FOO FIGHTERS drummer Taylor Hawkins reportedly felt apprehensive about returning to touring after COVID-19 restrictions began to ease and felt overwhelmed by the band’s intense touring schedule.
These claims have been made by numerous friends who were interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine about the career of the late musician.
PEARL JAM and SOUNDGARDEN drummer Matt Cameron tells Rolling Stone: “[Taylor] had a heart-to-heart with Dave [Grohl, FOO FIGHTERS frontman] and, yeah, he told me that he ‘couldn’t fucking do it anymore’ — those were his words. So I guess they did come to some understanding, but it just seems like the touring schedule got even crazier after that.” A FOO FIGHTERS representative denied that Hawkins ever brought these issues forth, saying “No, there was never a ‘heart-to-heart’ — or any sort of meeting on this topic — with Dave and [Silva Artist Management].”
“Honestly, I think he was just so tired,” said singer and close friend Sass Jordan. “Tired of the whole game.”
Another friend of Hawkins’s, who requested to remain anonymous, said: “The fact that he finally spoke to Dave and really told him that he couldn’t do this and that he wouldn’t do it anymore, that was freeing for him. That took fucking balls. That did take a year of working up the guts to do.” A representative for FOO FIGHTERS said: “He never ‘informed Dave and [management]’ of anything at all like that.”
Multiple friends also told Rolling Stone that Taylor actually lost consciousness on board a plane in Chicago last December. News reports from the time described him anonymously as “a member of FOO FIGHTERS.” “He just said he was exhausted and collapsed, and they had to pump him full of IVs and stuff,” RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS drummer Chad Smith tells Rolling Stone. “He was dehydrated and all kinds of stuff.” A representative for FOO FIGHTERS replied to the allegations, saying “This is not true.”
Matt Cameron communicated as well that he believes Hawkins agreed to continue the exhaustive touring schedule with FOO FIGHTERS to be a “team player”.
“[A band like that] is a big machine [with] a lot of people on the payroll,” Cameron said. “So you’ve got to really be cognizant of the business side of something when it’s that big and that has inherent pressure, just like any business.”
Rolling Stone says that Hawkins’s family had declined to make any comment to the magazine.
Hawkins was found dead on March 25 at the Four Seasons Casa Medina hotel in Bogota, Colombia while FOO FIGHTERS were on tour. An official cause of death for Hawkins has yet to be revealed.