Foo Fighters drummer Ilan Rubin has opened up about a sudden medical issue that hit in the middle of his 2009 audition for Nine Inch Nails, saying the incident nearly cost him the gig.
Rubin, who ultimately joined Trent Reznor’s touring lineup that year, described how an unusual swelling in his left arm appeared as he was powering through songs in a freezing arena.
Rubin told the Go With Elmo Lovano Podcast that a routine doctor’s visit ahead of the tryout led to his first-ever blood draw, after which he was advised not to use his left arm for a few days.
Despite the warning, Rubin said he flew out the next day and started the audition at full intensity. By the fourth song, he noticed his left arm had become visibly swollen — “Hulk arm,” as he put it — and he decided to address it directly with Reznor. Rubin recalled telling the Nine Inch Nails frontman he would keep playing even if the arm “falls off,” but wanted Reznor to know why his performance might suffer.
“For whatever reason leading up to this audition, I had doctor’s appointment. And I went to the doctor, they’re looking through the records, and the doctor says, ‘You’ve never had blood drawn, have you?’ I’m like, ‘No.’ He’s like, ‘Well, I wouldn’t feel like a good doctor if I didn’t at least just get a regular blood test just to make sure everything’s where it needs to be.’ And I was like, ‘OK.'”
“So, I did it. Took a lot of blood, first time. And then the doctor says, ‘Don’t use your left arm for the next couple of days.’ And I’m like, ‘Right. OK.’ I play drums all day. Went on a plane the next day, went to the arena the next day [for the audition], which was freezing. And then I started playing the way that I play. I was giving it my all, and it was going great. 1, 2, 3, 5 songs. By song four, the weirdest thing happened to my left arm, where I looked at it, and it was visibly swollen. Like, ‘Hulk arm,’ or something like that. I had never tensed up in my life – I was still young back then.”
Reznor, Rubin said, asked if it had ever happened before and then offered a practical solution: come back the following day to finish the remaining material. The second session went ahead, and Rubin said Reznor offered him the job immediately afterward. T
“And at that point I made a really…I don’t know if it was the smartest move, but happened to work out, but I went up to Trent and I was like, ‘I’m going to keep playing. This weird thing is going on. I don’t care, I’ll play if my arm falls off. But I’m just letting you know if the playing starts suffering in any way, that’s why. But let’s keep going.’ And he’s like, ‘OK. Has this ever happened?’ I was like, ‘No.'”
“And then we stopped playing, and I’m thinking, ‘Did I just blow this?’ And he’s like, ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ I’m like, ‘Nothing.’ He’s like, ‘Why don’t you just come to the next show? Let’s play the rest of the songs that we had.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, thank God, I didn’t blow it.’ And then went to the next show, I don’t know where it was, but played the rest of the songs. I know it was eight in total. And then right after that, he offered me the job.”
he episode has resurfaced amid more recent drummer headlines involving Rubin’s move into the Foo Fighters orbit, which Alternative Nation previously covered when Trent Reznor reacted to the band taking a key associate.
Rubin remained with Nine Inch Nails for years after landing the position, and his story underscores how close a pivotal career moment can come to falling apart over something as simple as a routine medical test and a bad-timing physical reaction.
