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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's Alan, and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing history of new music, early and ad free on Amazon, music included with Prime. When someone dies, our first reaction is disbelief. We're stunned. That's immediately followed by a need to know what happened, how, where. It's only natural. We need information to help us process the news and the emotion that comes with it. The next stage might be, could anything have been done to prevent this? Could someone have helped or intervened? In some cases, perhaps. But in the case of health issues, maybe not. And finally there's could what happened to that person happen to me again? That's totally normal. When it comes to the death of a famous musician, there's an additional aspect to processing the news. Chances are that we never knew this person as, you know, a person. Our only relationship with them has been as a fan. So why does their death affect us? Here's a possible Although we never knew them, it was through their music that we learned more about ourselves. And in a way, when they die, a little of us dies too. This might only cause us to go deeper into what happened. We just need to know to make sense of it and to put everything to rest the best we possibly can. Yes, some people get very nosy and gossipy and intrusive, but there's always a way to handle what's known through the public. Family statements, doctor's accounts, police reports, coroner's testimonies, toxicology examinations and autopsy results. And often we just can't look away because, well, we just need to know. This is the last moments of Part two. This is the ongoing history of New Music podcast with Alan Cross. Welcome again, I'm Alan Cross and this is the second half of a program on the last months, weeks, days and hours of some very famous musicians over the years. Again, the idea is not to gawk at tragedy. All we're looking for is. Is for some kind of explanation as to what happened.
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B
Why?
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A
We don't know why. We need to know, we just do. Can't we just move on? Well, I suppose we could, but let's face it, there will always be a morbid sense of curiosity. But we will try to keep things respectful. On part one, we went through the last moments of Sid Vicious, Ian Curtis of Joy Division, Bob Marley, Kurt Cobain, Shannon Hoon, Michael Hutchence, Kirsty McCall and Joey Ramone. We'll pick things up with Lane Staley of Alice in Chains. That band began in 1987 as a glammy band inhabiting the space somewhere between straight ahead metal, hair metal and speed metal. But by the 1990s, they'd undergone a sonic and visual transformation and had pivoted to become squarely part of Team Grunch. The first Alice in Chains album was faithlift in 1990. It wasn't quite grunge. Then again, nothing was quite grunge in 1990, but it wasn't too far off the mark. But by the time they released Dirt two years later, it was game on. They further cemented their grunginess with an EP entitled Jar of Flies in 1994 and then a self titled record in 1995. These were the years when Lane Staley was the band's frontman. He was a slight, skinny guy, but when he opened his mouth to sing, wow. Then there were the drugs. Heroin specifically. He was shooting up in the early 1990s claiming, and this is a quote, drugs worked for me for years. Kurt Cobain's death in April 1994 scared him sober for a bit, but addiction came calling again. There were several trips to rehab clinics, but nothing managed to stick. Even when he was sent to LA and had members of the band fly down to be with him on tour. The band's manager hired minders to keep drug dealers away from Lane, but he somehow still managed to find alcohol, coke, heroin and pills. It didn't help that his former fiance, Demry Perrot, was also a junkie. And when she died of a drug overdose on October 29, 1996, Lane fell apart. Even though they'd broken up some time earlier, it appears she began to use when she met Lane. Demery was hospitalized several times to get clean, and every time she was released, she'd spend weeks trying to help Lane get clean. It never worked for either of them. When she died, Lane was put on a 24 hour suicide watch. Those who knew Lane say that he never really recovered from her death. And Lane spent the next five years, from 1997 to 2002, dying. His drug use got much, much heavier. He did start seeing, or at least hanging out with a woman named Michelle Crane. She spent as much time as she could with him, but his health kept getting worse. He had open sores that wouldn't heal. There were rumors that he'd lost fingers or even an arm to abscesses. In April 1997, by which she was pretty much isolated from Alice in Chains, lane bought a two story, 1, 500 square foot, three bedroom condo in the University District in Seattle. By 1998, there were more rumors that he had contracted Gangrene from non stop needle use that he'd stopped eating because