More than a year after Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died in a Bogota hotel while on tour at the age of 50, the band has finally found a worthy replacement. As Pitchfork reports, he's session drummer Josh Freese, whose dizzying credits include gigs with the Offspring, Rob Zombie, Bruce Springsteen, A Perfect Circle, Sting (with Shaggy), Danny Elfman, Lana Del Rey, and Devo; he's also a past drummer for Guns N' Roses, Nine Inch Nails, and Weezer. The band made the reveal Sunday via livestream, in which Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tommy Lee of Motley Crue, and Danny Carey of Tool made jokey appearances to suggest that they might be the new addition before the camera cuts to Freese complaining about all the chatter and the lack of rehearsing. They oblige him with a new cut.
There might have been an inkling as to who was going to take up Hawkins' sticks when Freeze performed with the band at Hawkins' two all-star tribute shows last year—on Hawkins' drum kit. "Without hesitation I said, 'Taylor's drums need to be up there and I want to play on his exact set up,'" he wrote at the time, per Vulture. "I want THAT energy to be up on THAT stage. I want to sweat all over the same drums he was sweating all over every night ... don't change a thing." Hawkins was with the Foo Fighters for a quarter century, and his beat helped take the band to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Foo Fighters canceled the rest of their tour after Hawkins' March 2022 death, and other than the tribute shows, they haven't played since. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the band's new tour kicks off Wednesday in New Hampshire. (More Foo Fighters stories.)
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