Foo Fighters: How Did Taylor Hawkins Die?

the greatest drummers who ever lived. Why not? I have some ideas, and none of them take away from the fact that Taylor Hawkins and the Foo Fighters made great music. Unlike that music, I've played a few at the top of the show that wasn't great music. That was a not so preset loop for my melotron called ROMI has Two Trons MK one. I played you that loote because I can't afford the rights to heat Waves by Glass Animals, And why would I play you that specific slice of

I don't even know what to call that, geez? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on March twenty fifth, twenty twenty two, and that was the day that Food Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died, creating one of the most unexplainable and recent mysteries in rock and roll. On this episode, the Incredible Story of Dave Roll, Dave Groll's incredible story telling great rock and roll in the mystery behind the death of Food Fighters

drummer Taylor Hawkins. I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgrace slams. Dave Grohl is commonly referred to as the nicest guy in rock and roll. It's a descriptor that Dave himself

reportedly doesn't like. However, the Foo Fighters front man and former drummer for Nirvana and DC hardcore band Scream, has been on our radios and screens and in our record bins for the past three decades, entertaining us in some capacity, either on stage, in front of the microphone, behind the drums on record, or answering some interviewers questions with his four on the floor charisma and his toothy smile and well earned confidence, and well, he sure seems like a

nice guy. I've never met Dave Grohl, but I have a lot of friends who have, and every single one of them says the same thing. Yes, he really is that dude. At the moment, that dude, Dave Grohl is everywhere. It seems. He's all over our feeds, in short clips and in memes, the former from his Zane Lowe Apple

Music conversation, the latter from his Guardian newspaper interview. In both cases, he's promoting the new Foo Fighters album Your Favorite Toy, the band's twelve full length LP, and it's first with new drummer Elon Rubin, and carefully talking around the more controversial subjects from his in the Foo's recent past, namely the bust up between the band and their most

recent drummer, Josh Freese. Punk Rocks Jim Gordon, a dude who has played with a who's who of rock, punk and pop, from The Vandals to Katie Perry, Devo, Weezer, Bruce Springsteen, Maya, Rudolph, Guns N' Roses, Joe Strummer, Paul Westerberg, The Offspring and a gazillion more and now nine inch Nails.

Freeze toured with the Foo Fighters from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty five, and Josh Freese was understandably butt heard about being kicked out of the band, posting on Instagram in May twenty twenty five that the band called him in to let him know that they were quote going in a different direction unquote. He claimed that no actual reason was given for his firing, and Freeze went on to say that it was the first time he'd been fired from any gig in his forty year career,

and that he was shocked and disappointed. Dave Grohl describes the conversation that the band had with Freeze, the one where they let him go, in typical nicest guy in rock and roll fashion, as follows. Basically, we called Josh and we were like, hey man, that was awesome. That was such a blast, Thank you so much, but we're

gonna move on and find another drummer. After the dust settled, Freeze went on a passive aggressive rant on Instagram, listing with at least some humor, the quote ten possible reasons joshka booted, the joke apparently being what reason could there possibly be to actually fire Josh Freeze from any band, much less the Foo Fighters, a band that Freeze would eventually claim wasn't music that I resonated with. After all that,

Dave Grohl told Zane Lowe. I think Josh said it best when he said that he didn't feel our music really resonated with him, and that's really important. And then there's a topic of Dave Grohl's recent Baby Mama drama. It's a most unchill modern rock and roll controversy, one that has caused culture vultures and fans alike to question

Grohl's nice guy reputation. On September tenth, twenty twenty four, the post appeared on Girl's personal Instagram page, saying quote, I've recently become the father of a new baby daughter born outside my marriage. I planned to be a loving and supportive parent tour. I love my wife and my children, and I'm doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness. We're grateful for your consideration toward

all the children involved as we move forward together. Dave ouch, hearing this sucked as a fan, but it's hard to complain again as a fan knowing how hard this must have been to hear for the four women in Dave Gorohle's family, his wife and three daughters. So I don't really want to talk about it, and neither is Dave

grol understandably. That said, part of the point of these recent interviews that Grole has done seems to be to let everyone know that he's spending a lot of time working on himself, going to therapy six times a week. Are you kidding me? If anything would make me insane, it would be talking about myself in in ten sessions for six out of the seven days in a week. I can't imagine what this process for Dave Grohl is like.

