Friends of late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins tell Rolling Stone that he expressed concern with the band’s heavy touring schedule in the days leading up to his unexpected death this past March.
According to Pearl Jam‘s Matt Cameron, Hawkins had a “heart-to-heart” conversation with Foo frontman Dave Grohl about the subject.
“[Hawkins] told me that he ‘couldn’t f***ing do it anymore’ — those were his words,” Cameron says. “So I guess they did come to some understanding, but it just seems like the touring schedule got even crazier after that.”
An anonymous friend adds, “The fact that [Hawkins] 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 did take a year of working up the guts to do.”
Meanwhile, “multiple friends” tell Rolling Stone that Hawkins had “lost consciousness” while on a plane this past December.
“[Hawkins] just said he was exhausted and collapsed, and they had to pump him full of IVs and stuff,” says Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers, adding that incident was “one of the straws that broke the camel’s back” that led him to approach Grohl and the band’s management with his concerns.
However, a rep for Foo Fighters tells Rolling Stone that Hawkins “never ‘informed Dave and [management]"” of wanting to scale back his touring, and also denies that there ever was a “heart-to-heart” or “any sort of meeting on this topic” between Hawkins, Grohl and the band’s management. The rep also tells Rolling Stone that the reports of Hawkins losing consciousness on the plane are “not true.”
Hawkins died March 25 ahead of a scheduled Foo Fighters show Bogotá, Colombia. He was 50. All Foo Fighters’ remaining tour dates have been canceled.
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