The Foo Fighters introduced a new drummer, Josh Freese, ahead of the release of their album next month and their first tour since the death last year of the rock band’s previous drummer, Taylor Hawkins, that devastated the group and its fans.
Freese, 50, was featured on Sunday in a streamed hour-long rehearsal, “Preparing Music for Concerts,” which featured a mix of jokes, surprise cameos from other drummers and a few poodles.
It started with the group’s lead singer, Dave Grohl, and other members of the band standing with their instruments in a darkened studio chatting about whether any of them had ever hit anyone on stage.
Suddenly there is a knock on the door. There are greetings of “hey!” when Chad Smith, of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, enters. He gestures with his drumsticks. “There’s a white Mercedes blocking me,” he says, then leaves.
Then Mötley Crüe’s drummer, Tommy Lee, bursts in with bags full of PF Chang’s Chinese takeout. Cheers everywhere. “Put it in the kitchen for us,” says Grohl.
Danny Carey, from Tool, is next to come through the door, twirling his drumsticks in one hand and the other, clutching a leash that ties up some large poodles he says he just trimmed. He then leaves.
This was apparently a lead-up to Freese’s appearance. The poodles are part of his family, as evidenced by his Instagram posts. He also posted about his excitement about PF Chang’s.
A frustrated voice suddenly calls out from the darkness, from someone seemingly fed up with the intruders, “Excuse me!”
The camera pans in his direction. It was Freese, seated behind a series of drums. “Guys, can we just, I don’t know, play a song? Or two? Something?”
And they did.
The successive appearances of one top rock drummer followed by another was a way to tease the big news after, as reported by Variety, the band went to great lengths not to reveal the identity of their new drummer.
Freese is an accomplished drummer who has performed with The Offspring, Sting, Weezer, Nine Inch Nails and others.
The Foo Fighters were devastated after Hawkins died in a hotel in northern Bogotá, Colombia, where the band was supposed to be playing. a beloved member of the group, Hawkins joined the band for the album “There Is Nothing Left to Lose”, released in 1999, and played on the next seven albums.
The streamed event on Sunday featured “Rescued,” the band’s first new song since Hawkins’ death, which appears to reflect their ongoing grief.
In London last September, Hawkins’ teenage son Shane played “My Hero” with the band in a tribute concert to his father. At that concert, Freese, on drums, said he wanted to play on Hawkins’ set.