Foo Fighters just announced plans to release a new studio effort titled Your Favorite Toy on April 24. The album is the band’s first recorded with drummer Ilan Rubin, who was hired to replace Josh Freese in 2025.
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Freese, a prolific and respected session musician, had officially joined the group in 2023 following the untimely death of longtime Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022. Freese announced his firing from Foo Fighters in May 2025. In a post on his social media pages, Josh said he wasn’t given a reason. He explained that he was simply told that the band “wanted to go in another direction with their drummer.”
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Now, in a new interview on Apple Music’s The Zane Lowe Show, frontman Dave Grohl touched on why Foo Fighters parted ways with Freese. In a segment of the conversation transcribed by Heavy Consequence, Grohl began by praising Freese’s work with the band.
“Josh is a consummate professional,” he explained. “He has a storied career of playing with everyone from Michael Bublé to The Offspring, he’s had thousands of studio recordings. So he came in, we went out on tour, and we had such a blast. We had a great time. It was like a year-and-a-half of touring, the shows were great and we had a lot of fun. And, the last show that we did, I think it was in September 2024, we did our last show, and all stepped away from the band.”
Grohl continued, “In those six or seven months, as a band, we talked about what to do next, a new direction, and thought, ‘Okay, let’s call Josh and let him know that we are going to move on with a different drummer.’”
Grohl Explained (Sort of) Why Freese Was Let Go From the Band
Dave then pointed out that Foo Fighters didn’t address Freese’s departure from the group after he was fired.
“[W]e didn’t make a press release, tweet anything or do interviews,” he noted. “We didn’t say anything. Since then, 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.”
Grohl likely was referring to an August 2025 interview Freese did with The New York Times. In the article, the drummer said, “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 that being in that position, he felt like “I had to be firing on all cylinders all the time.”
Grohl Said He and His Bandmates Continue to Miss Hawkins
Also during the interview on The Zane Lowe Show, Grohl discussed how much he and his bandmates still miss Hawkins. His comments give a bit more insight into why Foo Fighters parted ways with Freese.
“We had Taylor Hawkins as our drummer for 25 years and, beyond being an amazing drummer, he was this incredible spirit,” Dave shared. “He was this incredible human being and he was our brother. 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.”
The interview took place on February 17, which would’ve been Hawkins 54th birthday.
“[W]e’re having this conversation on Taylor’s birthday,” Grohl pointed out. “And so, we wake up in the morning and everybody just texts about how much we miss him and how the world’s not the same without him, but we still feel him very much. We always talk about him every f—ing day. In everything we do, we want to have that energy—we want to have that energy for Taylor.”
Freese’s Recent Comments About His Exit from Foo Fighters
Freese recently was interviewed by Modern Drummer, and he discussed his firing from Foo Fighters a bit more.
“[I]’ve got a lot to say about it and I’ve been just trying to figure out how and when, to go about really articulating it,” Josh told the magazine (reposted by LouderSound.com), noting that he has to be careful when discussing the hugely popular rock band.
“I have a couple small theories [as to why I was let go], but I can’t really go into them right now,” he continued. “I did really enjoy the two years I spent with those guys however, and they were good to me… until they weren’t.”
Freese added, “I enjoyed being around those guys, they were generous and good to me… and that’s what makes the whole thing even more of a mystery. I think I’m a pretty good read on people, and I did not see that coming. One day it was nothing but laughs, we’re on stage and Dave’s looking at me every night like, ‘You’re killing it, dude!!!’ And then it was just … over.”
Freese recently joined the touring lineup of Nine Inch Nails. Interestingly, Rubin had been playing with NIN when the Foo Fighters hired him to replace Freese.
(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Foo Fighters)
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