{"id":589566,"date":"2026-04-06T17:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T17:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/589566\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T17:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T17:46:08","slug":"it-was-certainly-not-a-swap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/589566\/","title":{"rendered":"It Was Certainly Not a Swap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drummer Ilan Rubin<\/a> has shared his first public thoughts on last year\u2019s so-called \u201cdrummer swap\u201d that landed him in Foo Fighters<\/a>, and had Josh Freese take his place in Nine Inch Nails<\/a>.<\/p>\n

News broke last July that Rubin was leaving Nine Inch Nails to join Foo Fighters<\/a>, months after Foo Fighters had let go of Freese. At the same time, Nine Inch Nails welcomed back Freese, who had previously played with the industrial legends from 2005 to 2008.<\/p>\n

Get Foo Fighters Tickets Here<\/a><\/p>\n

As Trent Reznor told Consequence this past December<\/a>, Rubin was still available to play the 2025 North American summer leg of Nine Inch Nails\u2019 acclaimed \u201cPeel It Back\u201d tour before joining Foos, but ultimately the NIN frontman decided to welcome back Freese upon hearing of Rubin\u2019s eventual departure.<\/p>\n

Related Video<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing completely honest, we\u2019re adults and we\u2019re professional, but we\u2019re also people with emotional feelings and a sense of camaraderie and intent and purpose,\u201d Reznor explained to us. \u201cI thought it would feel better to play that last wave of tours with someone that wants to be there, and that\u2019s what went down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Rubin has finally told his side of the story in a new episode of the podcast Go with Elmo Lovano.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no story, honestly. I think it\u2019s just a very logical thing,\u201d insisted Rubin. \u201cThere was nothing behind it. And it\u2019s very logical in the sense that Josh played with [Nine Inch Nails] from, I wanna say, \u201905 to the end of \u201908. I auditioned in \u201908, took over the next shows, I think it was February of \u201909, and was with the band up until last summer. The last tour I did was a European tour of the \u2018Peel It Back\u2019 cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cWhen 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 \u201cPeel It Back\u201d] 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubin then addressed the idea of it being a \u201cdrummer swap,\u201d and explained that the only reason that came into play was coincidental timing and circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of me taking that opportunity, obviously Nine Inch Nails needed a drummer,\u201d resumed Rubin. \u201cAnd I would imagine that at this point in time, Trent doesn\u2019t 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?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in terms of wanting to feel comfortable, Trent wouldn\u2019t have to think about anything \u2019cause he knows that Josh can do it and has done it. So I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything particularly surprising there. But when the news leaked, \u2019cause it did leak, it was kind of billed as this drummer swap. Now that would imply that Trent and Dave were, like, \u2018Hey, you know what would be a great idea? Why not?\u2019 Which is the dumbest thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut 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\u2019s literally what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubin regrets the way it played out publicly, even though his intention was to remain with NIN until their final scheduled show at the time. Yet, in the long run, he believes it worked out for the best.<\/p>\n

He explained, \u201cThe only thing that kind of really bothered me at the time when that news leaked was that it kind of gave the impression that I just kind of said, \u2018Well, this came up. I\u2019m outta here. Have fun, guys,\u2019 which was not the case at all. Everyone knew what my commitments were, and I\u2019m a very, very loyal guy and I do what I say I\u2019m gonna do. So it just happened to work out better that even though I was available for that [Nine Inch Nails summer 2025] tour, it worked out better for Nails to just have Josh, who was then gonna go do the stuff in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad everything gone the way it was originally supposed to, I would\u2019ve finished that American leg of the Nine Inch Nails tour, I would have had a week to rehearse with Foo Fighters and then play a festival in Jakarta. That\u2019s what it would\u2019ve been. That\u2019s what everyone had agreed to, and that\u2019s what it was. I was gonna go play with Nails, have my last tour, and then jump in and really put in the work to go learn all the songs that they wanted to do, and that was that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut because it worked out this way, I had so much more time on my hands, just because Trent had made the decision, \u2018Well, we might as well have Josh just play now because he\u2019s gonna be playing the next leg of the tour. Let\u2019s just rip off the Band-Aid\u2019 \u2014 my words, not his \u2014 \u2018and just do it now rather than doing it later.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that allowed me to, rather than have a week with the band, to have a couple of months to leisurely learn 40 songs or whatever it was, hang out with the guys, get to know everybody really well. And it gave us the opportunity to play these smaller kind of pop-up secret shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans can catch Rubin drumming for Foo Fighters throughout 2026. The band has a handful of spring US shows, including a couple festival dates, before embarking on a UK\/European tour in early June, and then returning to North America for a late-summer stadium tour<\/a> with support from Queens of the Stone Age (pick up tickets here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Watch Ilan Rubin\u2019s interview on the Go with Elmo Lovano\u00a0podcast below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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