Taylor Hawkins' son Shane says that his decision to take his late father's place in his classic rock covers band Chevy Metal is one way of honouring his father's memory.
Taylor Hawkins passed away in his in his hotel room at the Four Seasons Casa Medina in Bogata, Colombia on March 25, 2022 ahead of a scheduled Foo Fighters show at the Estereo Picnic festival. He was 50 years old.
Foo Fighters took the decision to carry on after their friend's passing, initially with Josh Freese (The Vandals/A Perfect Circle/Nine Inch Nails), and currently with Ilan Rubin (Nine Inch Nails/Lostprophets). But Hawkins' surviving bandmates in Chevy Metal, guitarist Brent Wood and bassist Wiley Hodgden, were adamant that their covers band could not exist without their friend behind the drum kit. Until Hawkins' teenage son insisted that the show must go on.
"Wiley and I were in agreement, like, it’s done," Woods tells the Los Angeles Times newspaper. "Shane was the one that said, 'I want to do Chevy'."
"It was a part of my childhood and it’s like, my dad was gone and these people that I’ve watched my whole childhood, they’re still there," says Hawkins, 19. "Why not keep something going? And it’s just honoring my dad, you know?
"I’d sit behind my dad and watch him play and watch people just go crazy. And as a kid, you think that’s the coolest thing in the world, because it is. It’s the best feeling."
With Hawkins junior powering the trio, Chevy Metal have broadened their classic template to include songs by US hardcore punk legends Bad Brains, Germs (Foo Fighters' guitarist Pat Smear's old band), Black Flag and Fear. But the band still practise in Taylor Hawkins home studio / man cave as they always did.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the band hope to release some of their archive recordings with Taylor Hawkins, and to record more with Shane Hawkins.
Watch the group perform BlackFlag's Nervous Breakdown with Arrow de Wilde from Starcrawler below.
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