Foo Fighters have officially announced that they have hired Josh Freese as their drummer for their upcoming tour dates.
Sunday’s livestream of Foo Fighters: Preparing Music for Concerts, which was broadcast on Veeps, revealed the news to the general public.
The group recently announced the release date for their next record, But Here We Are. They also made a funny video to let their fans know that the 50-year-old was hired.
The clip started with the Foo Fighters talking about getting into a fight. Then Chad Smith, drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, joined them and asked if any of their cars were blocking his in the studio parking lot.
Later, Tommy Lee stops by with food from P.F. Chang’s, and Tool drummer Danny Carey comes by to groom the group’s pet poodles.
As soon as the band starts talking again, Freese stops them and asks if they can start playing together.
The group agrees to the musician’s request and goes right into their hit song from 2002, “All My Life.”
Freese has been a drummer for many years, and he has gone on tour with bands like Nine Inch Nails, Devo, and Guns N’ Roses.
But it’s not clear if the performer has become the group’s full-time drummer or if he’ll just stay with them on their upcoming tour.
Late last year, Freese said that he used Hawkins’ drum set during his tribute shows as a way to honor his friend who had died.
“Taylor and I both grew up in Orange County, about 30 minutes away from each other, but whenever we were with a group of musicians (usually far from home), we’d joke that we were the only two guys from OC in the room,” Freese wrote on Instagram.
“We always had that weird little connection, and he would always tell me that he was sick of hearing about “that other young guy from OC who was already making songs and touring” when he was a teenager.
Taylor Hawkins, who used to play drums for Foo Fighters, died in March of last year while the band was on tour in Bogota, Colombia. He was 50 years old.
Variety says that even though the band said it would keep going at the end of last year, they did everything they could not to tell who their new drummer was.
Taylor Hawkins joined the group in 1997, three years after Dave Grohl started it.
The late musician, who won fifteen Grammy Awards, continued to perform with the ensemble on a regular basis after that.
But Hawkins started having chest pains while staying at the Four Seasons Casa Medina hotel, and he died on the evening of March 22.
An autopsy later showed that the drummer had ten different drugs in his body at the time of his death.
The performer’s heart was also said to be twice as big as a normal heart.
In September of last year, tribute shows with a lot of big names were held at Wembley Stadium in London and at the Kia Forum in Inglewood.
During the first show, both Freese and Oliver Shane, who is Hawkins’ son, were there.
Glad that the Foo Fighters are resuming their world tour. Are you seeing their live shows soon? Comment down below. Enjoy your week!
