A Tasmanian man with a strong connection to the rock and roll band Foo Fighters has paid tribute to drummer and singer Taylor Hawkins. Hawkins, 50, died on Friday while on tour in South America. A cause of death has not yet been confirmed. Brant Webb was one of two men trapped for two weeks in the Beaconsfield mine collapse in 2006, and while underground he requested an iPod loaded with Foo Fighters' albums. The band, hearing this, invited Mr Webb to a show in Sydney and dedicated a song - Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners - to them in their 2007 album Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace. Mr Webb said that throughout the intervening years he developed a strong bond with the band, and said Hawkins was a man of great grace and humility. "It is pretty devastating," Mr Webb said. He said that at the show in Sydney he was having a drink in a bar afterwards with some friends when Hawkins joined in on the conversation. "I think we were just talking about our lives and he was more interested than anyone else. "It is a very different feeling when a superstar like that gives you the time of day. He made me feel very important. "That was his greatest gift. He devoted his whole concentration to you when you spoke. "He's got enough money to do anything he wants in the world and he took the time to speak to me. "You just felt so uplifted by this bloke." Mr Webb said Hawkins' death was a "great loss for the Foo Fighters". "It is going to be very hard for them. I doubt they will ever get going again," he said. Hawkins joined the Foo Fighters in 1997 and played drums on every album since There Is Nothing Left to Lose in 1999. He and lead singer Dave Grohl often traded places on stage, including in a cover of Queen's Somebody To Love at Hawkins' last performance with the band in Argentina a week before his death. Grohl started Foo Fighters in 1994 after the death of Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of grunge band Nirvana, in which he played drums.