his teeth were rotting out. And all he could keep down were protein drinks meant for seniors. Somehow, that October, he managed to record two new songs with the band for a compilation. He did not look good. His weight was perhaps 100 pounds, he had no teeth, and his limbs were all atrophied. After 1999, he rarely left the condo. We don't know much about how he passed the time. Friends and family guessed that he painted, played video games, watched TV and did drugs, which would be delivered to his daughter by any number of dealers. One of the few things that would get Lane to leave the condo was to go down to the bank machine to withdraw money to pay for his drug deliveries. Meanwhile, his family, especially his mom, kept trying to keep tabs on him the best they could. But it didn't help. Lane withdrew from the world even further. He stopped answering his phone and wouldn't answer the door. If anyone did reach him and suggested more rehab, he refused. He'd already been 13 times and nothing worked, so why bother? Months would go by without anyone hearing from him. On Thursday, April 4, 2002, former bandmate Mike Starr went to the condo. Lane let him in. Mike was shocked at how bad Lane looked and offered to call 911. Lane said, if you do that, I will never talk to you again. So the subject was dropped and Mike eventually stormed out. Angry, discouraged, and it was very sad, with Lane saying, not like this. Don't leave like this. And it looks like Mike was the last guy to see lane alive on April 17. Two weeks later, Lane's mom went to the apartment to let him know that Demry's brother had died. She knocked on the door, stepping over a pile of mail that hadn't been picked up. No one answered. Same thing with a subsequent phone call. On April 19, the accountants who looked after Lane's money contacted Alice in Chain's former manager, Susan Silver, saying that no money had been withdrawn from his bank account for two weeks. That was a red flag. Silver then called Lane's mother, who went back to the condo and found Lane's unusually quiet cat, Sadie, meowing a lot. That's when she called 911. Cops responded, they broke in and they found Lane's body with drug paraphernalia scattered everywhere. The autopsy determined that he'd been dead for two weeks, probably dying on Friday, April 5, the day after Mike Starr's visit. That, by the way, is the same day Kurt Cobain died in 1990. 4. In 2010, Lane's mom appeared on the TV show Celebrity Rehab. She recounted that day.
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C
When we found him, I walked into the dining area of his home, and I walked over. I asked the police if I could move things off the couch, and they said, yes, I could. And I sat down by Lane and I talked with him, and I told him, I'm so sorry you turned out like this, because I always believed, because he was smart and he had the money and he had the time, and he knew he'd been in treatment 30, 13 times. He'd been in the emergency three times. He died three times. I knew he had what it took, and still it took him out.
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A
Cause of death was ruled as an accidental overdose of a speedball, a mix of coke and heroin. His weight was just 39 kilos, or 80 pounds. His body was in such a state of decomposition that dental records were needed to identify him. And that was tough because almost all of Lane's teeth were gone. He was just 34. There's a sad postscript to all this. Mike Starr, the last guy to see Lane alive, died himself of a prescription drug overdose on March 8, 2011. He'd been addicted, too. Amy Winehouse was found dead on July 23, 2011, in her flat in Camden in North London. This was another situation where a death was a shock, but not entirely a surprise. Amy had been heading in the wrong direction for months. She'd grown very jaded and very angry about fame. Starting in about 2005, a lot of media attention was focused on her drinking and heavy drug use. Sometime in the summer of 2007, she was admitted to the hospital suffering from an overdose of heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and alcohol. When she did open up about her problems a little later, she confessed to being bipolar, depressed, having an eating disorder, and cutting herself. By this time, the general feeling was that she was suffering from some kind of mental illness. One doctor suggested something called borderline personality disorder, which was resulting in all kinds of reckless behavior. A visit with a specialist suggested Amy undergo a treatment called dialectical behavior therapy. But the spiral continued. The tabloids posted pictures of her smoking crack. There were allegations of assault. There were fights with her husband and her father. And the hounding from the paparazzi was constant. Her health suffered. She had an irregular heartbeat and was smoking very heavily. Tobacco and other things. And that had reduced her lung capacity to about 70%. There were more and more hospital visits. She withdrew more and more from family and friends. Her performances grew