This is a guy whose entire mission in life has been for the past thirty years to rock our faces off and to bring joy through his music to millions of fans across the globe. Sitting on a couch, turning inward, talking to a therapist about the things in one's life that have nearly destroyed you seems it's like the opposite of what Dave Grole was put on this planet to do. Dave Grohl is supposed to stand, not sit and on stage, not in a comfy chair, and destroy us, not talk

about what's destroying him. Dave Grohl is a rock star. As a fan, I don't want to hear about Dave's problems or how he's dealing with them. I want to feel him melt my face with this hardcore arena rock animal from Electric Mayhem Energy. But I'm no utopian. I get it. Nothing is as it seems. And if you can't always get what you want, love the one you're

with or whatever that's saying is. But what I'm trying to say is Dave Grohl understandably needs to do whatever Dave grol needs to do for himself, his family, and for his public persona, and then keep himself wired together enough to continue bringing joy on stage and on record. And this, for better or worse, is where we're at with this dude, after three decades with him in our lives.

To his credit, Dave Grohl has confronted his infidelity in these recent interviews within the context of his recent therapy, at least saying I have to be perfectly honest. Writing songs and writing lyrics about these things is sometimes enough as far as having a deeper, longer conversation about them. I still do reserve a lot of this for my own personal life. That's totally fair. I kind of wish

he'd reserve it all for his personal life. But there is this rabid beast called public opinion, and the beast must be fed. It's clear Dave does not want to talk about this moment in his life, and who among us would. But this is just a moment that he's got to get through, and he will, and in another three hundred and sixty five days and in another three hundred and sixty five news cycles, we will barely remember any of this because by that time Sean Diddy Combs

will be president or something equally ludicrous. Then there's the subject of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins's death, the third consequential subject that Dave Grohl and everyone involved with the Foos clearly doesn't want to talk about. In fact, the subject of how Taylor died just well, it doesn't even come up anymore, not in the pop music discourse, and most certainly not in recent Dave Girl interviews or in interviews with other members of the Foo Fighters, which is strange.

Taylor Hawkins died on March twenty fifth, twenty twenty two, a full four years ago, and we still don't know how he died. Is this pop music's greatest unsolved mystery? No, far from it. It's just that no one seems to care. Make that make sense? This wasn't the drummer for some random rock band struggling to make ends meet out there on the road. This wasn't some faceless session drummer either.

And this wasn't even Josh Freeze. This was Taylor fucking Hawkins, one of the most charismatic, larger than life drummers of the twenty first century, a man whose unique presence and talent behind the kit was challenged by very few, but most ironically by a dude in his own band, Dave Grohl. And now he's gone, and we don't know why? Why not? You know how Keith Moon died overdosed in Harry Nilson's London apartment. We know how John Bonham died. He choked

on his own vomit. Why don't we know how this latter day drumming icon died. Go ahead and google how did Taylor Hawkins die? The response you get will be the following.

but his greatest talent may be as a storyteller. We've all seen him back in the day on MTV disarming a nervous interviewer in some comfy late night chair, blowing the minds of the host and studio audience, talking shit to some podcaster, stunning some morning drive DJ, all with jaw dropping story after jaw dropping story featuring him. Dave Grohl, the nicest guy in rock and roll, right there at

the center of our rock and roll fantasy. There's the one about Dave meeting Lemmy from Motorhead for the first time, and that time Dave made a pilgrimage to Pantera's Strip Club.

Then there are all those stories about Dave experiencing some sort of UFO, and and there's that time he drank forty cups of coffee in one day, got chased by knife wielding junkies in Amsterdam, broke his leg on stage in Sweden, and returned with a doctor at his side to hold the bone in place so he could finish the show for his fans, and my favorite Dave showing up on the set of The X Files and talking

his way into a role as an extra. It's not just the wild experiences that make these tales so interesting, it's the way Dave Grohl tells these stories. He's a natural. Songwriters are, of course, storytellers, and the best of the best know this and use one talent to enhance the other. And Dave Grohl seems hyper conscious of this skill. His Instagram handle is at Dave's True Stories. His twenty twenty two memoir is titled Storyteller. My point is, what the

hell am I doing? If there's no way I'm going to do Dave Grohl's story or the story of the Foo Fighters justice. Nobody can tell Dave's story as well as Dave himself. But maybe I can fill in some gaps, some narrative drum fills, if you will. Nothing over the top, not so much Bron Dailer from Mastadon, but perhaps something a bit more Levon Helm from the band, Just some thoughtful emphasis to round out the story the front man is telling because, like I said, there's no telling Dave

