While raucous cover band Chevy Metal was basically a closed chapter in a rock and roll story when the band showed up to play a tribute show for the late Taylor Hawkins in late 2022, it turns out there was more to be written.

“The band was over at that point,” bassist Wiley Hodgden said in a recent video call. “Kesha played with us at The Forum and had a wardrobe malfunction, and I made a joke that it was the perfect end to this band, but I was serious about that.”

Chevy Metal was the brainchild of Hodgden and the Foo Fighters drummer in 2002. Hodgden was working as drum tech for the Foos, which he still does, and bonded with Hawkins.

“He changed my life,” Hodgden said. “I literally came out here from Oklahoma and was a bartender and Taylor took me under his wing almost right off the bat.”

At first, Hodgden had big aspirations that Chevy Metal would blow up big, but knowing Hawkins’ commitment to the Foo Fighters, he decided it would need to be a kept-secret bar band—which it was for the first decade. The concept was simple: a high-powered rock cover band playing beloved songs from the ’70s.

“Those early days, the rehearsals were almost like boot camp; we were playing just about every day,” Hodgden said. “I learned a lot about how to watch and listen, and how things can go live. [Hawkins] might want to keep the song going, and we might not end it like we practiced, so I’d have to be ready.”

In that aftermath of that Forum gig came an offer from an unexpected place. Hawkins’ son Shane, 18, offered to take his dad’s place behind the drum kit to carry Chevy Metal on.

“There’s just not much rock and roll like that, and I felt like we should keep it going to make sure that music still exists,” Shane Hawkins said. “It’s carrying on my dad’s legacy, and it’s playing rock and roll music with friends for other people. It’s just fun.”

Shane Hawkins captured the attention of the music world when he sat in on the drums with the Foo Fighters at Wembley Stadium in London for the first of two Hawkins tribute concerts, playing an emotional “My Hero.” It was enough to bring tears to the eyes of even the most casual fans. The video has been viewed tens of millions of times. The young drummer was ready.

“I was just grateful for the moment and really in awe to be up there,” Shane Hawkins said. “But I was also really prepared, I had a been playing a lot of drums. I’m playing for my dad, you know?”

The younger Hawkins said his dad inspired him to play the drums, but that when he was younger, he actually resisted letting his dad teach him at first. Instead, he watched Taylor Hawkins play and picked it up from that. Despite being much younger than his dad’s friends, he’s fit right in with Chevy Metal. He’s even suggested which songs the band should play, like Led Zeppelin’s “The Rover.”

“We play a lot of well-known bands, but not always the most obvious hits that most cover bands might play,” said guitarist Brent Woods, who learned his craft under legendary guitarist Randy Rhoads, of Quiet Riot. “The ones that we do play that are well-known, we make them our own, we try to mess them up a little bit, play them a little bit faster, add some parts and jam on them.”

The deep cuts don’t always have the desired effect, Woods explained, laughing. There was one show, a food bank benefit, where the audience seemed unsure whether Chevy Metal was playing originals.

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The impact of Taylor Hawkins on Chevy Metal’s members is jaw-dropping. Hodgden compared the late drummer to a professor.

“We’d be on the road in London, and he’d point out where Queen went to college, and we’d just walk in and explore,” Hodgden said. “At his studio at his house he had every book, he was so well studied, he had something on every genre and sub-genre of rock and roll.”

Woods cited Hawkins’ incredible grasp of the music ecosystem.

“He knew everything about every artist, he knew everything about every producer, engineer, he knew the guys that served the coffee in the sessions for the bands through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s,” Woods said. “He knew so much history.”

Woods, who was friends with the other guys before joining Chevy Metal in 2015, said that reinvigorated his love for his instrument.

“You come to a point in your career where you sometimes feel stagnant, but when you’re with somebody that just pushes you … and teaches you more, you just get excited, and you feel like you have a second life in music,” he said.

Woods said he feels the presence of Taylor during performances and rehearsals with Shane, and that Shane has his dad running through his blood.

“Even when I’m in the studio recording, I’ve got Taylor tapping on my shoulder saying, ‘nah, that sucks,’” he said. “I’ve always second-guessed myself because of that guy, and he beat me up in a good way in the studio and live to where it’s just different for me now.”

A hallmark of a Chevy Metal set is unpredictability, from the setlist to surprise guests. At their shows, anything can happen. Sometimes the moments are planned out ahead of time, at others they happen in the moment. Naturally, Dave Grohl has been a frequent collaborator, sometimes sitting in on guitar and singing. Some of that spur-of-the-moment mindset was planted by Taylor Hawkins, even going back to the last time the band played at BottleRock.

“When we played with Alice Cooper, I didn’t know we were going to play with him until we were loading in,” Hodgden said. “I already knew ‘School’s Out,’ but I had to learn ‘Eighteen’ pretty quick.”

Having a high-schooler in the band means Chevy Metal can’t play as much as it wants at the moment, but with summer approaching, they’re picking up the pace.

“Hopefully once we get to summer, I’ll be able to play a little more, at least if mom lets me,” Shane Hawkins said.

Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald.