Dave Grohl Details Foo Fighters Split with Josh Freese, Welcomes Ilan Rubin

Dave Grohl told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 that the Foo Fighters made a deliberate, months-long decision during a six to seven month touring break in 2024 to move on from Josh Freese and bring in Ilan Rubin, and that with Rubin "we feel like a band again."

Grohl described the process as collective and measured: "This didn't happen overnight, it was six or seven months," he said, adding, "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.'" He emphasized the call was made by the whole group: "We called, as a band, all of us called, it wasn't just me."

The band recruited Josh Freese in 2023 after Taylor Hawkins' death in 2022, and Grohl praised Freese as a "consummate professional" who gave the band "such a blast" on tour. Freese spent roughly a year and a half to two years with the Foos before being let go in May 2025, a separation Grohl framed as rooted in musical fit and mutual realities rather than a single momentary choice.

Freese himself spoke to the pressure of stepping into Hawkins' role in an August 2025 New York Times interview, telling the paper, "It wasn't music that I really resonated with. I'm coming in as Dave Grohl's drummer, and the guy that's supposed to save the day after the beloved Taylor Hawkins died." He added the assignment made him feel "like I had to be firing on all cylinders all the time." After departing Foo Fighters, Freese rejoined Nine Inch Nails while Ilan Rubin, formerly of Nine Inch Nails, joined Foo Fighters in what has been described as an effective swap between the two drummers.

Sources place the Foos' last show with Freese in September 2024 before the band went quiet behind the scenes as they debated their next moves, and Grohl says that conversation led to the decision formalized in 2025. Grohl repeatedly returned to the emotional difficulty of continuing after Hawkins' death, saying, "We had Taylor Hawkins as our drummer for 25 years and, beyond being an amazing drummer, he was this incredible spirit... He was our best friend. So, continuing after Taylor was really complicated, not just for us, but for any drummer that was going to come in to, like, you know, fill his shoes."

Grohl linked the personnel change directly to the band's creative future: the Foo Fighters will release their 12th album, Your Favorite Toy, on April 24, 2026 — the first recorded with Ilan Rubin — and will headline a 2026 North American tour with Queens of the Stone Age. Grohl closed the interview noting the band keeps Hawkins' presence central to their work: "We always talk about him every fucking day. In everything we do we want to have that energy — we want to have that energy for Taylor.