Grohl's story. Like Dave Grole, but like the punk rock snobs who only vibe on the first two Foo Fighters records. They're self titled nineteen ninety five debut in nineteen ninety

seven's the color and the shape. When it comes to Dave Grol, the storyteller, I prefer his early stuff, going all the way back to the Melvins, the Pacific Northwest sludge heroes, to Nirvana, the heaviest band on the planet since Black Sabbath, a band whose leader King Buzzo's nineteen ninety two self titled solo effort features a spoken word rant by a little known musician at the time, credited in homage to Black Flag as Dale Nixon, but known

to his friends in and around Seattle as Dave Grohl. So, Dave was in Olympia. He was staying at this guy, Kurt's house, a new friend of his. He was a singer in Day's new band, Nirvana. They were just starting with their second album, never Mind, and everything was going pretty good. Kurt. He was writing these great new songs. It within a couple of months, never Mind came out, you know.

I think he's alive. Imagine that. Imagine you're in the biggest band on the planet, as Dave Grohl was in nineteen ninety four in Nirvana, a band that had come out of nowhere from Olympia, Washington by way of Seattle, to outseell Michael Jackson to completely change the pop music game and music forever in your Dave Grohl, a twenty one year old hardcore kid from Virginia who just a few months earlier was playing in the DC hardcore band's Scream and living in Squalor, crashing on a friend's floor

in La So insisting on a diet a convenience store, hot dogs and canned beans. And then you join Nirvana, and you make an incredible album, not just an incredible album musically, but one of those albums that changes music, that changes culture. Nirvana's never Mind, which Let's be honest, was strengthened because of the addition of Dave Groll's drumming that inimitable hardcore heaviness that Neanderthal disco is. Dave called

it Part Black Sabbathsville Ward, part Sheeks Tony Thompson. Never Mind changed how kids listened to music, how they consumed music, how they dressed, how they thought. And now now you're Dave and you're hanging out with friends in sunny La one afternoon, and the phone rings and someone gives you the news that you're singer, your friend, your former roommate, your resident torture genius in your band, the reluctant voice of a generation, The heavily depressed and drug addicted Kirk

Cobain is dead. But then they call back and surprise, he's alive. It was just an overdose or a suicide attempt. No one's really sure, but the point is he survived. But then, thirty six days later, on April eighth, nineteen ninety four, the call comes again, but this time with more finality. Kirk Cobain is gone for good, and the grief is as immeasurable as it is impossible to get a hold of. It snakes around inside of you. It's both a loose and intrusive. The only defense is movement work.

And then another call, this one from none other than Tom Petty. The Tom Petty, the Man who'd been pummeling America with hit after hit, stretching back to the nineteen seventies. There was an empty drum stool behind Tom on the sound stage at NBC Saturday Night Live Studio, and oh man,

wasn't that exactly what Dave Grohl needed. Dave, with Tom Petty's Heartbreakers on National Television fit like a glove, and not the cheesy kind Vic Firth made for drummers, the kind Steve McQueen wore while he whipped around Laurel Canyon on his Triumph motorcycle. Dave Grohl playing drums for Tom Petty made all the sense in the world, but at the same time, it made no sense at all. Tom offered Dave the gig full time. Dave needed to think

about it. There were the demos to consider, the songs he'd been working on with Barrett Jones, the producer Dave worked with alongside the Melvins under the pseudonym Dale Nixon. Dave was as inspired by those new songs as he was frightened by them. It was Dave out front, not behind the kid, center stage on mike and playing everything guitar, bass, drums and singing. Dave Grohl told Tom Petty there was a dream he needed to run down, and then he headed into the studio by himself. He had seven days

to record an album of songs. He tracked four songs a day every day for four days straight. He took one day to record vocals, a couple days to mix, and on the seventh day, the burgeoning rock god rested and the Foo Fighters were born. At first, those songs amounted to just a demo tape for Day's friends to hear what he was up to after Nirvana, But in no time, Dave had a record deal. A band was

