Foo Fighters announce new drummer after bitter split from Taylor Hawkins' replacement – and he's familiar face to fans
DRUMMER DRAMA Foo Fighters announce new drummer after bitter split from Taylor Hawkins' replacement – and he's familiar face to fans
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THE Foo Fighters have had more members than the Sugababes at this point and now the newest person joining the rock band has been unveiled.
The iconic group, which released a new song last month, have found the perfect replacement and it's somebody fans will already recognise – it's none other than Nine Inch Nails drummer Ilan Rubin.
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Foo Fighters have revealed their newest drummer
Credit: Getty
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Nine Inch Nails drummer Ilan Rubin is joining the iconic rock band
Credit: Getty
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Josh Freese was axed from the band in May this year
Credit: Getty
Ilan, 37, has had tremendous success as Nine Inch Nails' touring drummer since 2009 and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, making him the youngest-ever entrant at the time at 32 years old.
Rock fans will also know Ilan as he's been the drummer for Angels & Airwaves since 2005.
The exciting development comes after previous drummer Josh Freese was axed from the group back in May after two years.
He joined the band in 2023 following the tragic death of Taylor Hawkins, who died suddenly while on tour in Colombia in March 2022.
The group had reportedly called Josh at the time to tell him they were 'going in a different direction' with no further explanation given.
Josh, 52, shared a picture of his statement revealing his departure from the legendary group, captioning it simply on Instagram: 'Well, there it is.'
In the emotional post, he wrote: 'The Foo Fighters called me Monday night to let me know they've decided 'to go in a different direction with their drummer.' No reason was given. :(
'Regardless, I enjoyed the past two years with them, both on and off stage, and I support whatever they feel is best for the band.
'In my 40 years of drumming professionally, I've never been let go from a band, so while I'm not angry - just a bit shocked and disappointed.
'But as most of you know, I've always worked freelance and bounced between bands, so, I'm fine.
Foo Fighters make surprise Glastonbury performance as The Churn Ups
'Stay tuned for my 'Top 10 possible reasons Josh got booted from the Foo Fighters' list.'
According to The Hollywood Reporter, while Ilan has joined the Foo Fighters, Josh is returning to Nine Inch Nails.
The news has been confirmed with the band sharing a story of Josh and tagging him with a caption that reads: 'Let's f*****g go.'
It's still unclear whether Ilan is joining Foo Fighters as a full-time member or as a touring drummer.
As die-hard Foo Fighters fans are aware, the band is fronted by Dave Grohl as vocalist and guitarist and also features bassist Nate Mendel, guitarists Pat Smear and Chris Shiflett and keyboardist Rami Jaffee.
The band was formed in 1994 after Grohl created Foo Fighters to release solo music after Nirvana broke up the same year.
During their three decade-long career, the group has released eleven studio albums, four compilation albums, one live album, four extended plays and ten Foo Files EPs.
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She wanted 'a cinematic feel' and referenced Bernard Herrmann – a composer for films by Hitchcock, Welles and Scorsese – in the studio as she worked with the conductor Robert Ames and the London Contemporary Orchestra. 'Herrmann was a real innovator and it's reflected in people like Busta Rhymes sampling him [on Gimme Some More] all those years later. So we wanted to make sure that if we went into that territory of a cinematic string orchestra, it didn't feel like an impression of the 1950s – it sounded like something new.' With this ambitious scope and Celeste shuttling between sessions in Los Angeles and London, it took a lot longer than expected to complete Woman of Faces. It was originally due to be finished by the end of 2022 and released a year later. 'I didn't expect it to take so long,' she says. 'And if I'm really honest with you, at the end of 2021, into 2022, I experienced some heartache and I fell into such a depression about it all.' A relationship had ended. 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So On With the Show was about me having to find the courage to let go of something, to meet back in with the path of my life as a singer.' Worse, she says, 'social media had come in to erode my relationship'. As a public figure on social media, 'people can view your relationship and have so much awareness of the fact that you're even in one. There's this really strange, invisible, intangible impression that interactions in that space can leave upon your living reality. I was upset at how much that had come to affect my personal, real life.' On Could Be Machine, a curveball industrial pop song inspired by Lady Gaga, Celeste explores the idea that 'the more time we spend with this technology, the more we become it'. 'My phone had become this antagonist in my life, via communication that I didn't want to receive and the fact it could just be in your hand. It was quite alien, in a way. I hadn't grown up with a phone stuck to my hand and it was something that I had to become more and more 'one' with in my music career.' She says that, during the relationship, love had reverted her to a kind of 'child-like state … a really pure version of yourself, before the world has seeped in and shaped you'. Losing the person who brought her into that state meant that she had to 'learn how to steer and guide' herself to rediscover it. She is leaning on other musicians to help her understand these difficult years. She cites Nina Simone's song Stars, a ballad about the cruelty and melancholy of being a professional musician. 'It says so much about the tragedy of where her life is at that moment in time, but then there's so much triumph in the fact she even gets to express herself in that way.' Another inspiration for Woman of Faces was the 1951 musical romantic comedy An American in Paris and one of its stars, Oscar Levant, who spent time in mental health institutions. 'I was really moved by what he seemed to carry in his being. And, I suppose, I relate a lot to artists who carry this pain, but their work eases it.' Whereas Celeste was previously in thrall to American blues and R&B ('the older sense of what R&B was in the 1940s'), down to the way she might 'time things and phrase things and even pronounce things', she has 'learned what my true voice is and who I really am as a person. I still have some of that phrasing and pronunciation there, but I exist a lot more as myself, therefore I sing a lot more as myself.' Buoyed up by her and others' art, does she feel happy? 'Yes!' She grins and throws her hands in the air. 'The main thing is finding happiness within the relationships I maintain around me and making sure those are kept really positive and nourishing.' She is glad to be in her 30s: 'Age becomes kind of taboo for a woman in the music industry – but then you hear people like Solange speak about women really coming into their true sense of who they are within their work. There's been a shift.' And if the happiness in her career ever dissipates, she has decided she will simply move on. 'I don't really see the need to live in a feeling of oppression, when I know there's so much freedom outside this world. And anyway, I'm sure I would find my way back to it again. But on my own terms.' Women of Faces is released on 14 November on Polydor In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
