Josh Freese: For Sale

Josh Freese: For Sale

By Nicole Powers

Mar 15, 2009

Drummer to the stars, Josh Freese, is selling himself to sell his new album, Since 1972. Inspired by the value-added packages offered by his buddy Trent Reznor for the last Nine Inch Nails release, Freese has come up with his own gift-with-purchase plan -- only his is a whole lot wackier.

Those that are willing to pay a little more than the base price for Josh's new solo album are offered a plethora of incentives. At the $50 price point you get a five-minute "Thank You" call from Josh, who promises you can "yack it up" about whatever you want. Since Josh has worked with some of the biggest and/or coolest names in the business -- he's a member of The Vandals, Devo, and the on-hiatus A Perfect Circle, and has played with NIN, Sting, and Guns N' Roses -- there's a lot of ground to be covered in that brief call.

As you rise higher in price, the bizarreness of the stuff on offer increases. Items on menu (which can be viewed at JoshFreese.com) include a trip with Josh to a sensory deprivation tank followed by a steak and all-you-can-eat shrimp dinner at Sizzler -- for an investment of $500. A visit to the Hollywood Wax Museum or lunch at Spearmint Rhino with Josh and a member of either The Vandals or Devo (your choice) will set you back $2,500.

For $20,000 Josh will write and record two songs about you that he will then make available via iTunes (you can even sing backup). And, for a $75k, you get a signed CD and Josh in your band for a month. Not got a band? No problem. Other options in this super limited edition of one include having Josh as your personal assistant / cabana boy for a couple of weeks.

Of course behind all of this silliness, Josh has a very serious intent; to get a little more attention for his second solo album than he got for his first (which was released in 2000). And his crackpot scheme, which also involves crazy golfing and a nefarious trip to Tijuana and calls on the services of many of Josh's celebrity buddies such as Twiggy (NIN and Marilyn Manson), Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam) and Maynard James Keenan (Tool), is working. The UK's mighty Guardian has written about Josh and his multi-tiered promotional plan, as have NPR, The Boston Herald and numerous other newspapers and websites. The cost of the album may just be $7, but the attention Josh is getting for it is priceless.

Nicole Powers: Obviously with the new record, one of the talking points is your rather interesting marketing plan. What gave you the idea for that?
Josh Fresse: A couple of things. One is, I was on tour and I saw what Trent Reznor did. But he did his in a very classy and kind of realistic way. The things that he did were very quality and not a joke, and he sold all of his stuff right away because it all made sense. I know that Radiohead did a similar thing, and I've heard that U2's selling a similar thing, but mine is completely wacked-out and over-the-top and exaggerated and fun. I think it's a lot more fun and funny than those groups that I just mentioned.

What really gave me the idea, a friend of mine, we were talking about my last record that I put out on Kung Fu Records, which is The Vandals record label, about eight years ago. We were laughing, he looked at the SoundScans and he said, "Last week you sold one copy, and the week before you sold two copies." It's been out for almost ten years right. And I said, I should personally call all those people and thank them shouldn't I? And I go, "That should be a thing, you buy my record, and then for an extra 50 bucks we talk on the phone for a while." Then my friend and I, we just started brainstorming for a while. He was like, "Yeah, you should do their laundry or come wash their car." And I'm like "Yeah."

I'm kind of a jokester, I'm kind of wacky at heart anyways. And I'm putting the record out on my own. I paid for it myself, I'm putting it out myself, I spent way too much money making, mixing and releasing it, and so I thought, what's something I could do, some sort of marketing thing that would grab people's attention to let them know that I have an album coming out?

Between you and me, I don't expect the expensive ones to sell. If it happens, I'm ready to make good on them. I already have a bunch of plans for doing all that stuff. Any names that are mentioned in there, whether it's Maynard James Keenan or Mark Mothersbaugh or any of the guys in The Vandals, Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam, I asked them all first before I included the names.
NP:
I was going to ask if all the names were volunteers.
JF:
Well, I have a bunch of rock star friends, but I only asked a few, I only asked a few that I'm really good pals with that I knew would be into it.
NP:
Is there anyone you wanna out for not playing ball?
JF:
No. No one shot me down. Even like guys like Maynard and Mark from Devo, I thought, they're my good friends but publicly they're so quiet and weird that they might not want to be involved, even though I know they love me to death. But what I told them is, hey, if someone buys this expensive thing, if it happened, it would only happen once. They're involved with the limited edition of one packages right? So it's not going to be every week, me calling you and going, "Hey we've got to go miniature golfing again." It would happen once -- if that.

The only one that's got multiple duties is Stone from Pearl Jam, he would have to write three letters. There's a limited edition of three $5,000 packages, and one of the things is that Stone will write you a letter telling you about his favorite song from my record. So yeah, he would only have to write three letters. He's way into it you know. I saw those guys recently, the Pearl Jam guys, they were in the middle of recording a record so I went down to visit them, and they we're freaking out about it. Eddie Vedder couldn't stop talking about it, he was so into it.
NP:
You offer a massage as part of a couple of the packages. Are you any good?
JF:
I'm pretty good. I've got some strong drummer hands. One of the guys, do you know the Alkaline Trio? I was with Matt Skiba, the singer, last night, and he's going, "Oh man that massage thing. What if you get like some hot girl? Is your girlfriend be pissed off?" And I was like, "Trust me, it's going to be some ugly drummer guy who buys that package. It's not going to be a hot girl." You can only be so lucky right? It's all strictly business at that point.
NP:
Another of the packages involves a trip to Disneyland's super exclusive Club 33. How did you get membership to that? I understand you've got family connections?
JF:
I have yes. I've got many connections to Disneyland, the main one is my father's worked there since I was four. I was born down in Florida when he was working for Disney World, conducting the band, and then he got moved to Disneyland in Orange County when I was a year old. He hires all the musicians out there.

The Vandals, the band I've played in since I was a teenager, were all really big Disneyland fans [legend has it they discovered the young Josh while he was playing in a Top 40 cover band on the Tomorrowland Terrance Stage there]. Through my dad, I hooked up [Vandal's bassist] Joe Escalante with a Club 33 membership. It's really hard to get it. It costs a lot of money to do, but you can't just go do it if you have a lot of money, there's a long, long waiting list. Joe's got to pay all this money every year. It costs a lot of money but the perks are pretty amazing for a Disneyland fan. So I called Joe and I said, "Hey, can I take someone to Club 33 for lunch, if they buy this thing for $10,000."
NP:
Also, you seem to be getting rid of rather a lot of items out of your wardrobe. Do you have closet issues?
JF:
Do I have closet issues? Like trapped in the closet like R. Kelley?
NP:
No. In a lot of the packages you offer the pick of any of the items from your closet.
JF:
You know what, I've got a ton of clothes. Everyday I walk into my closet and I've got a shitload of clothes that I never wear. I end up wearing the same shit everyday anyways, and I take stuff to Goodwill and Buffalo Exchange -- like every week I'm giving stuff away.
NP:
You see, I knew you were a man with closet issues. Where do you get all these clothes from? Are you a fashion whore?
JF:
You know I've gone through spurts of that. Then I get a bunch of clothes for free too from companies and stuff. I'll go down and raid someone's warehouse, and before you know it you're leaving with all this shit. It's funny, the more successful you are, the more money you make, the more free shit you get, which is weird. I could have really used all this free stuff when I was broke. I'm not spending money on clothes right now like I used to. I used to spend a lot, and between that and free shit, and also being a kind of a packrat -- I've always got some sentimental reason to hang onto something, and I'm trying to get over that.
NP:
One of the more bizarre items that you offer, is to be someone's cabana boy. Do you harbor any cabana boy fantasies?
JF:
Not really, I just thought that was a funny phrase to throw out. I don't know how people interpreted that. I'm not saying I'm going to be your sex slave.
NP:
It does bring up images of scenes from 1970s porno films.
JF:
[laughs] Also, that's part of the $75,000 package which no one will probably ever buy, even though friends of mine are laughing...That's just basically a fruitcake way of saying personal assistant -- I'll do what ever you want for a while -- within reason.
NP:
The thing about the $75,000 package, no disrespect to Robin from NIN, or his lovely wife, but her raw lasagna that's included is the least appetizing thing on your entire menu. That would be the one thing that might hold me back from dropping 75K. Can you perhaps talk up the raw lasagna a little?
JF:
You know, I'm sure we could talk them into cooking something else, or not cooking something else. We could just make a turkey sandwich, or throw it in the microwave, that'll work.
NP:
So we now know what you would do for the sake of your music, but is there anything you wouldn't do?
JF:
Oh yeah, of course, you'd be surprised. I mean, friends of mine have been calling me, emailing me, texting me, making jokes. How much for this? How much for that? Actually, one of the guys from NOFX, who will remain nameless, he texted me the other day and he said, "Would you give me a handjob for $100,000?" I said I would be so emotionally scarred from that, it would have to be a lot more. I ended up not settling on a price.