more and more erratic. After a particularly bad gig, in front of about 20,000 people in Belgrade, Serbia. A European tour designed as a big comeback for her was canceled. At the time, she was supposed to be on Librium, a drug that helps with alcohol and anxiety. But she told people she was bored and wasn't willing to follow any medical advice. On July 20, 2011, Amy's bodyguard arrived at her flat. Amy seemed a little drunk, but nothing terribly serious. Certainly nothing he'd not seen before. Still, he stayed with her because this was yet another relapse coming just a couple of weeks after she started a period of sobriety. On the night of July 22, Amy stayed up late watching YouTube videos of some of her past gigs. She seemed fine, laughing, until about 2 in the morning. At 10 in the morning of July 23rd, the bodyguard went in to check her. She seemed to be sleeping soundly, so he just let her be. At 3 o' clock that afternoon, he checked on her again. This time, Amy wasn't breathing and she didn't have a pulse. At 3:54pm, two ambulances pulled up, and a few minutes later, she was declared dead. The coroner declared that she died of alcohol poisoning. She'd had too much vodka. There were two big bottles and one little one in her room, all empty. Her blood alcohol level was a staggering.416. That's five times the legal limit. Amy was just 27.
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B
No. Yes. I've been black. When I'll come back. No, no, no.
- [12:49]
A
Scott Weiland was one of the best frontmen I'd ever seen. Even when he was teetering offstage, few people could command a crowd like him. With just his voice and a microphone, he was a fantastic talent, but in real life, he was a mess. In fact, he'd been a mess going back decades. Alcoholism, drug use, including heroin that dated back to at least 1993, run ins with the law. He'd been fired and rehired and fired again by Stone Temple Pilots multiple times. His personal relationships were all in turmoil. Rehab didn't help, jail didn't help. And everyone feared that things were going to end very, very badly. First, his brother Michael died in 2007. The cause was cardiomyopathy from drug use, and that sent Scott into a spiral of drinking and smoking cocaine. From then on, he developed a habit of taking coke just so he could drink more. In 2011, Weiland's bipolar episodes started to get worse. He was put on medication, which helped a little, but he gained 40 pounds and stopped. Another prescription seemed to work a little bit better. But then, in March 2015, people became concerned about Weiland's bouts of paranoia and mania. There was a particularly disastrous meet and greet with fans. Interviews went poorly, and things like this started going viral. That was not good. The truth was that Weiland was taking an antipsychotic drug called Geodon. What he'd been prescribed was too much. Once that was adjusted, he seemed to be okay once again. Then the bad news started coming again. His biological father was diagnosed with prostate cancer shortly after, his mother, one of the few people he remained close to, was also diagnosed with cancer. He was devastated. He was also estranged from his two teenage children. They lived with Wyland's second wife, Mary Forsberg. She had full custody. He was very sad and very hurt about not being able to see his kids. And on top of everything, there were financial issues. Spending on drugs, rehab, two divorces and child support had sapped his finances. Those who saw Wylan said he appeared gray and not healthy at all. He was on six different prescription meds and was also drinking a lot. Plus, he had hepatitis C, probably contracted through intravenous drug use. On November 25, 2015, Weiland had a romantic Thanksgiving dinner with his wife, Jamie. They went to an Italian restaurant in New York called Maialino. Weiland was in the midst of a tour with his new band, the Wild Abouts, and he seemed fine. But that was the last time Jamie would see him alive. Weiland was still drinking a lot, but he never saw that as a problem. On December 1, 2015, the Wildabouts played a show in Toronto, and Wyland did a couple of interviews. On December 2, Weiland and his drinking buddy Tommy Black, the bass player in the Wild Abouts, went out late the following morning. Weiland woke up on the Tour bus around 9 and then went back to bed. The bus then departed for the next gig in Medina, Minnesota. It parked outside a Marriott courtyard hotel. When the bus arrived in nearby Bloomington on the third, Tommy knocked on Wyland's door, but he didn't answer. Nothing really unusual there. The rule was, if Scott's asleep, let him be. So everyone went off shopping for Christmas presents. Jamie, his wife, who was at home in Los Angeles, received a romantic text from Scott that morning. She texted back but didn't get a reply, which seemed odd. At 5 that afternoon, Louisiana time, which would be 7pm In Minnesota, Jamie called Aaron Mohler, the band's tour manager and a former Marine. She asked him to wake up Scott so she could talk to him. At around 8pm local time