Foo Fighters and Machine Gun Kelly were both on the March 22 lineup for Paraguay’s Asunciónico festival, with Kelly set to take the stage immediately before Foo Fighters. However, their performances were canceled due to inclement weather. Kelly talked about that on The Howard Stern Show recently, discussing how he and the band still met up and how especially kind Taylor Hawkins, who tragically died a few days later, was to everybody.
Kelly spoke about how he had been texting with Dave Grohl before the sets were canceled, who told him Foo Fighters planned to watch Kelly’s performance. Kelly was excited about that but bummed when the set was called off. However, Grohl invited Kelly to his hotel, where he and the rest of Foo Fighters were going to have a rooftop party.
Kelly continued:
“We got out the elevator, all 20 of [his entourage], and Taylor, Dave, the whole Foo Fighters team, but specifically Taylor, he went up to every single one of us and gave us each our moment. Like, every single one of us, man, down to my assistant; They were relating over, ‘Oh you’re from Topanga? Oh, I’m from Topanga!’ It was like, dude: he’s such a beautiful soul, man. […] He stopped at every single person and gave his heart, man.”
He went on to note that Hawkins brought up Kelly’s role as Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee in the 2019 movie The Dirt, saying, “He was talking to me about how he was at the premiere and he was like, ‘Oh man, the way you did Tommy’s mannerisms… he’s the man, huh?’ We were just relating on that.”
Kelly then mentioned how proud Hawkins was of his kids and Kelly shared a message for Hawkins’ children, saying, “I just want to say to his kids: Your father, when we left there, the kids in us came out. We were just like, ‘This is the greatest night of our life!’ […] I really want to thank him and let his kids know he made us feel — in a time when the outside world […] was really coming in hard on us — he made us feel so confident in ourselves and loved. Your father is a great, great man and we were all lucky to know him.”
Watch Kelly discuss Hawkins above.