But you know I'm not going to do that. I don't want to become Steve-O either, like a jackass, "I'll do anything." The list is just a list to tell people I've got a record coming out. This isn't going to become what I do for a living. It was a prank that wasn't a prank, a publicity stunt but all completely legit.
NP:
Do you worry that this will take away from the music?
JF:
You know what? I don't even care to be totally honest. I made this record and I'm proud of it. And these days, say that I was touring my ass off, that everyone knew the band and I had a big record deal, people still aren't selling records. I want to put my record out and have it be available, and have more people know about it because of this.

It's funny, I got asked to do this streaming thing of my record, 'cause I had interviews this week, and I don't even know if they've heard it. I don't even know if you've heard it.
NP:
I've absolutely heard it. I've got the whole album. It's a fun album. Obviously, when you've got songs like "I Wanna Cheat On My Girlfriend"...
JF:
Well you know what's funny, my record I put out in 2000, everything was funny and wacky. This record, with the exception of that song, which is funny and not funny actually, that's the only song which can be [viewed] as wacky. It's not a joke album. This record's actually pretty serious. I mean it's a fun record, but they're not all silly songs -- except that one -- which is very dark and serious too. [laughs]
NP:
But the pace of it, for the most part, is very upbeat, and it has a quirky sound, which is very you.
JF:
Yes, of course
NP:
So the way you promoted it expresses what's contained in the music on some level. But then there is that thing that you touched on earlier; it doesn't matter how big of an artist you are, to some extent now being an artist isn't enough, you also have to be some kind of commercial whore. Even the biggest bands are teaming up with sponsors.
JF:
Sure, yeah, it's kind of true, but it's not just that. I see that what I'm doing, by even coming up with that price scheme and making good on it, in the end, when I have to go to lunch with someone at the Cheesecake Factory or have to write a song about someone or give someone a massage, all these things are going to be filmed and posted on YouTube, and maybe made into some sort of documentary or something. So for me, I see it not so much as whoring myself out, but becoming even more of an artist and more of a creative person doing something different.
NP:
Is YouTube part of your artist's palette now?
JF:
For sure. Yeah that's something that I learned on my laptop on tour about a year and a half ago or something, when I did a lot of touring with Nine Inch Nails overseas. Between being jetlagged all the time, being up at crazy hours, not being able to sleep, and trying to find something to do in the middle of the night I learned how to do that.

Actually, Jeordie White [Twiggy], that was playing bass with Nails, he kind of learned how to do it and taught me. Then I just took the ball and ran with it. I love doing it, it's a fun, creative exercise, and the fact that you can do that stuff in your living room and post it for the world, whether they care or not they get to see it, is really cool...This isn't just for fun. This is an outlet for me, as a person, as an artist. It's important to me. I really get off on doing that shit and posting that shit. It's part of what makes me who I am.
NP:
I would imagine it's necessary for you to have that immediate outlet for your creativity, because, on the flip side, I know that you played with Sting and recorded a bunch of tracks back in 2005 that haven't been released.
JF:
Right.
NP:
And then you did the Guns N' Roses thing, you co-wrote the title track for Chinese Democracy, and that didn't come out for nearly a decade.
JF:
Yeah.
NP:
So to be able to deal with that, all of this creativity that's getting held back, you must enjoy being able to throw something straight out there.
JF:
It's great. Definitely, I definitely like that, for sure. And it's something you haven't been able to do up until now, and so it's exciting. It's exciting and it's scary in the way people in the music industry are still trying to figure out how the hell we're going to start selling records again and be able to make money. Because technology and the internet, it's exciting but it's also hindered a lot of people, a lot of bands. It works both ways. There's great things you can do, and then it just comes down to the whole thing of people being able to steal your music whenever they want. It's a drag. I've seen it affect big time artists and I've seen it affect the little bitty bands that are starting out. It's just kind of a confusing, weird time.
NP:
You left Nine Inch Nails to spend more time with your family. How's that going?
JF:
It's going great. It's going really good. I mean, I miss playing with Nine Inch Nails because I loved doing it...I was watching how it was affecting my oldest boy, because I'd just been on tour a lot. When he was born I was playing in Perfect Circle, and then I was going in and out of town with A Perfect Circle, The Vandals, Sting, and then in '05, when he was about fours-years old, I started touring a lot with Nine Inch Nails, and it got to be too much. I haven't retired from touring though. There'll be a time when I tour a lot again.

