Drummer Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters was at his wit’s end before his demise at 50 in March, various friends told Rolling Stone in a new analytical piece published on Monday.
Journalists at the rock bible said they talked with 20 of Hawkins’ friends in the month and a half since his passing away.
His relatives and Foo Fighters bandmates declined to be interviewed. Yet, the band’s management said: “They dispute Hawkins’ friends’ characterizations of how he was feeling.”
However, as per his friends, Hawkins was worried about the band’s insane touring plan and couldn’t say whether he could actually deal with playing three-hour shows night after night. They allege that he addressed if he would continue as a full-time band member.
“He had a heart-to-heart with Dave and, yeah, he told me that he couldn’t f **king do it anymore – those were his words,” said Pearl Jam drummer and side-project collaborator Matt Cameron. “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’ rep rejects that Hawkins raised these worries, telling Rolling Stone: “No, there was never a heart-to-heart – or any sort of meeting on this topic – with Dave and Silva Artist Management.”
Likewise, Cameron let the power source know that Hawkins consented to continue and keep touring with the band to “be a team player.”
“A band like that is a big machine with a lot of people on the payroll,” Cameron continued. “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.”
According to a new report, the Foo Fighters drummer, who died in March, had a heart-to-heart with Dave Grohl about slowing down. https://t.co/oPrnzKvU9o
— Esquire (@esquire) May 17, 2022
The band’s rep again rejected that Hawkins at any point referenced needing to scale back and take time.
“He never informed Dave and management of anything at all like that.”
The rep likewise denied the reports that said Hawkins was the musician who passed out on a plane in December. In the interim, Hawkins’ friend from the Red Hot Chili Peppers – drummer Chad Smith, told the Rolling Stone that this episode, without a doubt, occurred.
“That was one of the straws that broke the camel’s back,” Smith said. “After that, he had a real important heart-to-heart with Dave and the management.” He said, ‘I can’t continue on this schedule, and so we’ve got to figure out something.”
The consequences of Hawkins’ post-mortem have not been made public. However, a urine analysis found antidepressants, opioids, marijuana, and benzodiazepines in his system, Rolling Stone reported.
“Taylor never played f**ked up in his life,” Chad Yeti Ward, Hawkins’ drum tech from 2005 to 2019, told Rolling Stone. “He always played as sober as can be. That was a show day. So for somebody to say that he was doing drugs that day, that is just about the most false thing anybody could ever say about him.”
Doctors said that his heart weighed about double any ordinary heart. Weighing 600 grams or 1.3 pounds. It might have imploded from the enlargement alone.
This story syndicated with permission from For the Love of News
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