Jane’s Addiction lead singer and Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell has shared a video tribute to the late Taylor Hawkins. In the video, he calls the Foo Fighters drummer “my best friend” and one of “the most passionate drummers I’ve ever seen in my life. When I think of him, I sum it up in one word: speed.”
Farrell continued, “He had a gift for maintaining a confident, distinctive and caressing speed on the drums.”
Hawkins died on March 25 in a hotel room in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, hours before a Foo Fighters concert was scheduled to take place in the city. Just a week earlier, Farrell guest-starred at the band’s concert in Santiago, Chile, performing the Jane’s Addiction classic “Been Caught Stealing”. He was also scheduled to return on stage with the group at Lollapalooza Sao Paulo on March 27th.
A longtime Jane’s Addiction fan, Hawkins had seen the band live several times in the 1980s and ’90s, years before he met Farrell in person. For the past few months, Hawkins has been playing in new band NHC with longtime Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro and now bassist Chris Chaney. “Even though I didn’t meet him at the time, we have a history together,” Farrell continued.
Also in the video is Farrell’s wife, Etta, playing a voice message Hawkins sent the day before his death. In the message, Hawkins says: “Take care of each other and I’ll take care of myself and see you in Sao Paulo. I love love love you. Sleep well.”
“I reserved a big part of my heart for him. I took a liking to him when we became friends because he was such a pure guy, so pure at heart,” added Farrell. “I always got messages from Taylor. They were always snippets of songs that he wrote or intended to write or that he wanted me to listen to. I’ve gotten music tidbits like ‘I love you’ so many times.”
“The only sense I can make of the tragedy is knowing that Taylor is in heaven now,” he continued. “He can hear us. What I’m going to do from that day forward is try to make music that I think Taylor would really love.”