put together to bring the songs on tour. Dave tracked down Nate Mendel and William Goldsmith the rhythm section from Subpop's Sunny Day Real Estate. Soon Pat Smear from the Germs, who had joined Nirvana back in nineteen ninety three, to join the Food Fighters for their live shows. The Foo Fighters first record took off. A follow up was needed. Dave went back into the studio, but this time with a band. But that was just the problem, or at

least part of the problem. The drums were wrong. William Goldsmith couldn't deliver what Dave Grohl was hearing in his head, so Dave re recorded all the drums and the Foo Fighters Monsters second album, The Color in the Shape, was done a glorious rock and roll steaming Dave Grohl wasn't just the guy from Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, wasn't

some one off solo vanity project. It was a band, a band fronted by one of the greatest rock and roll drummers ever, a drummer who sang and played guitar, fronting a band that now needed a drummer because Dave Grohl was also an inexperienced bandleader who, as he sang on The Color in the Shape, sometimes got stuck between the handshake and the fuck. William Goldsmith was out. He couldn't get over having his drum parts replaced, could you.

But Dave Grohl knew a guy, another rock and roll animal, a man who could not only keep up with Dave Grole behind the kit, but a man with a spirit and charisma that somehow equaled Dave's own enter Taylor Hawkins, Dave Grole's reversal world rock and roll twin. Dave came from hardcore, Taylor from milanis Morris Set, but still they rocked. Dave referenced the Pixies Taylor queen, but still they rocked. Dave wrestled melodies, Taylor wrestled rhythm, but still well, you

get it. Theirs was a match for the books, too good to be true. Taylor Hawkins's incredible playing in Presence was rocket fuel for Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters' ambitions. The first album Taylor played on, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, went platinum. Then in two thousand and one, Dave Grohl got another phone call. This time it was about Taylor.

We'll be right back after this word word word, two thousand and one, Hollywood Sunset, Marquis Hotel, Dave Grohl's at the bar, fresh out of band practice with his buds and Tenacious d Jack Black and Kyle Gass's comedy rock band, which Dave was generously donating his drumming skills. Drumming a constant source of joy and sometimes source of anxiety for

Dave Grohl. Finding a drummer not just to replace William Goldsmith, but essentially to replace what Dave himself had done in the studio behind the kit was no easy task until it wasn't. Taylor Hawkins appeared like one of those mirages in a bugs bunny car, out of nowhere and almost

too perfect to be true. Taylor understood the mission to be the biggest, most badass rock and roll band on the planet, to bridge the gap between sweaty hardcore DIY basement club energy and arena rock energy, something that hadn't really been done before. Drumming was the mortar to build

that bridge. After departing from Alanis Morissett's band and joining the Food Fighters, Taylor Hawkins told Spin Magazine in a nineteen ninety seven cover story that, in preparation for the food Fighters nightly six hour practices, quote, you have to be an athlete to play these drum parts, un quote, and that I play really hard and that's the key to playing drums for Dave Grohl. You've got to beat the shit out of the drums. His approach was spot on,

and so was his vibe. Taylor Hawkins exuded rock star energy on and off stage effortlessly. Dudes wanted to be m and women wanted well, you've heard the cliche. So here he was bellied up to the bar at the Sunset Marquee on the receiving end of drink after drink from Hollywood's most beautiful women. Dave Grohl was not intimidated. He understood his role. Once a drummer, always a drummer.

Theirs was a strange dynamic, a drummer with frontman good looks and a front man with an iconic drumming pedigree, and both with charisma despair. Dave set his gaze upon one of the friends of one of the bombshells competing for Taylor's attention. A beautiful blonde. You're my future ex wife, he told her. She wrote her number down on a scrap of paper and signed it Jordan, your future ex wife.

After and on again, off again courtship, Dave was eventually smitten, and a new girl to complete this new incredible life was now part of the picture. But then in London, while the food Fighters were on tour, the phone rang Taylor Hawkins was in a coma heroin. The traumatic stringout back to Kurt was obvious, and Dave spiraled. He prayed in the streets on his walks back from Taylor's hospital

to his hotel room. He contemplated quitting music altogether if this was the cost two dead bandmates, The Foo Fighters, after Day's experience with skyrocketing rock and roll fame in the late nineties, had a list of dues and don'ts. The list of dues play great shows, write great songs, start at the bottom and work your way up organically, and there was only one don't. Don't do heroin. Taylor

Hawkins didn't listen, but thankfully Taylor Hawkins survived. Dave Grohl put the Foo Fighters on the shelf for a minute and joined Queens of the Stone Age to record their excellent album Songs for the Death. He was unsure whether the Foo Fighters would continue. Prior to Taylor's overdose, Pat Smear had quit the Foos. Franz Stall from Dave's old bands Scream replaced him. Franz fit on stage, but not in the studio. Franz was asked to leave the band.

He was replaced by Chris Shifflett from No Use for Her Name. Chris's hardcore punk scene experience made him a natural fit. Pat smer was calling Dave pack kind of sort of maybe, wasn't going to be upset if Dave asked him back in the band. Chris was understandably freaked out. What the hell kind of band. Was this was even a band dysfunction in a revolving door of band members aside.

The answer to that question was a loud yes. Not only were they a band, the Foo Fighters were now a band with three Grammys that had graduated to playing arenas. Two thousand and two the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Dave Grohl was splitting duties as drummer for Queens of the Stone Age and as frontman for Food Fighters for what Dave, Taylor, Nate, and Chris thought might be their last show ever. But it wasn't. They killed, and they

reminded themselves of what they had together. They went back into the studio and came out with the Grammy winning album One by One with hits Times like These in All My Life. They followed that up with the two thousand and six album In Your Honor and an acoustic tour, which was Pat Smears's ticket back into the band, not to replace Chris Shifflip, but instead to play alongside both

him and Dave. The band's next record, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, now with an expanded lineup that included not only Pat Smear but Ronny Jaffy on keys proved that the Foo Fighters were no longer just a loud band that sometimes played acoustic sets. Now, like the biggest of the rock gods before them, Led Zeppelin and Queen, to name a few, the fos seamlessly incorporated ballads and power not only into their shows, but into the same songs.

They were ready, not for arenas, not for festival, for stadiums. Wembley Stadium eighty five thousand people sold out two nights, then another great record wasting Light, followed up by Sonic Highways in Concrete and Gold. The only thing that could slow the band down was a global pandemic, which happened in twenty twenty. After that, the Foo Fighters were one of the first major acts to get back on the road, headlining a stadium show in Australia on March fourth, twenty

twenty two. More dates were added a festival in South America, and that's where Dave Grohl was in Bogata, Columbia when his phone rang again. In the beginning, there was only music, a kick drum pounding to the rhythm of heartbeat, voices in the crowd shouting along with the band, guitar riffs ricocheting off the walls of the club, total harmony. But then some new sounds entered the concert, loud, rapid ones. They ricocheted off the walls just the same, and then

they pierced through flesh, not music. Gunfire. Terrorists tore through the Battaklan Theater in Paris without a second thought. Three gunmen, three reloads each maybe four three minutes of a police assault, ten hours of sorting through dead bodies, and in the end there was no music, just silence. The Eagles of Death Metal concert ended too early on November thirteenth, twenty fifteen. An attack during the show claimed the lives of ninety

Paris burned with fear, grief, exasperation. That was in twenty fifteen at the Bottoclon concert Hall, a venue attacked by Islamic State terrorists and what has come to be known as the Paris Attacks. As a result of that tragedy, numerous concerts were canceled, including Foo Fighters concerts. Earlier that year, Dave Grohl had broken his leg on stage and was forced to perform subsequent shows seated on an epic throne made of guitars, but two shows were canceled because of this.

The insurance companies that ensure big ticket concert events like Foo Fighters shows reduced the amount of money they believed the Foo Fighters were owed. Now, I'm not going to go into all the details here because I didn't get into this line of work to bore people to death with insurance payout policy talk, but basically, it's like this. Remember that time you got a bill from the hospital for like five thousand dollars or whatever, and you were like, cool,

I've got insurance. I'm all set. The insurance company's going to pay five grand. But then the insurance company was like, wait a minute, hold up, We're only going to pay two thousand, and you have to pay the rest because, well, you see, we looked into what happened to you and decided that the nature of your injury didn't conform exactly to what our policies cover. So you're out three grand. Now kindly go fuck yourself. And you're like, shit, where am I going to get three thousand dollars to pay

these monsters? Well, that's kind of what the insurance companies did to the Food Fighters, except it wasn't overpaying the band for medical bills. It was about paying the band for the money they lost from being unable to perform for reasons beyond their control. Terrorism in a broken leg that happened in the line of work, the exact types of reasons a band ensures their concerts for. And it wasn't over five grand, it was over millions and millions of dollars that the Foo Fighters were now on the

hook for. And I know what you're saying, Oh boohoo, Dave girls rich. So what he didn't get to buy another rocket ship or whatever. But that's not the point. Bands like the Foo Fighters employ hundreds of people, not just the band, but their crew, the roadies, the text, the truck drivers, and these people are working stiffs. And if the band doesn't get paid, these folks don't get paid.

