Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins dies at 50

Taylor Hawkins, the drummer for the rock band Foo Fighters, died Friday at the age of 50 shortly before the band was set to perform at a festival in Bogotá, Colombia, The Associated Press reports.

A reporter on the scene for BBC said crowd members began placing "candles on the stage where the Foo Fighters were supposed to play."

Hawkins was the touring drummer for Alanis Morrisette before joining Foo Fighters in 1997. In addition to his drumming work for the band, Hawkins also had writing credits on Foo Fighters hits like "Best of You" and "Learn to Fly" and was known for singing covers of Queen songs at concerts, per BBC.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In his 2021 memoir, Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl described Hawkins as a "brother from another mother, my best friend, a man for whom I would take a bullet."

AP notes that Hawkins' death marks the "second time Grohl has experienced the death of a close bandmate." Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died in 1994.

No cause of death has been reported. Hawkins is survived by his wife, Alison, and their three children.