[imagesource: Amy Harris / Invision  /AP]

Taylor Hawkins died in March at the age of 50.

The Foo Fighters drummer was found in his room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Bogotá, Colombia, with early toxicological tests finding 10 psychoactive substances and medicines, including marijuana and opioids, in his system.

The official autopsy results have yet to be made public but friends say he was struggling mentally and physically in the months before his death.

Yesterday, Rolling Stone published a long piece featuring interviews with some of Hawkins’ friends, who allege that the band’s touring schedule had been taking its toll.

We’ll get a summary of some key quotes from Pitchfork:

Among those interviewed were Pearl Jam’s Matt Cameron and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith [below], who both claimed that Hawkins said he’d spoken with Dave Grohl about his discomfort with the tour schedule in the months before he died in March…

“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,” Cameron said. “So I guess they did come to some understanding, but it just seems like the touring schedule got even crazier after that.”

There was also talk of an incident in December of last year when Hawkins lost consciousness on a plane in Chicago. Smith said the late drummer collapsed and “they had to pump him full of IVs and stuff”.

One source, speaking to Rolling Stone on condition of anonymity and labelled a “colleague and friend” of Hawkins, said it took him “a year of working up the guts” to raise the issue of burnout with Grohl.

Cameron said Hawkins agreed to keep touring with the current schedule because the band doing so was part of “a big machine [with] a lot of people on the payroll”.

Since the story was published, both Smith and Cameron have issued apologies.

Cameron took to Instagram:

 

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A post shared by Matt Cameron (@themattcameron)

Smith also issued a statement via social media:

 

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A post shared by Chad Smith (@chadsmithofficial)

Grohl has yet to comment, but a rep for Foo Fighters did go on the record to Rolling Stone to say Hawkins never raised issues of burnout with the band:

“No, there was never a ‘heart-to-heart’—or any sort of meeting on this topic—with Dave and [Silva Artist Management].”

…Foo Fighters’ representative [also] denied that the drummer lost consciousness on the plane.

The only other named source in the article, Canadian singer Sass Jordan, has yet to comment publicly.

She did share the Rolling Stone article with a quote from a poem by Maxine Kumin:

…he says
let’s walk up to the field and catch the sunset,
and off we go, a couple of aging fools.
I hope, he says, on the other side there’s a lot
less work, but just in case I’m bringing tools.
~Maxine Kumin https://t.co/lc2VkyKmpa

— Sass Jordan (@sassjordan) May 17, 2022

[source:pitchfork]