‘Tragic and horrific’: Eerie detail in 2008 Foo Fighters video emerges after Taylor Hawkins’ death

An eerie 2008 interview with Dave Grohl about the loss of Kurt Cobain has been unearthed in the wake of Taylor Hawkins’ shock death.

An old clip of Foo Fighters legend Dave Grohl opening up about Kurt Cobain’s death has taken on a haunting new meaning after the sudden loss of Taylor Hawkins.

Music fans are still reeling after news of Hawkins’ death at age 50 in a hotel room in Bogota, Colombia, broke on Saturday.

The Foo Fighters were in the middle of a South American tour when the tragedy occurred, leaving his fellow bandmates devastated.

But it’s not the first tragedy Foo Fighters frontman Grohl has endured, after previously losing his friend and Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain, who took his own life in 1994.

Now, a 2008 interview with Grohl and Hawkins about Cobain’s passing has been unearthed, with fans pointing out just how heartbreaking it now was to watch in light of Hawkins’ death.

The interview, with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s George Stroumboulopoulos for The Hour program, centred around the loss of Cobain as well as fatherhood and the Foo Fighters’ formation.

During the interview, Grohl went into detail about how his friend’s death had affected him for many years.

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A 2008 CBC interview with the Foo Fighters has taken on haunting new meaning after Taylor Hawkins' death. Picture: CBC

“I didn’t talk about Nirvana for the first, you know, like two or three years of [the Foo Fighters] being a band, for lots of reasons,” Grohl began.

“One, the biggest reason, you know a good friend of mine died and I didn’t want to go and talk about it to everybody, because I was still trying to work that out on my own.”

Grohl was then asked if he spoke about Cobain to his new bandmates, which promoted Hawkins to chime in.

Taylor Hawkins was a ‘major fan’ of Kurt Cobain. Picture: CBC

“We didn’t talk about it all the time, not in a dark way really, more like just telling me fun stories and anecdotes. I would ask him about stuff because I was obviously a major fan and thought he was brilliant, so I would ask Dave a few questions here and there,” Hawkins said.

“But it was also tough too because, you know, one of the things about starting this band, was, it was time to keep moving,” Grohl continued.

“After something like that happens, you don’t know how to recover from something like that.

“There’s no textbook to help you through something as tragic and horrific as that, and so it was just time to keep playing.”

But Grohl admitted that there were times after Cobain’s death that he contemplated walking away from the industry altogether.

Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins were close friends. Picture: Rene Johnston/Toronto Star via Getty Images

… there were times when I really felt like it – it’s hard to listen to music because I would just associate it with the death of a good friend of mine,” he said, adding that Cobain’s death was “a huge part of my life” and that “those experiences changed my life forever”.

“For the longest time I wouldn’t talk about it and then I started talking about it a little bit,” he said. “For the longest time I wouldn’t write lyrics that I thought people would associate with something like that.”

Grohl, a father of three, then explained that the arrival of his daughters helped him find “new strength and confidence” to overcome his demons.

“There were fears or phobias I had before that used to keep me from doing things. I don’t have time for that sh*t now, I’ve got to protect my daughter,” he said.

Kurt Cobain died in 1994. Picture: Kevin Mazur Archive 1/WireImage

The YouTube clip has been inundated with new comments following Hawkins’ death, with fans sharing their sympathy for Grohl as he faces another tragedy.

“My heart breaks for Dave Grohl. To lose your best friend is horrific. For it to happen again is unimaginable. Sad doesn’t even begin to convey today’s news. But you know what helps?” one fan wrote.

“That every single comment, news story and other coverage I have seen emphasises the goodness. The joy. The purity of spirit that Taylor embodied.”

“Man. My prayers and condolences go out to Dave who has now lost another legendary friend,” another posted, while another wrote that it was “absolutely heartbreaking for Dave to go through this again 28 years later”.

It comes amid Grohl’s emotional return to the US, with the 53-year-old appearing visibly shaken as he hugged a man believed to be Foo Fighters’ manager John Silva after touching down in LA from Bogota.

Colombian authorities released a statement over the weekend claiming toxicological tests preliminarily found 10 psychoactive substances and medicines, including marijuana, opioids, tricyclic antidepressants and benzodiazepines, in Hawkins’ body at his time of death.

Reports also emerged on Sunday that he died of cardiovascular collapse, with local media reporting his heart was double the weight of a typical adult male’s when he died.