in Minnesota, Moeller found Weiland lying in a Fetal position on his left side. His eyes were half closed. His body was stiff. Moeller called drummer Joy Castillo, who rushed from the hotel to the bus. He couldn't find a Pulse. Moeller called 911, telling the dispatcher that he feared Weiland was dead. Police showed up minutes later, and he was pronounced dead on the scene. It was left to a crew member to call Jamie in Los Angeles to tell her the news. Meanwhile, 15 cops went through the bus with a K9 unit, finding plenty of prescription drugs. Lunestra, Klonopin, Viagra, Dalmane, Buprinex and Geodon, plus a bag of coke under Weiland's mattress and another under Black's mattress. When he heard the news about Weiland, he immediately went to a bar and got drunk. Cops found him and charged him with possession. He was released 17 hours later without charge. On December 18, the coroner released a report, mixed drug toxicity involving cocaine, alcohol and aversion of mdma. It was noted that Weiland was also suffering from asthma and heart disease. He was 48 when he died and basically broke. More than broke, in fact, he had nearly $150,000 in tax liens against his property.
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B
Time to take her home. Her dizzy head is consciously.
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A
In a moment, we'll trace the final moments of Chester Bennington, Chris Cornell, and David Bowie. This is the second part of an episode that looks at the last moments of some famous musicians we've lost. When David bowie died on January 10, 2016, everybody was stunned. I mean, this is Bowie. Bowie wasn't supposed to die, wasn't he? Immortal, eternal, ever changing, and always there. It was a really, really hard truth. There had been plenty of rumors about Bowie's health, going back to his apparent retirement from live performances after suffering a heart attack on stage in 2003, he'd retreated to an apartment in New York City, receiving only friends and family. People in the neighborhood knew he was there, but they knew enough to leave him alone. Bowie had this thing. When he left the building, he'd have a Greek newspaper under his arm. And when someone might say, hey, isn't that David Bowie? Then they'd see the newspaper and say, oh, well, I guess it can't be. It's just some Greek man on his way for a souvlaki. Bowie had been well enough to secretly record an album entitled the next day in 2013, something that took two years to make it. A nearby studio that was within walking distance of his apartment. There were no performances. This was just a gift to fans. Once that was done, he started on a new record, also in secret, and it would be his last. Sessions began sometime around July 2014. It was also then that he received a diagnosis of liver cancer, and he told almost no one there were treatments. Bowie lost all his hair during chemo, but doctors were hopeful that the cancer would go into remission. But by November 2015, the cancer had spread and he was told that it was terminal. All treatments stopped. The last time he was seen in public was on December 7, 2015. He had written the music and lyrics for a play called Lazarus, and he was there for opening night at the New Theater Workshop in Manhattan. The production starred Michael C. Hall, the actor famous for playing Dexter. Bowie had been too sick to attend the rehearsals, but he had to be there for the premiere on Friday, January 18, the day Blackstar, that album he'd been working on during his illness, was released. And it was also Bowie's 69th birthday. Holy, holy. A band consisting of some of his old Spiders from Mars backing group played a show in New York City that night. There was some suggestion that Bowie might show up. He did not. Instead, the band called and left a voicemail with the crowd singing Happy Birthday. And then on Sunday, the story is that he laid down at his home, surrounded by his family, and died. It was during the filming of this video for a song from the Blackstar album that Bowie received his terminal diagnosis. Go through the song and video and you might find some messages that Bowie, knowing that he was dying, left behind. Look up here I'm in heaven. I've got scars that can't be seen. Few recent rock star deaths were more unexpected than that of Chris Cornell. Yes, fans were aware of his alcohol and substance abuse problems, but those were all in the past, right? So what happened in a Detroit hotel room on May 18, 2017 will forever remain a big mystery. I've covered this in depth on previous shows and podcasts, but here's a summary. Chris was back touring and recording with Soundgarden. On Wednesday, May 17, 2017. The band played a show at the Fox Theater in Detroit, and by most accounts, it went well. Chris seemed okay. Chris walked off the stage at 11:15pm he and his bodyguard Martin Kristen, walked the short distance back to the MGM Grand Hotel, where Chris had room 1136. It only took a few minutes to get there. Meanwhile, out in Los Angeles, Chris's wife Vicky noticed that the lights in the house