Dave Grohl explains Foo Fighters’ drummer swap, praises Ilan Rubin’s feel

Dave Grohl put the Foo Fighters’ drummer shake-up in plain drummer terms: the band chose what felt best, and that decision came after months of listening, talking and weighing the groove. He said the split with Josh Freese “didn’t happen overnight,” adding that the band spent six or seven months during a 2024 touring break talking through their next move before all of them called Freese together.

That detail matters because Freese’s exit was not a clean, routine personnel update for a stadium band already carrying the weight of Taylor Hawkins’ death. Hawkins died on March 25, 2022, at age 50, and Foo Fighters canceled upcoming tour dates in the aftermath. Freese came in as the touring drummer in 2023 and was officially introduced as the band’s new drummer on May 21, 2023. Then, in May 2025, Freese said on Instagram that Foo Fighters had decided “to go in a different direction with their drummer,” and that no reason was given.

Freese later told the New York Times he did not fully resonate with the music and felt the pressure of the role. He said he felt like he had to be “firing on all cylinders all the time,” a level of intensity that says as much about the gig as it does about the player. He also said Ilan Rubin would be “perfect for the gig,” a notable endorsement from the man he replaced.

Rubin’s arrival changed the conversation from replacement to feel. Grohl praised Rubin’s freedom inside Foo Fighters, suggesting that he arrived with a more click-track-heavy mindset after Nine Inch Nails, then loosened up once the band encouraged him to “go wild.” Rubin’s background gives that contrast real weight. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Nine Inch Nails in 2020, and Foo Fighters debuted him at a surprise Sept. 13, 2025 show in San Luis Obispo, California, their first performance in more than a year.

Nine Inch Nails quickly welcomed Freese back with a social media post that read “let’s fucking go,” closing the circle on one of the most visible drummer trades in recent rock memory. For drummers, the takeaway is immediate: Foo Fighters did not just change players, they changed the conversation around pocket, chemistry and how much room a drummer gets to breathe inside the song.