Shane Hawkins revives his late father's Chevy Metal band

Shane Hawkins, the rock drummer and son of the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, has revived his father's covers band Chevy Metal, now playing alongside bassist Wiley Hodgden and guitarist Brent Woods, the Los Angeles Times reported on August 13. After Taylor's death in 2022, Hodgden and Woods had assumed the band was finished. "Wiley and I were in agreement, like, it's done," Woods said. "Shane was the one that said, 'I want to do Chevy.'"

Chevy Metal was part of his childhood, Shane, now 19, said of his decision to revive it: his father was gone, but "these people that I've watched my whole childhood, they're still there." "Why not keep something going? And it's just honoring my dad," he said. Most of the music world first saw him behind a drum kit at 16, playing "My Hero" with the Foo Fighters at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in September 2022, a performance he has said convinced him he wanted to spend his life making music.

Chevy Metal's setlist still leans on the classic rock songs Taylor Hawkins loved, pulling from Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, Rush and the Doors, though Shane has started weaving more punk into the band's sets, taking the mic himself to growl through the Bad Brains' "Big Takeover." "We're playing the Germs now," Woods said. "We're playing Black Flag, which we never did before." The band has also kept up its tradition of surprise guests, with past appearances from Dave Grohl, Mick Jagger, members of Queen, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Guns N' Roses, and even tennis player John McEnroe on guitar at a Malibu show.

Chevy Metal began in 2002, when Hodgden and original guitarist Achim "Dange" St. Dangerfield started it as an acoustic covers duo, with Taylor Hawkins a regular heckler in the crowd before he asked to join. Hodgden recalled floating the band's name to Taylor and telling him, "you can't really name the band, you're not in it," before Taylor settled the matter himself: "I'm gonna be your drummer and we're gonna call it Chevy Metal."

Now graduated from a boarding school on the East Coast, Shane Hawkins is focusing much of his time on Chevy Metal and on writing new material with other young musicians, including Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian's son Revel. "He's a great dude and he is a monster drummer," Scott Ian said of Shane. The trio's most recent hometown show was a New Year's Eve set at the Viper Room that doubled as a gathering of rock families, with second-generation musicians from Guns N' Roses, Jane's Addiction and Anthrax joining Chevy Metal onstage.

The band still rehearses in the home studio Taylor Hawkins built behind his family's house in Hidden Hills, its walls covered in guitars, posters and memorabilia from artists including Aerosmith, Rush, David Bowie, Jane's Addiction and Soundgarden. "He put a lot of work into making this room what it is right now," Shane said. "I remember him precisely making sure every picture was hung up in the exact place." No new Chevy Metal tour dates have been announced beyond the band's current run of shows, including a performance at Alex's Bar in Long Beach that is set to take the band on to the UK, though Shane's growing role suggests the project will keep evolving as he settles further into leading it.