were flicking on and off. Chris had an app that let him control the lights remotely. Why was he flicking the lights off and on in la if he was in Detroit. That got her attention. So she called him at 11:35pm that's about 20 minutes after he left the stage. Martin, the bodyguard, had been with Chris in his room, helping him with his computer and giving Chris a couple of Ativan tablets. That was a prescription Chris had to deal with anxiety and insomnia. Martin then went to his room two doors down the hallway. Chris was soon alone when Vicki called. He sounded groggy and was slurring his voice, but said, no, no, I'm fine. I'm just tired. But after he hung up, Vicki was still concerned, so she called Martin and asked him to go down the hall and check on Chris. At 12:15am he went to Chris's door and knocked. No answer. He called security asking that he be let in, but the hotel said, no, no, that's not your room, so we can't do that. Martin was so concerned that he kicked in the door. Chris was nowhere to be found. In the main part of the suite, he checked the bathroom. Locked. He kicked that door in too, and found Chris on the floor with a red exercise band around his neck and blood running from his mouth. He wasn't breathing. A hotel Medic arrived at 12:56am an ambulance showed up a few minutes later, but it was too late. At 1:30am Chris was declared dead. A little more than two hours had elapsed since he left the stage for the final time and less than 90 minutes since he ended his phone call with Vicki. From all evidence, Chris died within half an hour of that phone call. The Wayne county coroner ruled suicide by hanging. What was going on through Chris mind during those crucial minutes, you will never know.
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B
There's nothing compared. Nothing compare to you.
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A
We can't talk about the death of Chris Cornell without immediately going to Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. He and Chris were great, great friends. And while we're at it, he also temporarily replaced Scott Weiland in Stone Temple Pilots. Chester always had a certain fragility to him. He'd been sexually abused as a child, which he talked about. And he was also open about his problems with addiction, especially coke and meth, as well as alcohol, plus his depression. There was a trip to rehab in 2006 and something of a relapse in August 2016 that may have started as early as October 2015. There were also reports of a suicide attempt in November 2016. This was something originally reported in the final autopsy in 2017, but later deleted on the request of his wife. Chester had been proactive about his condition. He was A member of an organization called Rock to Recovery, which consisted of sober musicians looking to help those who weren't. But Chris Cornell's death really threw him for a loop. He attended Chris's memorial service, which was really hard. But just a few days later, he was telling people that he was feeling very creative and had written six new songs. He was telling friends things like, we have to stick together. We have so much to live for. And he was absolutely right. Linkin park had already been super successful. A new album called One More Light and a song entitled Heavy was all over the radio. Both had marked a change in sound for the band and some reviews were less than kind, which bothered Chester. But he was pushing ahead. A 29 date Linkin park tour was about to start and once that was over, he'd committed to joining Gray Daze, the band he was in before Linkin park for a reunion. He seemed happy, he seemed secure, and he seemed to be in great physical condition too. But in hindsight, there were signs that something was wrong. That new Linkin park single started with the line I don't like my mind right now. In an interview he said that that described in 24 hours a day. He also spoke to Ryan Schuck, the guitarist in another one of his side projects called Dead by Sunrise. Chuck also had issues with alcohol. Some text messages went back and forth about what Chester described as his day by day battle with alcohol. In July 2017, his wife Talinda and his family. He had six kids, went to Arizona on a vacation. But then on July 19, he said he had to get back to LA. I have to work on a television commercial, he said. Nobody raised any alarm bells. There was no reason to. Around the same time, he was texting back and forth with Robert DiLeo of Stone Temple Pilots. Again, no alarm bells on July 19th. That day he went back to LA. He texted Matt Sorum, the ex drummer of Guns N Roses, and floated the idea of performing with him again in a band they had called Kings of Chaos. But sometime on the Evening of Wednesday, July 19, or maybe early Thursday, July 20, something went very long at that house in Palos Verdes estates. At around 9am on the morning of the 20th, a housekeeper found Chester hanging from a door in the bedroom. She ran to a driver of a car who had come to pick up chester for that TV commercial shoot. He called 911.
