"It wasn’t just me… we were like, ‘Hey man, that was awesome. That was such a blast, but we are going to move on and find another drummer”: Dave Grohl explains the simple reasoning behind Josh Freese’s Foo Fighters exit

Dave Grohl has broken his silence on Josh Freese and the reasons for his departure from the Foo Fighters last year.

It comes after an interview with Modern Drummer in which Freese expressed bafflement over his firing in May 2025. Even nine months down the line, he said “the whole thing” was “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."

Now in an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple 1, Grohl said: “The thing about Foo Fighters is that we’ve had four drummers in 30 years, but with the Foos, we had Taylor Hawkins as our drummer for 25 years, and beyond being an amazing drummer, he was this incredible spirit, this incredible human being, he was our brother, he was our best friend.”

Grohl admitted that replacing Hawkins would have been “complicated” for any drummer. “With Josh Freese, Josh is a consummate professional. He has a storied career of playing with everyone from Michael Buble 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.”

After that, Grohl explained that the decision about Freese’s future didn’t happen immediately but over a six-month period. “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.’”

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He also clarified that: “We called, as a band, all of us called, it wasn’t just me.”

The frontman continued: “Basically, we called Josh, and were like, ‘Hey man, that was awesome. That was such a blast, thank you so much, but we are going to move on and find another drummer.’ After that, we didn’t make a press release, tweet anything or do interviews. 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.”

In other words, it was nothing personal. Freese’s face just didn’t fit.

Anyway, the Foos move forward. Grohl told Lowe that with Ilan Rubin now behind the kit, “we feel like a band again.” Last week they announced that a new album, My Favorite Toy, will be dropping on April 24. The first single - the title track - is already up on streaming platforms now.