You know, the “People forget that he was a great drummer as well as a handsome man wearing a sweater from the ’80s, poor thing.” When he spent two years in the mid-1990s playing drums for Morrissette, he was mainly inspired by Jane’s Stephen Perkins’s play. “My drums were set up like that, the whole thing,” Hawkins told the AP. “I was still a bit of a copywriter at that point. It takes a while to create your own style. I didn’t sound just like him, I sound like me, but he was a big, huge influence.” People stand in front of the hotel where Hawkins is believed to have stayed in Bogota, Colombia, on Saturday. (Leonardo Munoz / The Associated Press)
He and Grohl met backstage at a show when Hawkins was still with Morissette. Grohl’s band would have an opening shortly after then-drummer William Goldsmith left. Grohl called Hawkins, who was a huge fan of the Foo Fighters, and he accepted immediately. “I’m not afraid to say that our chance meeting was a kind of love at first sight, which lit a musical ‘twin flame’ that still burns to this day,” Grohl wrote in his book. “Together, we have become an unstoppable duo, on stage and off stage, seeking every adventure we can find.” Hawkins first appeared with the band in the 1997 video for Foo Fighters’ most popular song, Everlong, although he had not yet joined the band when the song was recorded. It would, however, continue to launch epic versions hundreds of times until the climax of the Foo Fighters concerts.

He recently starred in a horror film

In another highlight of the band’s live shows, Grohl would step behind the drums and Hawkins would grab the microphone to sing a cover of Somebody to Love by the Queen. “The best place to be a Foo Fighters singer for a single song is that I really have the best rock ‘n’ roll drummer on planet Earth,” Hawkins said before the song at a March 18 concert in Chile. Grohl is heard telling him to shut up. Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, right, and Alison Hawkins arrive at a gala in Beverly Hills, California, in 2013. (John Shearer / Invision / AP)
Hawkins also co-starred in the recently released horror comedy Studio 666, in which a demonic force in a house where the band lives occupies Grohl and kills him. In the film, Hawkins and other members of the band – Pat Smir, Rami Jeffrey, Chris Schifflet, Nate Mendel – are killed one by one. The move allowed the band, which for decades was one of the most enduring songs in rock music, to have fun while making a long-lasting joke. The story arose from their work on their 10th studio album at a home in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. He also drums and sang for the side-project trio Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders. They released an album, Get the Money, in 2006. Hawkins was survived by his wife, Allison, and their three children.