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B
I asked, I said, is he cold?
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A
Is he warm?
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B
And she said, no, his bed has been hanging and she's talking to his wife right now.
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A
Okay, stay on the phone. I'M going to transfer to the fire department. No drugs were found, but a bottle of beer was found in the room at the same time. The toxicology report noted that there was only a trace amount of alcohol in Chester's blood. A prescription for a sleep aid was found in the room, but there were no reports of any significant concentrations in his bloodstream. So what happened? It's impossible to know in retrospect, though, maybe all the signs were there. By the way, and this may be a clue. July 20th would have been Chris Cornell's 53rd birthday.
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B
But in the end, it doesn't even matter. I had too far to lose it all.
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A
A couple of more tragic stories coming up. Dolores O'Reardon of the Cranberries and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters. I met Dolores o', Riordan, the singer of the Cranberries, a number of times. She was always fun and bubbly and friendly, but she did have her demons. Dolores could be unpredictable and emotional. In November 2014, she was arrested on a charge of air rage on a flight between New York and Ireland, something that involved headbutting the arresting officer. There were reoccurring issues with alcohol. Her marriage broke up. After 20 years, she left Buckhorn, Ontario, where she'd been living with her Canadian husband and eventually settled in New York, first the Trump Tower and then a place in the east village. In May 2017, she went public about her bipolar depression, a diagnosis that she received in 2015. She talked about depression, the death of her father and mother in law, and her divorce. And on a night in September 2017, she took some sedatives and started drinking heavily and began to write a suicide note. She abandoned that, and a psychotherapist assigned to her didn't seem to be worried that she might do something similar. There was at least one other health problem, a slipped disc in her back caused by picking up a guitar, and that hurt enough for one tour to be canceled. Then in January 2018, she flew to London to meet with a producer about a side project and with a record label about a new Cranberry's record. She checked into room 2005 of the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane in the Mayfair part of London. Everything seemed fine. It was Sunday, January 14, 2018. That day she emailed Cranberries guitarist Noel Hogan sketches of some new songs. At 1:12am on the morning of the 15th, she left a slurry voicemail for her friend Dan Waite, a label executive, saying that she felt very good about everything, including a new house. That involved shopping for some furniture. That voicemail has gone down in history as Dolores last recording. At 3am she spoke to her mother and that was the last time anyone heard from her. At some point after that, she drew a bath and went through the minibar. Five small bottles of spirits and one bottle of champagne were consumed. A prescription for the sedative lorazepam was found in her room, although an autopsy later showed that there were not excessive levels in her blood. Wearing a long sleeve vest and some pajama bottoms, she got into the tub full of water. She was made sleepy by all the alcohol. She slipped below the surface of the water and she drowned. She was found at about 9 in the morning of January 15 by a maid who had come to tidy up. She was face up in the tub with the water covering her mouth and nose. Police were called and CPR was performed, but at 9:16am she was declared dead. She was 46. The final report on her death came out on September 16, 2018 and what would have been her 47th birthday. The verdict was accidental drowning due to alcohol intoxication. No suicide note was found, and although there were rumors that fentanyl was involved, that proved to be false. I have one more tragic story, and it's one where we still don't have all the answers. It's the story of how Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died. Let me lay out everything we know. We start by going back to December 9, 2021. The Foo Fighters board a private jet to Chicago, where they were scheduled to connect to an Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi, where they were scheduled to play the finale of the Formula One race season. But they never made the connection. When the private jet landed in Chicago, a member of the band had to be rushed to hospital. We know this to be true, and that member seems to have been Taylor. He'd allegedly