Ilan Rubin Speaks On Joining Foo Fighters Following Departure From Nine Inch Nails: “There Was A Switch, But It Was Certainly Not A Swap”

According to Consequence.net, drummer Ilan Rubin has finally shared his first public thoughts on last year’s so-called “drummer swap” that landed him in Foo Fighters and had Josh Freese take his place in Nine Inch Nails. News broke last July that Rubin was leaving Nine Inch Nails to join Foo Fighters, months after Foo Fighters released Freese. At the same time, Nine Inch Nails welcomed back Freese, who had previously played with the industrial band from 2005 to 2008.

“There is no story, honestly. I think it’s just a very logical thing,” said Rubin. “There was nothing behind it. And it’s very logical in the sense that Josh played with [Nine Inch Nails] from, I wanna say, ’05 to the end of ’08. I auditioned in ’08, took over the next shows, I think it was February of ’09, and was with the band up until last summer. The last tour I did was a European tour of the ‘Peel It Back’ cycle.”

He adds:  “When I was gotten in touch with Dave [Grohl] and management, everyone was very well aware that I had a commitment up to this point, and was I doing anything afterwards? And at the time there was nothing I knew about. The [early 2026 leg of the “Peel It Back”] tour that Nine Inch Nails had just triumphantly wrapped up was not on the books. So, as far as I knew, my contract ended on a date. After that, it was, what am I doing next? And when this happened and the opportunity presented itself and it was just an obvious great fit and a great thing for me.”

“As a result of me taking that opportunity, obviously Nine Inch Nails needed a drummer,” resumed Rubin. “And I would imagine that at this point in time, Trent doesn’t wanna spend however many weeks at a rehearsal studio playing the same songs over and over and over again to break in a new drummer. And aside from that, Josh has already done it before, so it was very logical on that. I mean, why else would you go find somebody else?

“And in terms of wanting to feel comfortable, Trent wouldn’t have to think about anything ’cause he knows that Josh can do it and has done it. So I don’t think there’s anything particularly surprising there. But when the news leaked, ’cause it did leak, it was kind of billed as this drummer swap. Now that would imply that Trent and Dave were, like, ‘Hey, you know what would be a great idea? Why not?’ Which is the dumbest thing.But the dots were obviously connected where there was a switch. But it was certainly not a swap. I left my tenure with Nine Inch Nails to join Foo Fighters. Nine Inch Nails needed a drummer, and the drummer they got was the guy who was no longer with Foo Fighters. And that’s literally what it was,” said the drummer.

Photo Credit: Zhi Zhi Burton-Flores