April 1, 2022
Last Friday, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died suddenly.
I’ve been beside myself ever since. Just gutted.
I’m not quite can’t-get-out-of-bed depressed, but definitely waking-up-puffy-eyed-from-crying-myself-to-sleep sad. I’ve had to get creative with my makeup application this week.
Within five minutes of meeting me, everyone learns two things:
1) My favourite band of all time is the Smashing Pumpkins
2) followed very closely by Foo Fighters.
I’ve seen these two bands perform live a combined 60 times. That’s not a typo.
Full disclosure: I became a massage therapist in no small part because I wanted a job where I could listen to music all day. In massage therapy school, people would often ask what we wanted to do when we graduated. My classmates had aspirations of running clinics and working with sports teams.
“I’m going on tour with Foo Fighters as the band’s massage therapist!” I would tell people. That never happened, but a girl can dream.
Grieving the death of a musician as a fan is a special kind of pain. It’s not necessarily easier or harder than losing a friend or family member, but it’s certainly different.
I’m no expert on grief. I’m just a human with a human brain who’s currently sad. These are some of the lessons I’m learning…
Fandom is a lifestyle, not a hobby.
First, a bit of an explanation…
When you’re a hardcore megafan of a band, it can become almost cult-like… almost.
We fans eat, sleep, and breathe our favourite bands. Even if we don’t listen to them every day, we’ve weaved them into our daily lives.
We name our pets and kids after the band members. We set their photos as the desktop on our phones and computers. We use their song titles as our passwords to literally everything. I’m confident I could hack into the bank account of every Smashing Pumpkins fan out there.
We forge friendships based solely on our mutual love of our favourite bands. I have my Foo Friends and my loyal troupe of Pumpkinheads and Sad Machines (the nicknames for Smashing Pumpkins fans, although I’ve always thought we should be called the Pumpkin Patch).
We wait in line for hours with our fellow fans to hopefully get a photo or autograph, we take road trips to see them perform in different cities, we stalk their tour bus together, and we plan our vacations around their tour schedule.
Some of us even permanently brand their logos and album covers on our bodies.
We use our fandom as a means of connecting with others. I couldn’t tell you the names of my former coworkers’ partners or children, but you’d best believe I can recite all of their favourite bands.
To megafans, the bandmates begin to feel like family members, and our fellow fans are our brethren.
Fanatics, man. We’re a special bunch. We’re a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves. Many people feel this way about religion (or sports, I’m told).
I’ll be the first to admit this isn’t healthy. But I’m far too invested to turn back now!
Grief is a communal experience.
When a famous musician dies, you grieve alongside millions. While I don’t wish my pain on others, there’s something morbidly comforting about knowing people all over the world were crying with me when the news broke on Friday night.
You don’t get that kind of global camaraderie when you lose someone who isn’t famous. There’s something beautiful and unique about grieving as a fan—a connectivity that transcends borders.
Grief can be an intensely isolating experience. When you’re grieving, it feels like the world around you keeps turning when yours has come to a standstill. You’re not alone when you’re a fan.
You never know what people are going through.
I’ve been in a gloomy haze since hearing the news last Friday night. It’s all I can think about.
But the people I’ve been interacting with? The neighbours I pass on the street, the folks at the gym (my 20-something-year-old personal trainer miraculously hadn’t heard the news), the contractors who are repairing my floor as I write this… They have no sense of the pain I’m in.
And I them.
My grief is uniquely mine and people have no idea what I’m going through unless I tell them. The same goes for all of us. You honestly never know what someone else’s lived experience is.
I try to remind myself of this whenever I see someone acting like a jerk. Maybe they’re just hurting.
Grief is inescapable.
When you visit my Parkdale home massage studio, you’re invited into my world. My home is a miniature Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, only it’s exclusively dedicated to mid-90s alternative rock.
First, you’ll be greeted by my cat, Dave Grohl. Yes, that is his real name.
Next, you’ll see the photo of me with Foo Fighters that’s hanging proudly in my foyer. I camped out overnight on Yonge Street and skipped my university convocation ceremony for that photo opportunity. No regrets.
You’ll then walk past the shrine of autographed Foo Fighters memorabilia alongside my unreasonably large CD collection.
Finally, you’ll receive a massage while I play my No Pan Flute playlist, which features the prettiest Foo Fighters songs.
All of this makes grieving a beloved musician that much harder. There isn’t a single room in my home that’s devoid of Foo. I’m reminded of them at every turn and it hurts like hell.
Grief doesn’t need to be earned.
I’ve met Foo Fighters several times, but I don’t really know them, and they certainly don’t know me. Dave Grohl doesn’t know my favourite band is the Pumpkins. (Rude!)
Who am I to cry this hard over Taylor’s death, and for this long? I’m just a silly little fangirl. I don’t deserve condolences.
Grief can feel like a pie. There’s only so much to go around, and I haven’t earned a slice.
As it turns out, you don’t need to know a person to feel a profound sense of loss. Every Harry Potter fan knows what it’s like to sob over the death of a fictional character.
And you don’t need someone to love you back in order to love them fiercely. Anyone with cats knows this.
Grief isn’t a pie. Grief is an ocean. There’s room for everyone, it comes in waves, and it will drown you if you let it.
