Freese and Al-Sayed decide to tackle the 45-minute wait at the Haunted Mansion. While in line, the two chat about music, and Freese swaps stories about his rock-star pals such as Twiggy Ramirez and Buckethead, the latter of whom is apparently a huge Disneyland fan. A pregnant woman with a belly ring and two scrunchies in her hair stands just behind them, listening in on their conversation. Al-Sayed reveals he's an aspiring musician himself, about to study music theory at Indiana University or Purdue in the fall.
The group finally reaches its destination inside the Haunted Mansion and is ushered into the room with the "stretching walls." Freese grins and asks, "You want to know something scary? I can recite every single word of this."
Susan Sabo
Andrew Youssef
Freese smiles for the camera during his very first fan package outing to the Cheesecake Factory in Huntington Beach with fan Andrew Youssef.
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He isn't kidding. "Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion. I am your host — your Ghost Host," he begins, reciting along with the same speech playing overhead. "Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding, almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis. Is this haunted room actually stretching? Or is it your imagination, hmm?" People around him are staring. "And consider this dismaying observation: This chamber has NO windows, and NO doors. Which offers you this chilling challenge: To find a way out!"
Freese lets out a maniacal laugh. "Of course, there's always my way," he finishes.
Freese and Al-Sayed hop into their Doom Buggy and ride off into the dark, where happy haunts materialize. Afterward, Freese reveals that from 1985 through 1987, he probably made out with more teenage girls there than anyone else in the world.
"My whole summers were spent at the Haunted Mansion," he says with a laugh. "Let's put it this way: My first groupie experience was in the Haunted Mansion. I'll go on the record with that."
But that rumor that he got a blow job in '87 on the monorail? Not true, Freese says.
Controversial or not, Freese's flippant marketing tactic has everyone from fans and non-fans to marketing execs and other professional musicians talking.
"Josh is irreverent and perceptive and punk in his music and his marketing," Pearl Jam guitarist Gossard says. "His creative energies are so vast, he's having fun with all aspects of his music and how people get interested in it." (Gossard later retracts this quote, thinking it way too serious, and e-mails a possible alternate: "That little punk-ass bitch is cracking me up. Shit, I love Josh Freese.")
Mark Mothersbaugh, composer, artist, and Devo frontman, also admires his bandmate: "Josh may be the first artist to go beyond talking about it and finally figure out how to sculpt the 'new business model' to really work — letting the Internet and technology complement and enhance his own sense of humor and expression in a truly original and honest way that is ultimately attractive to fans and converts alike, appealing to their own personal interest for interaction," he says. "I'm seriously jealous."
In addition to his peers, publicists and virtual strangers have approached Freese, confessing they hung their heads in shame for not thinking up a similar scheme first. "Of course I want to make money. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't," Freese says. "But it's not only about the money. There's plenty of easier ways to make money, but especially now, at a time when the whole record industry is kind of scratching its head and chasing its tail and is like, 'What are we going to do? How are we going to do something different?' Even if [the packages aren't] great, the fact that it's different makes it great. Everybody's freaked out, and then I came up with this thing that was so different that made everyone behind their desks have a laugh."
Freese says that the success of the fan packages is just getting to see the result — what he had hoped to achieve had been done without the help of a street team or having to hire staff. "I got the word out, and whether people bought it or not, people forwarded it to all their friends and said, 'Hey, have you seen this?'"
Freese is keeping busy with what remains of the fan packages — he has a couple of lunches left to do this summer, and he's working on writing those songs for Mrzyglocki and Al-Sayed's respective purchases. He has a new record, Dirty Mature, coming out, which will include "all of the weird instrumental songs" that serve as the soundtrack to his homemade YouTube videos (www.youtube.com/joshfreese). He is scheduled to do one-off shows with Devo, Sting, and the Vandals in the coming months, and will embark on a two-month tour with Weezer in August. He'll also be working with Devo on its first new record in almost 20 years.
There are even whispers of a possible reality show being shopped around, centered on these fan packages and Freese nearly losing his mind trying to incorporate them into his schedule as a highly sought-after session drummer.
But don't worry: He still has that same cheery attitude, remaining grateful for the opportunity, his career, and the exposure.
"No, I'm definitely not taking myself very seriously, but what I do I take seriously but not too seriously," Freese says. He pauses and tilts his head a bit. "That doesn't make sense. I'm serious about not taking myself too seriously?"
