Taylor Hawkins (February 17, 1972 – March 25, 2022) was an American musician and drummer with the rock band Foo Fighters.
Oliver Taylor Hawkins was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and his family moved to Laguna Beach, California, in 1976, where he grew up. Taylor Hawkins graduated from Laguna Beach High School in 1990.
Taylor Hawkins played in the Orange County-based band Sylvia before he became the drummer for Sass Jordan.
From June 1995 until March 1997, Taylor Hawkins was Alanis Morissette’s drummer on the tour supporting “Jagged Little Pill” and her “Can’t Not” tour. He appeared in the videos for the singles “You Oughta Know”, “All I Really Want”, and “You Learn”, as well as on Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill, Live”, which chronicled the “Jagged Little Pill” world tour from 1995 to 1996, and was released in 1997.
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After touring through the spring of 1996, the Foo Fighters went into a Seattle studio with producer Gil Norton to record their second album. Story has it that Dave Grohl and drummer William Goldsmith fell out, eventually causing Goldsmith to leave the band, who regrouped in Los Angeles and almost completely re-recorded the album with Grohl on drums. The album, “The Colour and the Shape”, was released on May 20, 1997.
Dave Grohl called Taylor Hawkins asking for recommendations for a new drummer to join the Foo Fighters. To Grohl’s surprise, Taylor Hawkins volunteered to join the band himself, explaining that he wanted to be a drummer in a rock band rather than backing a solo artist.
The Foo Fighters announced Taylor Hawkins would be its new drummer on March 18, 1997, and he first appeared with them in the music video for the 1997 single “Monkey Wrench”, although the song was recorded before he joined.
Taylor Hawkins overdosed on heroin in August 2001, which left him in a coma for two weeks and Dave Grohl was beside his hospital bed in London until he woke up.
Taylor Hawkins also provided vocals, guitar, and piano onvarious recordings with the Foo Fighters, and sang the lead vocal on a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar”. Two versions of the song were released, one as the B-side to “Learn to Fly” and another on the “Mission: Impossible 2” movie soundtrack album.
He later sang lead vocals on “Cold Day in the Sun” from the album, “In Your Honor”, which was later released as a single, as well as a cover of Cream’s “I Feel Free”, which appeared as the B-side of “DOA” and on the EP “Five Songs and a Cover”. Hawkins also sang lead vocals for the band’s cover of Joe Walsh’s “Life of Illusion”. Later, he sang lead vocals for “Sunday Rain”, a track on the Foo Fighters’ 2017 album Concrete and Gold. He sang lead vocals on some songs during Foo Fighters live shows, such as a cover of Queen’s “Somebody To Love” on his last concert with the band.
Taylor Hawkins also contributed to the band’s song writing and was listed as a co-writer on every album since “There Is Nothing Left to Lose” which was released on November 2, 1999.
Taylor Hawkins was voted “Best Rock Drummer” in 2005 by the British drumming magazine Rhythm.
Taylor Hawkins married in 2005, and he and his wife, Alison, had three children and lived in Hidden Hills, California, after moving from Topanga Canyon in 2012.
In 2006, Taylor Hawkins released a self-titled LP with his side project, “Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders”, which had formed in 2004. The band subsequently released two more albums called “Red Light Fever” in 2010, and “Get the Money” in 2019.
At Live Earth, a one-off event developed to combat climate change, in 2007, Taylor Hawkins was part of SOS Allstars with Roger Taylor of Queen and Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers.
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Taylor Hawkins appeared on Slash’s solo album “Slash”, which was released in 2010, providing backing vocals on the track “Crucify the Dead”, which featured Ozzy Osbourne.
While the Foo Fighters were on break in 2013, Hawkins formed a rock cover band called Chevy Metal.
In 2013, he also made his acting debut in the role of Iggy Pop in the rock film CBGB.
In March 2014, Taylor Hawkins announced another side project called “The Birds of Satan” which featured Hawkins’s drum technician and bandmate from Chevy Metal, Wiley Hodgden on bass guitar and vocals as well as guitarist Mick Murphy also of Chevy Metal. The band’s self-titled debut album was released in April 2014, with a release party at ‘Rock n Roll Pizza’ featuring the Foo Fighters guesting on some of the cover tracks.
Taylor Hawkins was also commissioned to complete an unfinished recording of a song by Beach Boys’ drummer Dennis Wilson titled “Holy Man” by writing and singing new lyrics. The recording, which also featured contributions from Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, was issued as a single for Record Store Day in 2019.
Hawkins invited other stars to sing in the “Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders” album “Get the Money”, such as LeAnn Rimes, who sang on one of his songs titled “C U In Hell”. Loudwire named the album one of the 50 best rock efforts of 2019.
In 2021, Hawkins and Jane’s Addiction members Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney formed a supergroup called NHC, which was described by Hawkins as being “somewhere between Rush and the Faces”, the band made its live debut in September 2021 at Eddie Vedder’s Ohana festival, with Taylor’s Foo Fighters bandmate Pat Smear on additional guitar.
In October 2021 Elton John released “The Lockdown Sessions”, which featured Taylor Hawkins playing drums on the song “E-Ticket”.
Taylor Hawkins was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021 as a member of Foo Fighters.
Hawkins’ final performance with the Foo Fighters was at the Lollapalooza Argentina festival on March 20, 2022, just days before his death.
On March 25, 2022, Taylor Hawkins was in Bogotá, Colombia, where he was scheduled to perform with the Foo Fighters later that evening. After Hawkins complained of chest pains, emergency services were called to his room at the Four Seasons Casa Medina hotel. Unfortunately, when health personnel arrived they found Hawkins unresponsive. They performed CPR, but he was declared dead at the scene.
Taylor Hawkins died at the age of 50 on March 25, 2022, in Bogotá, Colombia. His cause of death was not immediately revealed.
Taylor Hawkins posthumously won three Grammys with the Foo Fighters on April 3, 2022.
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