If you’re feeling sad right now, come swim with me. We can help keep each other afloat.
Grief is irrational.
I probably shouldn’t feel the way I’m feeling right now. There’s no logical reason why Taylor’s passing has impacted me more heavily than losing some of my relatives—people who actually knew and loved me.
But grief isn’t rational. It doesn’t always make sense. I don’t create the rules; I just feel them.
Parents love to tell us non-parents that they never truly knew love until they had children. I believe that. Evolutionary biology dictates you have to love your children in order to further the species.
I see no evolutionary benefit to me obsessing over my favourite bands. I’m not saying my love of the Foos is more pure or genuine… but I’m not not saying that either.
See? Irrational!
Some people won’t get it (and that’s ok).
When you lose one of your favourite musicians, you may expect to hear from certain people in your life, like your best friends and closest family members.
Some of the people who know you best won’t say anything. You may never know why. Maybe they didn’t think you’d be this upset. Maybe they have their own stuff going on in their lives and they’re waiting for you to check in on them. Remember what I said earlier about never knowing what other people are going through?
Plenty of people will think you’re overreacting. (Not me; I get you. Cry your tears, girl.)
I say this not to make anyone feel guilty. Death is complex and difficult and I won’t fault anyone for not wanting to talk about it, or talk to me when I’m a blubbering mess.
Unmet expectations are a huge source of unnecessary suffering, and this is something I’ve been actively working on releasing in recent years.
Fun fact: My New Year’s resolution in 2020 was to let go of expectations. Well played, 2020. Well played.
We megafans are cut from a different cloth. We’re downright WEIRD. Some people will never understand us, and that’s ok. You have to let people not get it. To be honest, I’m perplexed by people who don’t have a favourite band. What do they do with their time?
On the flipside…
Some people will surprise you.
When the news broke on Friday night that Taylor died suddenly while on tour, my phone erupted—phone calls, voice notes, broken-heart emojis, private messages from every communication app I have on my phone… all within minutes.
The recurring theme? You’re the first person I thought of.
My interpretation? I see you.
That sentiment gets me teary-eyed even now.
In the following days, I continued to receive more texts and emails from friends who were learning the news. People were genuinely concerned about my wellbeing. Some checked in multiple days in a row.
I even heard from my clients. Imagine hearing about the death of a rock star and thinking, “I hope my massage therapist is ok.”
I received messages from some of the unlikeliest people—my old boss from HMV 20 years ago, coworkers from my record label days, former classmates and colleagues, internet friends I’ve still never met in person, my business coach who shared a heartfelt piano rendition of their hit “Everlong,” and a whole host of people who don’t know me all that well.
Even my anatomy instructor from massage therapy school sent her condolences. That one still gets me. (Love you, lady.)
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this understood. It’s normal for people to have consoled me like this when my dad died. But a rock star? The drummer of my second favourite band?
I mean, how lucky am I?
You are memorable.
When you’re a fan of a band, especially one of the biggest bands in the world like the Foos, it’s easy to feel invisible. This band is my everything, but to them I’m just a face in a crowd, a stranger in a sea of millions.
No matter how many times I’ve met them, or how hard I hope for a glimmer of recognition from the band, I’m ultimately just some random fangirl who plastered her suburban childhood bedroom with their posters and never grew up. I call this experience the Insignificance Complex.
Behold! My childhood bedroom in all its glory!
What I’ve learned is that fandom makes you memorable.
Do you have a favourite band that you talk about ad nauseam to anyone who will listen?
There are people out there who think of you every time they hear a song or read a headline about that band. It could be old friends and partners, former coworkers and teachers, and even someone you casually met at a party because you were wearing a band shirt.
You pop into people’s heads more often than you’ll ever know, and that belief feels better than feeling small.
Grief is currency.
Grief is the price we pay for loving someone or something. If you’re grieving, it means you’re loving, which means you’re living.
Grief is a hefty price tag, but it’s an investment I’ll continue to make, because the return is massive.
I like to think Taylor would be ok with it all. If someone pulled him aside when he was a kid and told him he would get to spend his life touring the world, playing music with his best friends, and meeting all of his idols, but the catch is that it would end shortly after his 50th birthday… he’d be all in.
“Bring it fucking on!” he’d exclaim. After all, he was ultimately a 50-year-old fangirl.
Taylor loved music just like we love music. And what’s better than love? Nothing, that’s what.
So, what do we do now?
We grieve. We remember. We pay tribute. We connect. We create (I write).
Eventually, we smile. We reach the point where the joy of listening to their songs outweighs the pain.
And then we do it all over again when the next one dies.
Bring it. Fucking. On.
##
“I walk through this crazy life of a musician like a little boy in a museum, surrounded by the exhibits I’ve spent a lifetime studying. And when I finally come face to face with someone who has inspired me along the way, I am thankful, I am grateful, and I take none of it for granted.
I’m a firm believer in the shared humanity of music—something that I find more rewarding than any other aspect of what I do. When the one-dimensional image becomes a living, breathing, three-dimensional human being, it fills your soul with reassurance that even our most cherished heroes are flesh and bone.
I believe that people are inspired by people. That’s why I feel the need to connect with my fans when they approach me. I’m a fan, too.”
– Dave Grohl, The Storyteller