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Red Hot Chili Peppers Dedicate VMAs Global Icon Award to Foo Fighters Drummer Taylor Hawkins
The Red Hot Chili Peppers earned the Global Icon Award and paid tribute to Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

Red Hot Chili Peppers Dedicate VMAs Global Icon Award to Foo Fighters Drummer Taylor Hawkins

Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis, Flea and Chad Smith.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were honored with the Global Icon Award at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday.

Comedy duo Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong presented the award to the Los Angeles natives, with the latter noting that the honor “recognizes artists who have left an indelible, endearing mark on the world and are just as impactful as ever.”

Marin explained to the crowd at Newark, New Jersey’s Prudential Center that the band originally met as classmates at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles. “They started gigging on the Sunset Strip,” said Marin. “They infused L.A. punk with high-octane basslines and an electric stage show like nothing we have ever seen before.”

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The band, consisting of Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith and John Frusciante, then played a two-song set consisting of “Black Summer” from their 2022 album Unlimited Love and “Can’t Stop” from their 2002 album By the Way.

Kiedis began his acceptance speech by thanking Marin and Chong, calling them “two bad mother…flip-flops,” then thanking his bandmates for “giving me a purpose in my life for the last 40 years. I would have been a free-floating disaster in space if not for these boys.”

Drummer Smith also dedicated the award to his “brother” Taylor Hawkins, the late Foo Fighters drummer who died at the age of 50 in March 2022. “I dedicate this to Taylor and his family,” said Smith. “I love them, and I miss him every day.”

Bassist Flea, sporting a hot-pink crew cut, offered an exuberant speech. “I love every one of you out there watching on TV and here,” he said, also calling out a love for cockroaches, dirt, trees and every human being. “Everything that is not love is cowardice.”