Why should Dave Grohl and his band have to go into their pockets to do the right thing and pay these folks while the greedy insurance companies continue to get rich by screwing their customers. So the Foo Fighters sued their insurers, and they must have had Lloyds of London over the barrel, because Lloyd's of London eventually settled, which brings us to Bogata, Columbia in twenty twenty two, The Foo Fighters were in South America at the headline a festival.

The show was canceled due to weather and the band was spinning its wheels in a Bogota four seasons hotel with nothing to do. Fans were gathered outside, and Taylor Hawkins was among them, hanging out, taking time to pose for a photo with a nine year old female fan who was also a drummer, who had lugged her kit down to the street outside the hotel tell to bang out Taylor Hawkins and Dave grollbeats on her drum set,

and by Taylor's estimation, she was pretty damn good. But Taylor was antsy, and it wasn't just because he was trapped in a hotel in a foreign country with nothing

to do. Friends of Taylor's, including ex Soundgarden and then Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron, told Rolling Stone magazine that Taylor had expressed to Dave Grohl prior to those twenty twenty two tour dates that he could no longer keep up, saying, quote, he had a heart to heart with Dave and yeah, he told me that he couldn't fucking do it anymore.

Those were his words. Un quote. In that same Rolling Stone article, unnamed representatives for the Foo Fighters denied that Hawkins ever raised these issues, saying, quote, No, there was never a heart to heart or any sort of meeting on this topic with Dave and Silva artist management. So who's lying and why? And why does this matter? On

the issue of who's lying? Matt Cameron came out against this Rolling Stone article after it was published, saying, quote, my quotes were taken out of context and shaped into a narrative that I had never intended. Okay, what about the quotes from Taylor's other friends in the article who support what Cameron had said? Were their quotes taken out

of context to shape a narrative as well? I've read the article many times, like, very closely, and here's what I think that Rolling Stone magazine did something it no longer does that often anymore actual music journalism. And a bunch of people who spoke to Rolling Stone's reporters didn't like how the article turned out and cried foul. Just because you don't like how the chef cooked your steak, it doesn't mean that it's not steak. But okay, why

does this matter? It matters because after Taylor Hawkins allegedly expressed to his band leader and boss that he wanted to pull back on touring, and was reportedly, as the Rolling Stone magazine claims via an unnamed source, given assurances that the band would have a lighter schedule going forward. The band did not have a lighter schedule. They had sixty gigs on the schedule, plus a one off in Australia.

This all after playing forty shows the year prior, including a gig in December at which Taylor Hawkins's friends allege that Taylor collapsed on a plane. Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith said that Taylor quote was exhausted and collapsed once again. A rep for the Foo Fighters denied this, but according to Rolling Stone, Chad Smith went on to say that Taylor told him quote, I can't do it like this anymore. Chad Smith also denounced how his comments

were represented by Rolling Stone Magazine. Okay, but facts are facts. All these sources friends of Taylor Hawkins went on record to state that the drummer felt he could no longer continue with the band due to their extensive touring responsibilities. One of them claimed that Taylor had collapsed from exhaustion during this time period. Another, an unnamed source, claimed Taylor was given assurances that the band would have a lighter skeede, but the facts proved that the band did not have

a lighter schedule, just the opposite. How's this for another fact? Taylor Hawkins revealed in twenty twenty one that his doctor told him he had an enlarged heart. His heart was enlarged not from being unhealthy, but from being too healthy. From bashing the shit out of the drums behind Dave Grohl for sixty shows a year, from practicing for six hours, six nights a week, from being a fucking athlete. The average age for an athlete to retire, by the way,