I'm going to Austin next week with Devo to play SXSW, and then Devo is going to England in May to play a couple of shows. I just couldn't continue the first part of '09 with the schedule that Trent looked like he was going to keep through to the summer time this year, I just had to bow out. It was just because of the effect on my family, and I didn't want to regret that down the road. I do miss it, and I'm sad that I'm not going to be there for the tour with Jane's Addiction, I'm the biggest Jane's Addiction fan. So when I found out they were doing that tour, I was ultimately, sad and pissed off and bummed out that I was missing it.
NP:
Devo have a new album due out in the fall. Have you been involved in the recording of that?
JF:
Yeah. I was there yesterday. We're in the middle of working on it right now. We're trying to hurry up and finish it and have it all ready to do a tour later on this year.
NP:
How do the new Devo tracks compare to the music we know and love?
JF:
What's funny about me playing with Devo is that I'm the biggest Devo fan. I'm the only guy in the band who's not an original member, even though I've been their drummer for thirteen years. But I started as a Devo fan, and this record, it's like let's do what people want to hear. People don't want to hear Devo not being Devo. It hasn't been easy but it's getting done and it's great stuff. There was a batch of fifteen or sixteen demos last year, and we ditched most of them. We just picked four or five of them and thought there's almost half a record, let's continue to write some more songs. So that's what we're trying to do, just play quality control and make sure we can do something that makes sense that people will want to hear.
NP:
I also hear there's been some movement on the Perfect Circle front. I think Maynard said in an interview that he and Billy Howerdel had started writing again.
JF:
I had lunch with Billy about two weeks ago and we were talking about how it'd be great to do some Perfect Circle shows. It's been five years this year, we finished up in the spring of 2004. I don't know how soon we'd make a record but I know a lot of people would like to see Perfect Circle play some shows. I hear it all the time from people. And me personally, I would like to. We'll see what happens. It's a matter of everyone being on the same page at the same time.
NP:
You've played with so many absolutely amazing people, what's your unfulfilled dream gig? What band would you put down $75K for to be a member of for a month?
JF:
Oh god. The people I'm a really big fan of? One guy I've played with once, I did one show with them but I'm the biggest fan of them and would like to do more work with them, is Frank Black, I'm a big Frank Black and Pixies fan. Other than doing more work with him, two of my favorite bands, and they're such polar opposites, I would love to work with either the Butthole Surfers or Steely Dan. I mean my biggest heroes are Devo and The Replacements, and I've played with [Paul] Westerberg for years and played with Devo for years. It's kind of like what do I do now? Who do I want to play with?
NP:
I guess now's the time to concentrate on Josh Freese.
JF:
Exactly, and continue doing stuff with the bands that I love that I've been in for years on a less time-committal basis, like The Vandals and Devo. The Vandals are playing in a couple of weeks with Bad Religion -- that'll be fun. I don't make a living doing it, but it'll be fun.



Since 1972 and the deluxe packages will go on sale exclusively at JoshFreese.com on March 24th. The album will be available on wider release online and in stores on April 14th.


10 Comments PRINT
Email this Interview

YOUR NAME:

YOUR EMAIL:

THEIR NAME:

THEIR EMAIL: