In the week following Foo Fighters drummer, Taylor Hawkins’ death, Portugal. The Man members Zachary Carothers and Eric Howk opened up about where they were when they found out the tragic news and what they did to immediately tribute their friend and fellow musician.
LISTEN NOW: Zachary Carothers and Eric Howk of Portugal. The Man check in with Audacy’s Christy Taylor
“We were on the stage playing a show, we were in San Diego,” Carothers shared with Audacy’s Christy Taylor. “I didn’t know what had happened, actually. One of our techs came up and pulled my in-ears out and just handed me a bottle and told me to give a toast to Taylor.”
He continued, “I thought, ‘Oh, is he here?’ I didn’t really know… I just said, ‘This one’s for him’ and afterwards, I saw the look on our crew’s faces.”
With their crews containing several close friends of Hawkins, the entire road family knew they were in for a tough night. “We’ve got a tough crew, we have tough road dogs with us and to see tears going down their face [was hard],” Howk said. “I didn’t know what the news was, I just handed my guitar to my guy getting off stage and was like ‘What’s wrong?’ And he was like, ‘You’re about to hear some really, really hard news.’”
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Scott, Howk and the rest of their team immediately boarded their bus after the show and started their grieving process by paying tribute to Hawkins in the best way they knew how — enjoying his music.
“We got on the bus, we had an all-Taylor playlist goin’ and just listened to the incredible amount of studio work and just pretty much just the whole discography of the Foos,” they shared. “It was really heavy. I think Steve Albini summed it up really well when he’s like, ‘Music got a little smaller and a little duller.’”
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