Josh Freese: Drummer gone mad

Josh Freese must be one of the most prolific studio and live rock drummers around today. He's toured with NIN for the past 3 years (but recently resigned) and is a member of The Vandals, Devo, Ween, and A Perfect Circle. I saw him play with APC several years back and he was recovering from a broken right ankle. He played many of his bass drum parts with his left foot and I honestly couldn't hear the difference. If that didn't get you excited, he's also toured with Guns N' Roses and Sting. His studio work is too vast to get into, but he's played on everything from Kelly Clarkson to Rob Zombie records. Suffice to say, the man gets work.

Somehow he has managed to find time to record a second solo record (Titled "Since 1972") and his promotion techniques are quite a ways out of the box. $7 gets you a digital download and a few bonus videos and $15 will fetch a cd/dvd double disc digital download set. No big deal so far, but this is where it gets interesting. $50 adds a T shirt and a 5 minute phone call from Josh and $250 adds a signed drumhead or sticks and a lunch date with him (limited edition of 25...naturally). Things just get crazier from there all the way up to a $75,000 (limited edition of 1) package that includes Freese writing and releasing a 5 song EP about your life story, you taking home one of his drum sets of your choosing, Josh joining your band for a month, something crazy about Tijuana that I probably don't want to have anything to do with, and a flying trapeze lesson. I did the math on this thing and he's selling off 61 dinner or lunch dates. I guess he's taking a bit of a break from all the touring and recording to get this thing out there.

The record comes out March 24th and you can get a free download of one of the tracks from his site right now. I grabbed it and took a listen. It's definitely nowhere near as experimental as his marketing scheme, but it sounds good none the less and he's always a solid player. We'll get right back to our Late Night Drummers series and more importantly, some more practical posts on playing drums (which is really the point), but I couldn't pass up a post about this.

Check out the full 'Price Menu' at joshfreese.com
Josh Freese, phenomenal a player as he is, is truly a drummer gone mad!