In 2023, Foo Fighters brought in rock veteran Josh Freese as their new drummer, replacing the late Taylor Hawkins. Two years later, the band fired Freese and hired Ilan Rubin away from the mid-tour Nine Inch Nails. NIN simply responded by bringing in Freese, who’d previously been in the band for a stint, thus completing the great 2025 drummer swap. Since then, Freese has expressed confusion over the firing while admitting that Foo Fighters’ music “wasn’t music that I really resonated with.” Now, Dave Grohl has finally addressed the firing for the first time.
Last week, Freese had some further comments about his firing in a Modern Drummer cover story: “I think I’m a pretty good read on people, and I did not see that coming.” Foo Fighters just announced their new album Your Favorite Toy, which means that Grohl is now in a position where he has to talk about firing Freese.
As Metal Injection reports, Grohl recently told Zane Lowe that the decision “didn’t happen overnight” and that the full band (“it wasn’t just me”) made the call while they were in between tours in 2024: “In those six or seven months, as a band, we talked about what to do next, a new direction, and thought, ‘OK, let’s call Josh and let him know that we are going to move on with a different drummer.'”
Grohl says that the band dealt with serious difficulties moving forward after Taylor Hawkins’ sudden death and that any drummer was going to have a hard time stepping into the band. He also referenced Freese’s past comments: “There’s been a lot of talk about it, but I think Josh said it best when he said that he didn’t feel our music really resonated with him, and that’s really important.”
The full Dave Grohl/Zane Lowe interview is on Apple Music now. Here’s a less-interesting clip: