Earlier this year, the Foo Fighters announced Josh Freese as their new drummer, following the death of longtime member Taylor Hawkins in 2021. This, however, is far from being Freese’s first time playing with a major rock and roll act. In fact, since 1986, Freese has appeared on a total of 400 albums, per Discogs.
Freese, 50, was born in Orlando, Florida in 1975 to parents who were very musical in their own right. His mother was a classical pianist and his father, Stan Freese, was a conductor for the Disney World (Florida) and Disneyland (California) band. Freese also has a younger brother, Jason Freese, who is a touring keyboardist and session player for Green Day. Jason has also performed with the artists such as the Goo Goo Dolls, Dr. Dre, Jewel, Lenny Kravitz, and Weezer.
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Freese began playing the drums as a child and even started playing professionally with Disney before he was 13. After high school, Freese played with Dweezil Zappa and then joined iconic California punk band the Vandals, of which he is still a member to this day. Freese later went on to be an official member of new wave godfathers Devo in 1996, and played on the band’s 2010 album, Something for Everybody, which was their first in two decades since 1990’s Smooth Noodle Maps.
In 1997, Freese was approached to join Guns N’ Roses, which he was reluctant to do, but was ultimately convinced by Paul Westerberg of the Replacements, who — per Vice — told Freese, “You should do it. Go do it. It sounds totally wrong; go do it. What are you going to do, be in some totally cool alternative band? Are you going to join the Foo Fighters or something obvious?” This is quite ironic for obvious reasons.
After two years with Guns ‘N Roses, Freese left to join Tool vocalist Maynard James in a new band founded by Billy Howerdel… A Perfect Circle. Together the three — along with a number of other rotating members such as Troy Van Leeuwen, Paz Lenchantin, Danny Lohner, and James Iha — would write and record three albums: Mer de Noms (2000), Thirteenth Step (2003), and Emotive (2004). The band went on hiatus in 2005, later reforming in 2010, though Freese left the following year and was replaced by drummer Jeff Friedl who played on the band’s 2018 album, Eat the Elephant.
Throughout the years, Freese played with many other major acts as well, such as Rob Zombie, Evanescence, The Offspring, Avril Lavigne, Nine Inch Nails, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Michael Bublé, Bruce Springsteen, and Sting. The most recent artists that Freese worked with in the stuio was 100 gecs, playing drums on five songs from the duo’s 2023 album 10,000 gecs. Interestingly, he also played drums on “I’m Just Ken” from the Barbie movie soundtrack, as performed by Ryan Gosling.
This brings us back to the Foo Fighters. After losing Hawkins in 2022, the band took some time off and then eventually came back to perform a series of tribute concerts. Freese was a guest musician during these shows, though fans were still nto entirely sure who the band would eventually announce as their new drummer. Finally, in May of this year, the band dropped a video teasing fans with a number of drummers that had been speculated to have joined, with Freese eventually appearing at the end.
The Foo Fighters later released their newest album, But Here We Are, in June. Freese did not play drums on the album, as that was handled by frontman and founder Dave Grohl. However, Freese is currently touring with band overseas and will appear with them when they perform stateside in 2024.
