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Josh Freese on Nine Inch Nails, GN'R and his solo album
Superstar drummer's wild CD deals are hits!
Joe Bosso, Thu 9 Jul 2009, 7:04 pm UTC
Josh Freese is one of the most in-demand drummers around. With a resume that boasts names like Nine Inch Nails, Guns N' Roses, A Perfect Circle, Devo, Sting and hundreds more, he's worked with the biggest and best.
On the day of our conversation, however, he's just hanging...with a 19-year-old fan. The two just finished playing mini-golf after visiting the Queen Mary. Later, Freese is thinking of taking the teenager to Slash's place - once he lets him raid his closet, of course.
OK, so what is Josh Freese doing letting a 19-year-old rummage through his personal belongings? Turns out it's all part of a unique (and highly successful) marketing plan behind his wonderful new solo record Since 1972.
"I thought, OK, I could let the music to do the talking," says Freese. "Or I could do something fun and weird. So I came up with all these crazy ideas."
Those ideas range in price from $7 for a copy of Freese's CD all the way up to a super-deluxe package of $75,000, for which the powerhouse drummer will join your band for a month. Not only that, but he'll give you one of his drumsets, party with you and record an EP about your life story.
"This whole thing started out as kind of a joke, but now I have to make good on these offers" Josh Freese on the package deals for his new album
If you don't have a band but have $75,000, hey, no problem - Josh will be your personal assistant for a month. So far, this package is still up for grabs (shocking!), but the $250 lunches at PF Chang's and The Cheesecake Factory are long gone. "People like lunch," Freese deadpans.
With your new album Since 1972, you're not just a musician, you're a dealmaker.
[laughs] "Yeah, I'm a dealmaker! Problem is, it's taking up all my time. This whole thing started out as kind of a joke, but now I have to make good on these offers, and it really cuts into my time."
So, the good news is, people are buying. The bad news is…
"People are buying! [laughs] Actually, there's another way this started: A while back, with my last record, a friend called me up and said, 'You know how many records you sold last week? One copy! And the week before that, you sold two.'
"And I started thinking, I should just call up these people and thank them for buying my record. Then I thought, What if I took them to the mall or to lunch? The idea developed into these nutty package deals, some of which are cheap and some are ridiculously - and purposely - expensive. But that's the whole fun of it. Who will buy these things. What kind of fans do I have?"
