Rolling Stone recently revealed in an article that leading up to his final days, friends of Taylor Hawkins were concerned as touring wasn’t bringing him as much joy. In fact he was incredbily stressed.

In an interview, Pearl Jam’s drummer Matt Camerson said “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. So I guess they did come to some understanding, but it just seems like the touring schedule got even crazier after that.” (A rep for Foo Fighters denies that Hawkins ever raised these issues, saying “No, there was never a ‘heart-to-heart’ — or any sort of meeting on this topic — with Dave and [Silva Artist Management].”)

Hawkins and Cameron were close friends for decades and had even recorded music together under one of his side projects, Nighttime Boogie Association. “He tried to keep up,” Cameron said. “He just did whatever it took to keep up, and in the end he couldn’t keep up.”

 

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Many others spoke to Rolling Stone about the exhaustion that the drummer was facing. According to the article, an anonymous friend and colleague 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 rep for Foo Fighters says, “He never ‘informed Dave and [management]’ of anything at all like that.”

It was also well known that Taylor Hawkins suffered from intense stage fright, and felt a lot of pressure keeping up with Foo Fighters’ overwhelming schedule.

You may also remember last year in December, Foo Fighters unexpectedly cancelled their Abu Dhabi F1 show, revelaing that a member of the band lost conciousness on a plane and was brought to the hospital. No further details were revelaed but friends of Taylor Hawkins say it was him. Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers said “He just said he was exhausted and collapsed, and they had to pump him full of IVs and stuff. He was dehydrated and all kinds of stuff.” and that afterwards he told him, “I can’t do it like this anymore.”

 

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A Foo Fighters representative told Rolling Stone that Taylor Hawkins passing out on the plane was false information.

Although an exact cause of death has yet to be confirmed, reports say that paramedics arrived at the Four Seasons hotel where Foo Fighters were staying, responding to a request to aid a guest suffering from chest pain. It’s said that by the time the medical professionals arrived, they were unable to revive this guest, known to be Taylor Hawkins, and that is when he passed away.

Since then many artists have paid tribute to the drummer, including Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers.