The late Taylor Hawkins earned posthumous recognition from the family of the highest office in the land last week (March 26) when U.S. First Lady Dr. Jill Biden honored the Foo Fighters drummer after his unexpected death at age 50 last Friday (March 25).
The acknowledgment from Biden showed the reach of the drummer’s talent, plus the impact his death made on pop culture at large. In her statement, the First Lady praised Hawkins’ life and work, and she offered condolences to his loved ones and supporters.
“A ferocious drummer, dedicated father, and dear friend gone far too soon,” Biden remarked of the musician.
“Sending love to Taylor Hawkins’ family and fans of the Foo Fighters everywhere,” she added.
Biden wasn’t alone in her tribute. Memorials from across the music world proved the drummer’s importance to rock. Looking back on Dave Grohl‘s past words about Hawkins, the Foo Fighters leader once said it was “love at first sight” when he met the musician.
But Hawkins wasn’t just a Foo Fighter. Before his Foos career, he played drums with Alanis Morissette and Sass Jordan, among others. Later, he led Taylor Hawkins & the Coattail Riders, Chevy Metal, The Birds of Satan, and he co-founded the supergroup NHC.
Foo Fighters have supported Democrats in the past, the political party to which the Bidens belong. The Foos played the 2012 Democratic National Convention before a speech from President Barack Obama.
In a 2017 interview, Hawkins said the U.S. “got what we deserve” regarding the president after Obama, Donald Trump, Biden’s opponent in the 2020 election. The drummer called Trump a “symptom of a generation of reality-TV-obsessed, selfie-obsessed, Facebook-obsessed, tweet-obsessed, self-obsessed people.”
The cause of Hawkins’ death is being determined after he was found dead in his hotel room in Bogota, Colombia, on Friday, just before the Foos were to play the city’s Festival Estereo Picnic. A preliminary toxicology report showed Hawkins had 10 different substances in his system at the time of his death.
U.S. First Lady Dr. Jill Biden Honors the Late Taylor Hawkins
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