is twenty nine years old. In twenty twenty two, Taylor Hawkins was fifty years old. And yeah, sure, rock and roll drummers like Taylor's heroes Roger Taylor from Queen and Stuart Copeland from The Police are still performing at ages seventy six and seventy three, respectively, and the Rolling Stones, as Charlie Watts, tore it up until he died at

the age of eighty. But these drummers were from a different generation, and they played a style of music way less physically demanding than the drumming required to perform in the Foo Fighters or in most big rock bands from

the nineties. We are entering unknown territory here. As drummers like Taylor Hawkins and Chad Smith and Matt Cameron look to the future to figure out how they're going to continue their careers on the road, they can't look to the past for a roadmap, because what's being demanded of them physically at their age has never been demanded of

any drummer before. Based purely on the style of music they play compared to the less aggressive style of music played by aging classic rock drummers, there simply isn't a precedent. These drummers are the first to get there, and the first to attempt to keep up with their bandmates at

an age that makes it nearly impossible. All due respect to Roger Taylor, Stuart Copeland in the late great Charlie Watts, but there's no fucking way any of them could have pulled off a Foo Fighters gig past the age of forty nine. And by the way, in twenty twenty five, Matt Cameron quit Pearl Jam for this exact reason. Back to what I believe are the facts. Taylor Hawkins collapsed after a performance in twenty twenty one. Taylor Hawkins had

an enlarged heart. Taylor Hawkins believed playing in the Foo Fighters was taking a toll on him physically, and that he couldn't keep up with the touring demands of the band. Taylor Hawkins wanted to pull back on his touring responsibilities, and he told Dave Grol this. Allegedly, some sort of agreement was reached where Taylor was given assurances that his

touring responsibilities would be lessened. Foo Fighters representatives never confirmed that Taylor Hawkins collapsed, and the REPS adamantly denied that a meeting took place where Taylor expressed his misgivings about touring or that any such assurances were given that he would be allowed to tour less, and the Foo Fighters

showed no signs of slowing down. Instead, they went to Bogata and Taylor Hawkins died in his hotel room on March twenty fifth, twenty twenty two, and over forty booked Food Fighters shows were then Can't their drummer had passed

away with a lot of drugs in his system. If we're to believe the Columbia Attorney General's Office, the preliminary toxicology report states that Taylor had a mix of ten different substances in his system, including opioids, antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and marijuana, among others. This report is, as I said, preliminary, and there was never a final report. What are they waiting for the reincarnation of John Bonham. It's not happening. Give

us the damn report. Also, guys, this is Colombia. Okay, you think our government institutions are corrupt, It's a whole other ballgame of corruption down there. But okay, sure, what incentive would the Columbia Attorney General's Office have to lie about an American rock and roll drummer's fatal drug intake. I don't know. But the result is we don't have a final toxicology report on Taylor Hawkins's death, and we also still don't have an official cause of death for

Taylor Hawkins, four years after he died. I'll say that again. It's been four years and there's still no official cause of death for one of the most famous drummers on the planet. This makes no sense. I suppose if Taylor was getting high and that was how he died, you could understand how his bandmates, management, and friends would circle the wagons to protect his reputation, given that he was a husband and a father, and well, one could easily make the case that none of this is any of

our fucking business. But this is the twenty first century. This isn't the nineteen fifties. People suffer and die from addiction every day, rock stars and celebrities every year, and we are more understanding and forgiving and empathetic of this disease than we've ever been, So the shame argument doesn't make sense. Also, I'm not even close to convince that

Taylor actually overdosed from using drugs recreationally. Ten substances in the system sounds like somebody getting freaky with this chemistry set, But the way people self medicate these days, ten substances in one system is a lot, yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean someone was partying. Also, again we're talking about Colombian government officials here. After his death, it was revealed that Taylor Hawkins's heart was twice the size of a

normal heart. It weighed six hundred grams an enlarged heart can be caused by chronic high blood pressure, which can be caused by physical over exertion. It can also be caused by over relying on substances, physical overexertion, a reliance on substances. Why won't the Food Fighters or anyone else put these pieces together and declare an official cause of

death for one of the greatest drummers to ever do it? Maybe, and I'm just speculating here, maybe a known physical condition and a reliance on chemical substances, the exact types of extenuating circumstances that insurance companies like to exploit in cases like this to get themselves off the hook from having to pay artists for canceled shows, which is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan in this is Disgraceland.

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