passed out due to exhaustion and dehydration. Again, this has never been confirmed by the band, so we must be careful. Whatever the case, the band never made it to Abu Dhabi. Fast forward to March 2022. The Foo Fighters were on a post pandemic tour of South America. On Friday 25th March, the band was scheduled to play in Bogota, Colombia and had checked into the Four Seasons Casa Medina Hotel in the city's Shapanero district. Taylor had reportedly been quite tired, but it was nothing serious. I mean, you get tired on tour. It was certainly nothing out of the ordinary for a hard touring musician. It might have been the altitude too, because Bogota is at an elevation of more than 2600 meters or 8000ft. Hair is pretty thin. At some point, Taylor left a voicemail for his friend Perry Farrell. He said, take care of each other and I'll take care of myself and I'll see you in Sao Paulo. I love, love, love you. Sleep well. These could have been his final words. The Foos were scheduled to play the Festival estero picnic at 11 o' clock that night. But before the band could leave for the gig. Well, details are murky. Things begin to unfold at around 7.40pm Some reports say that Taylor started to experience chest pains. Others say that when someone went to collect him for the gig, they repeatedly knocked on the door and he didn't answer. And when they got inside, they found him unconscious. Whatever the case, medical personnel arrived within a few minutes. CPR was administered, but it was too late. Taylor suffered cardiac arrest and died. So what happened? We don't know. There are plenty of theories, but the autopsy results have never been made public. A urine test taken immediately following his death revealed traces of opioids, sedatives, antidepressants and some thc. Some people were quick to jump on that as the cause of death. But a urine test isn't a proper toxicology test and certainly not as good as a blood test. We have no idea what the opioids were. It could have been something routine, something like a codeine based painkiller. As a hard hitting drummer on tour and a guy in his 50s, it wouldn't have been unusual for Taylor to have various aches and pains. It could have been something even like cough medicine. Some of which contains codeine, sedatives and an antidepressant. Nothing terribly usual about that. Many people have those prescriptions and thc. Big deal. Besides, it can linger in the bloodstream for up to a month. And after Taylor's near death Heroin overdose in 2001, I have a really hard time believing that he'd relapsed. After what Dave Grohl had gone through with Kurt. I just can't believe that he would let Taylor, his best friend, do that to himself. We do know that Taylor had an enlarged heart, a so called runner's heart. And that happens when you push your body physically for years and years. And that was Taylor. Three hour Foo Fighter shows, BMX biking, surfing. He was crazy for physical activities. His doctor knew about the situation and wasn't all that concerned. Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists were convinced that his cardiomyopathy had something to do with a COVID vaccine. Bottom line is that we know that Taylor died of cardiac arrest. What caused his heart to stop is still unknown, and there has never been any official public report or announcement from the Foo Fighters or anyone else. What killed Taylor Hawkins? We may never know.
- [35:44]
B
Looking for a complication? Looking Cause I'm tired of trying to make my way back home When I learn to fly
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A
Dealing with death is never easy. And it's weird when a favorite musician dies because it's not like we knew them personally, but through their music, we feel like we did. And when something happens to them, it's only natural to seek answers to something that seems inexplicable. Do finding those answers comfort us? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. If you missed part one of this show, it's available as a podcast along with hundreds and hundreds of other episodes. Wherever you get your podcasts, they're all free and you're more than welcome to download all of them. If there's anything else you'd like to discuss. Personally, I'm always around through ellenncross Ca. You can find me on X or Twitter, whatever, Instagram and Facebook, maybe TikTok, maybe threads. And when you need a dose of music news and information, check out my website, A Journal of musicalthhings.com if you updated every day and comes with a free daily newsletter that you should get. Technical productions by Rob Johnston. We'll talk to you next time. I'm Alan Cross. You've been listening to the ongoing History of New Music Podcast with Alan Cross. Subscribe to the podcast through itunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, and everywhere you find your favorite podcasts.