Queen star Brian May is mourning the loss of his friend, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who was like ‘family to him’.
Appearing on , the musician, 74, explained that he’s struggling to come to terms with his close pal’s death.
‘He’s so much in my mind at the moment. It’s just impossible to imagine talking about Taylor in the past tense. I can’t do it yet,’ he said.
‘I feel like he’s still with us. And one of the greatest drummers ever, of course, but also the most amazingly energetic, beautiful guy you could imagine.’
Hawkins was a self-proclaimed Queen super-fan, ever since he saw the Bohemian Rhapsody rockers at his first-ever live concert, and revealed that the band inspired his desire to be a rock star.
May and Hawkins first met when the late star was drumming for Alanis Morissette, and they ‘instantly bonded’.
In 1998, May recruited Hawkins to play the drums on Cyborg, a track that appeared on his solo album Another World.
‘Taylor was very close to us, and he’s been in my studio a few times and in my life, I talked to him often,’ he continued.
‘I talked to him just a week ago from when we lost him, talking about stuff, talking about Dave, talking about what it’s like and Taylor’s joys and frustrations and whatever… Taylor was like family to us, he really was.
‘I’m finding it hard to get through. And Taylor of course wasn’t even my generation. I think of him as a boy… It’s hard to compute.
‘It makes you feel frustrated, it makes you feel like you want to negotiate with death. You know what I’m saying?
‘You feel like if you looked at it enough and you talk about it enough and you analyse it enough, maybe you could bring him back.’
The Foo Fighters regularly covered Queen during live performances, and during the band’s last ever show at Lollapalooza Argentina, Hawkins took the mic for a cover of Queen’s Somebody To Love, while lead singer Dave Grohl played the drums.
Speaking to in 2016, Hawkins referred to Queen a number of times, explaining that it was their Staying Alive hit that made him want to drum.
He said: ‘There’s a live version from 1979, which the band apparently hated, but I love it.
‘It’s one of my favourite Queen records and some of Roger Taylor’s finest drumming.
‘The Police’s Zenyatta Mondatta is another record that made me go, “Wow, I want to play drums like that.”
‘My dream was to sing and look like Roger Taylor and play drums like Stewart Copeland.’
Hawkins died on March 20, at the age of 50 while touring with the Foo Fighters in Bogotá, Colombia.
An initial toxicology report into the death has been carried out by health officials in Bogota.
