Fan spends $20,000 to hang out with Josh Freese and friends05:18 PM PT, Apr 13 2009True to his word, alt-rock drummer extraordinaire Josh Freese is honoring the outlandish marketing campaign he cooked up to promote his new album "Since 1972." One 19-year-old fan from Florida decided that rather than investing $20,000 in a car, he'd prefer hanging out for a week and playing miniature golf with the onetime member of Nine Inch Nails, the Vandals and A Perfect Circle and his rock star pals.
Thomas Mrzyglocki snagged one of the pricier premium packages that Freese whimsically, but seriously, offered over his website for those who buy his second solo album. The cheapest, at $7, covers a download of the album's 11 songs. The physical CD comes out April 14.
At the top end, for $75,000, Freese says he'll join the buyer's band (if he or she has one) for a month and go on tour, join them on a limo ride to Tijuana, take them on a flying trapeze lesson followed by homemade pasta cooked up by NIN guitarist Robin Finck and his wife. He'll also write and record a five-song EP about the buyer's life and let them take home one of his drum kits.
The $20,000 package, a limited edition of one that Mrzygocki bought as a birthday present to himself, included a mini-golf outing with members of Tool and Devo, a night aboard the Queen Mary, two songs about him that Freese will record and post on iTunes and his choice of any three items out of Freese's closet.
"I couldn't believe this kid had spent that money, so I didn't want to just go play golf, hand him a drum and then take him to the airport," Freese said Monday. "I didn't just run down the list and give him the seven or eight things on it. He ended up staying at my house and checked out of his hotel. We did a lot of fun stuff and boring stuff -- he ran some errands with me, and played video games with my son. There were a lot of extras."
The promotion was done as much to generate attention as cash, but since it began last month, Freese has sold all 25 of the $250 premiums (lunch with Freese at PF Chang's or the Cheesecake Factory), one of five $2,500 items (a drum lesson, a trip to the Hollywood Wax Museum with a member of Devo or the Vandals), and two of three $5,000 packages (a private tour of Disneyland, a note from Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard describing his favorite song from Freese's album as well as a song and a video about the buyer).
"I'm eating at PF Chang's or Cheesecake Factory every day now, sometimes twice in a day," Freese said. "Even when it's a pain in the butt, I pinch myself because I thought this crazy stuff up. It seemed like a cool and funny idea, and now it's a wacky reality."
-- Randy Lewis
Photo credit: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times
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LA Times_______________________________________
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Previously on this thread:Josh Freese: He can be boughtBy Randy Lewis, April 10, 2009Drummer Josh Freese has spent a fair amount of time in high-flying circles as a member of Nine Inch Nails, Guns N' Roses, the Replacements, a Perfect Circle, the Vandals and Devo. So when it came time to release his new solo album, "Since 1972," he figured it couldn't hurt to aim high, without ignoring the average punk or alt-rock enthusiast who might want to check it out.
Freese created a tiered program in which the more buyers pay for the 11-song collection, the more they get for their money. For $7, fans can download the album from his website, but for anyone with a spare $75,000 kicking around, Freese has assembled a package that leaves the word "premium," well, cold.
For that princely sum, the Buddy Rich of alternative music promises that he will:
* Write and record a five-song EP about the buyer's life.
* Join the buyer's band (if he or she has one) and go on tour.
* Take the buyer to a flying trapeze lesson with his former NIN cohort guitarist Robin Finck.
* Send the purchaser home with one (but only one) of his own drum kits.
And he'll throw in a T-shirt.
"It's gotten a lot of attention, which is good," said Freese, 36, between bites of a Cobb salad at a cafe in Long Beach Airport recently. "I'm not expecting that anyone will really buy the most expensive packages, but if they do, I'm up for all of it. It's not like I'm gonna go, 'Oh, dude, it was just a joke.' "
Freese dreamed up the extreme marketing plan himself, crafting other packages that run from $15 to $20,000, and he was invited to talk up the promotional scheme last week during an extended segment with KROQ-FM's (106.7) morning team Kevin and Bean.
It was valuable airtime for the musician, who recently played with Devo at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas -- the band is readying its first studio album in nearly 20 years -- and then jumped right into sessions for a solo effort with another former GNR member, guitarist Slash.
"My girlfriend and I joke that we're scared for different reasons," he said. "I'm nervous that no one's going to care and no one's going to buy any of them; she's nervous that I'll have to eat at P.F. Chang's three weeks in a row with weird super friends."
Freese wrote and plays about 99% of the music on "Since 1972," with a little help on the occasional guitar part from such pals as Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard and the Vandals' Warren Fitzgerald. As a songwriter, he shows an affinity for muscular alt- and hard-rock grooves laced with crisp guitar hooks under his engaging, chipper vocals.
There's a bit of Paul Westerberg's lovable loser in "Blood on Your Knuckles," a hint of Vandals' silliness in "I Wanna Cheat on My Girlfriend," and a taste of the bona fide wistfulness that often accompanies age and responsibility in "2002."
He concedes that his unusual pricing strategy is elevating the kinds of grass-roots marketing ploys many musicians have adopted in recent years to an entertainingly absurd level.
"People are doing things right now similar to this but on a more serious note," he said. "So why not go crazy with it, where I'm giving people foot massages, taking them to Disneyland and letting them take items out of my closet?"
The closet raid kicks in at $2,500. For a more modest investment of $15, buyers get a physical CD and DVD.
It's the trade-off he's willing to make to get the word out about "Since 1972," and to keep his music career moving along while he resets his priorities to focus on the 8- and 2 1/2 - year-old sons and 2 1/2 -month-old daughter he's raising with his girlfriend.
To that end, Freese recently quit the post he's held since 2005 as the drummer for Nine Inch Nails. "I already miss being in Nine Inch Nails," he said. "But every time I mention it, my girlfriend reminds me that I'd be much more bummed if I were calling her from the road while I was on tour in Singapore and missing my family. And she's right."
Scaling back the amount of time he's away from home also allowed him to finish songs that had been in various stages of completion since his 2000 debut solo album, "The Notorious One Man Orgy," for which he also handled virtually all the parts.
As for the rollout of the new material, it's an extreme example of the entrepreneurial spirit that's flowering in the midst of the record industry's economic woes.
"I'm smart enough to know that it's pretty ridiculous to think anyone's going to buy the most expensive ones, but at the same time I would love nothing more than to get to deliver on them," he said, flashing a still-boyish smile. "Realistically, I'm not nearly famous enough to where it'd become a problem. Trent [Reznor of Nine Inch Nails] couldn't do it; the Chili Peppers couldn't do it -- they'd have to make 7,000 phone calls the first day."
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LA TimesAdeL
