Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell has shared a heartfelt video tribute to late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, calling him “my best friend” and “one of the most passionate drummers I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. When I think of him, I sum it up with one word: velocity,” Farrell said. “He had the gift to maintain a confident, striking and stroking velocity on drums.”
Hawkins died Friday (March 25) at a Bogota hotel, hours before Foo Fighters were to play a festival in the city. Farrell had joined the band a week earlier in Santiago to sing the Jane’s Addiction classic “Been Caught Stealing” and was planning to spend time with the Foos again on March 27 at a Lollapalooza stop in Sao Paulo.
Hawkins was a lifelong Jane’s Addiction fan [he wore a Jane’s Addiction shirt at last year’s Lollapalooza] and saw the group live many times in the 1980s and ‘90s, years before he ever met Farrell in person. In recent months, Hawkins had been playing in the new band NHC, featuring longtime Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro and latter-day bassist Chris Chaney. “Although I didn’t make his acquaintance back then, we shared a history,” Farrell said.
In the video, Farrell’s wife Etty played a voice message sent from Hawkins the day before his death, in which he says, “take care of each other, and I’ll take care of me, and I will see you guys in Sao Paulo. I love, love, love you guys. Sleep tight.”
“There’s a large part of my heart that I had reserved for him. I accepted him into my heart when we became friends because he was such a pure guy, so pure of heart,” Farrell added. “I would receive texts from Taylor. They were always bits and pieces of songs he was writing or looking to write or wanted me to listen to. I got music tidbits as often as I got ‘I love you’s.’”
“The only sense that I can make of the tragedy is to know that Taylor is now in heaven,” he continued. “He can hear us. What I’m going to do from this day forward is to try to make music that I think Taylor would really love.”
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