Why the Foo Fighters fired Josh Freese
After announcing the new album, “Your favorite toy”, for April 24th, the promotional period between interviews and public appearances has begun for the Foo Fighters. At the same time as the announcement of the album, a chat between Dave Grohl and Zane Lowe was released on Apple Music, during which the band’s frontman revealed what to expect from the group’s twelfth studio work, explaining that there are many “energetic, explosive and noisy songs” that seem to come “from the old days”, as well as talking about Taylor Hawkins and Josh Freese. Subsequently, the entire band was a guest on the “Graham Norton Show” on the BBC, performing the title track of “Your favorite toy” live for the first time.
The conversation with Zane Lowe offered Grohl the opportunity to remember and pay homage to Taylor Hawkins by revealing that not a day goes by without him and his bandmates missing the drummer. “Taylor Hawkins was with us as a drummer for 25 years and, in addition to being an amazing drummer, he was an incredible spirit. He was an incredible person and he was our brother. He was our best friend,” said the Foo Fighters frontman: “Continuing after Taylor was really complicated, not only for us, but for any drummer who would come in to… you know, fill the hole.” Thus, Dave Grohl arrived to talk about Josh Freese’s exit from the band, who took over as drummer on tour and continued to perform with the band until his sudden exit in May 2025, after which he joined Nine Inch Nails replacing Ilan Rubin, who for his part took on the role behind the drums in Foo Fighters.
Breaking his silence on Freese’s departure from the lineup, a decision the drummer had called “shocking and disappointing”, Grohl praised his colleague for his ability to work with “everyone from Michael Bublé to The Offspring” and said the band had “a lot of fun” touring with him for just over a year, before they all took a break in 2024. The “Best of You” frontman then explained why the Foo Fighters fired Josh Freese:
“In those six or seven months, as a band, we talked about what to do next, a new direction, and we thought, ‘Okay, let’s call Josh and let him know we’re going to move forward with another drummer. The decision didn’t happen overnight. We called him, as a band, we called everyone, it wasn’t just me. We basically called Josh and said, ‘Hey man, that was great. It was really fun, thanks a lot, but we’re going to move on and look for another one. drummer.’ After that, we didn’t do any press releases, we didn’t tweet anything or do any interviews. We haven’t said anything about it since then, but I think Josh said it best when he explained that he didn’t feel like our music really resonated with him, and that’s really important.”
The new Foo Fighters album, which in the tracklist will include the previously released song “Asking for a friend”, comes out as a follow-up to 2023’s “But here we are” and arrives after a long series of previews that have kept fans waiting. “Your favorite toy” also anticipates the tour that will see the band busy in the United Kingdom and Europe, with a single date in Italy on July 5th in Milan.
