Fort Worth native Taylor Hawkins, the drummer for the rock band Foo Fighters, died on March 25, according to members of the band. He was 50 years old.
In a tweet, Foo Fighters founder Dave Grohl said that the band was heartbroken by Hawkins’ death.
“The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins,” the tweet said. “His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with us forever.”
The Foo Fighters are currently on tour in South America and were scheduled to perform at the Festival Estéreo Picnic in Bogotá, Colombia, before Hawkins’ death, Rolling Stone reports.
In a statement on March 26, Colombia’s municipal government said preliminary tests showed Hawkins allegedly had ten psychoactive substances and medicines in his urine. These included marijuana, opioids, antidepressants, and benzodiazepines. The musician’s cause of death was not disclosed.
In a statement Saturday, the municipal government of Bogota said that the city’s emergency center had received a report of a patient suffering from “chest pain.”
An ambulance was dispatched, although a private ambulance had already arrived at the hotel in northern Bogota. Health workers attempted but failed to resuscitate him, the Colombia municipal government said.
Hawkins was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in February of 1972 and moved to Orange County, California, where he attended school at Laguna Beach High. In his early twenties, he became a drummer for Sass Jordan. Hawkins would join the Foo Fighters in 1997 after drumming for Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill Tour for the prior two years.
Since gaining notoriety with the Foo Fighters and Grohl – one of the founding members of Nirvana – Hawkins formed a side-project band called Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders in 2006, and then The Birds of Satan in 2014. Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop were a few artists Hawkins made music with during his career.
Today reports many musicians are mourning the death of Hawkins, including Stevie Nicks, the former Fleetwood Mac singer. She posted a poem about Hawkins, accompanied by a photo of the two, on her Twitter.
“He had a huge heart and a glorious smile,” Nicks wrote. “When he walked into a room, everyone looked up. When he left a room, everyone was sad….”
Hawkins is survived by his wife Alison and the couple’s three children.