Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea paid tribute to Taylor Hawkins in an interview with Johnny Vaughan on Radio X tonight.
JV: Johnny Vaughan
Flea
JV: There’s been two losses to the world in the last few weeks, the first is someone from your original hometown of Melbourne, which is of course Shane Warne. The second is Taylor Hawkins, who I know you must have been close to, who you toured with. How did you feel when you heard the news, and what sort of impact has that had on you?
Flea: Ah man. Absolutely shocking. I love Taylor. He was an uplifting dude. You know, before I ever met Taylor and long before he every played in the Foo Fighters, one of my best friends growing up, my friend Tree who I started a music school with, he was teaching music in a music school down in Orange County in LA and he said ‘Man there’s this kid here selling guitar strings and he’s a star. He’s a drummer and I’m telling you he’s going to be a rock star’ and it was Taylor. […] I’ve always loved Taylor. I had so much fun with him. We toured with them for years and years and you know, he’s best friends… was extremely close with our drummer Chad Smith and it’s a very devastating experience for Chad and everyone who was close to him, because he was a kind, generous just fun dude and a killer drummer.
And love to his family and love to everyone that knew him and God bless his beautiful heart.
Tune into Johnny Vaughan on Radio X, weekdays from 4 - 7pm.
