The Foo Fighters were to play a festival in San Isidro, Argentina, on Sunday and in Bogota, Colombia on Friday night.
The Foo Fighters were to play a festival in San Isidro, Argentina, on Sunday and in Bogota, Colombia on Friday night.
Taylor Hawkins, longtime drummer for rock band Foo Fighters, has died. He was 50 years old.
There were no immediate details about how Hawkins died, although the band said in a statement Friday that his death was a “tragic and untimely loss”.
The Foo Fighters were on a tour of South America. They played one festival in San Isidro, Argentina on Sunday and were scheduled to play in another in Bogota, Colombia on Friday night.
“Their musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever,” said a message on the band’s official Twitter account that was also emailed to reporters.
“Our hearts go out to his wife, children and family, and we ask that his privacy be respected with the utmost respect during this unimaginably difficult time.”
After Foo Fighters founder and front man Dave Grohl, Hawkins was perhaps the most prominent member of the group, appearing with Grohl in interviews and playing a major role in the band’s videos.
He also starred in Foo Fighters’ recently released horror-comedy film, “Studio 666”, about a house inhabited by a demonic force band that captures Grohl and makes him murderous.
Hawkins and the other band members, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffy, Chris Shiflet, Nate Mandel, are killed one by one. The film allowed the group, which has for decades been one of rock music’s most enduring acts, to have fun while acting out a long-running joke.
The film’s premise derives from their work on their 10th studio album in a house in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.
Hawkins was the drummer of Foo Fighters for 25 of the band’s 28 years of existence, taking over in 1997 for original drummer William Goldsmith.
Born Oliver Taylor Hawkins in 1972 in Fort Worth Texas, Hawkins was raised in Laguna Beach, California. He played in the small Southern California band Sylvia before landing his first major gig as a drummer for Canadian singer Sass Jordan. He then spent the mid-1990s as a touring drummer for Alanis Morissette, before Grohl asked him to join the Foo Fighters.
This is the second time that Grohl has experienced the death of a close bandmate. Grohl was the drummer for Nirvana at the time of Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994.
Hawking is survived by his wife Alison and their three children.