The Josh Freese solo album
Why do I even know about this?
There are two kinds of people in this world. You’ve either never heard of Josh Freese, or he follows you everywhere. If you’ve listened to music with any regularity in the last 30 years or even just saw the Barbie movie, you’ve probably heard him drumming, and he’s really good at it.
He’s kind of like James Jamerson, the now-legendary uncredited bass player on pretty much every record from Motown’s golden age, who recorded his part for Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” while laying flat on his back because he had been called back to the studio after hours and was at that point too drunk to stand. Josh Freese clearly has much better representation than Jamerson did, and anyone familiar with both artists is probably cringing that I would compare anyone to Jamerson, but Freese is similarly reliable.
As we all learned from Spinal Tap, bands lose their drummers all the time, and they need to replace them. The man who replaces those drummers is Josh Freese. When Offspring had to fire theirs because he refused to get a covid vaccine, who do you think was vaxxed and ready to go? When I saw Devo 15 years ago, who was behind the kit bringing the stiffness? When Taylor Hawkins tragically passed away in the middle of a Foo Fighters world tour, who did I guess correctly would replace the irreplaceable? Josh fucking Freese, that’s who.
He’s been at this for decades, first sliding into the role of replacement drummer for The Vandals in the late 80’s. Freese has been a Vandal ever since but was unavailable when they performed for the troops in Baghdad in 2004, presumably because he’s a loyal bandmate, not a pro-war psycho. By the end of the 90’s he was in high demand as a reliable and available session musician and would go on to play on such notable records as Avril Lavigne’s Let Go and Michael Buble’s Crazy Love. He has also drummed for a long list of non-Canadians - Sting, Nine Inch Nails, Good Charlotte, A Perfect Circle, Sublime With Rome, 100 Gecs, Kelly Clarkson, The Replacements… He was a replacement in The Replacements. There are way too many to list here. I don’t even think Travis Barker is involved in more projects, and Freese played with Blink 182 before Barker ever did.
You’re wrong if you think he’s some kind of put-upon chump who can’t say no to people though, as Billy Corgan learned when he reached out to Freese to replace Jimmy Chamberlain and he turned the job down because Smashing Pumpkins’ management asked him to pay for his own airfare to Chicago.
Everyone seems to like Josh Freese, except Axl Rose, who re-recorded his drum parts for Chinese Democracy beat-by-beat, but Rose turning on you is something every member of Guns N’ Roses has experienced and hardly a condemnation of your character. And why shouldn’t everyone like him? He’s an amazing drummer who shows up to work, with no major drug problem as far as I’ve heard. You’d think he’s an insane workaholic, but by all accounts, he’s a committed family man and a good dad.
There is another side to perennial backup-man Josh Freese, however. In the year 2000, Freese released his first solo album, The Notorious One Man Orgy. I know this because he follows me everywhere, and about five years after its release I found a copy in a $1 CD bin at an outlet mall Sunrise Records.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Why does the drummer from A Perfect Circle have a solo record, I wondered, and what’s with the gratuitous dollar signs and aggressively adolescent titles? “I Call You Everyday… I Kick Your Ass”. “Why Won’t Left Eye Get With Me?”. What the hell does this even sound like?
Pop punk, it sounds like pop punk.
I’m not gonna pretend to honestly assess the musical value of this record, but it’s not bad. If anything, for something that is so clearly trying to embrace the inherent awkwardness of a famous session drummer releasing a vanity solo project, nothing about this is unintentionally embarrassing. Trying to review it, however, is impossible. I can’t detach the music contained within this strange artifact - that I bought on a lark and used as a silly little bit of trivia for years - from the novelty of its very existence. Hell, I’m writing this dumb story about it in 2024, so clearly this thing has had a marked effect on me. It’s not just a piece of music, it’s so much less than that. It’s a silly, silly thing that makes me laugh.
There are things I enjoy ironically. I’ll sing along to a “Livin’ on A Prayer”. I hate Bon Jovi, but they really mean it, and that’s hilarious sometimes. The Notorious One Man Orgy isn’t bad in that sincere way. Freese pads the run time with weird voicemails backed up by basic old school drum machine beats, but he’s just messing with you. Sure, you can hate him for wasting your time, but he gave you every warning that this would be dumb. Have you seen the cover art? It fully succeeds at what it’s trying to do - which is to be the Josh Freese solo album. I don’t think you can ironically enjoy something that is already so fully tongue in cheek.
If this was playing in the background in some crowded place, you’d understand this record to be what it truly is - some middling SoCal punk. Does actually hearing it add any value at all to your life as opposed to merely being aware of its existence? I don’t think it does, but it couldn’t hurt to give it a listen. It doesn’t even cost a dollar anymore.
This is a ringing endorsement.
Freese has apparently released two more albums since this, and maybe we’ll revisit this whole strange side-quest of his in a future post, but there’s no topping The Notorious One Man Orgy. Besides, the reality that he’s continued to release music doesn’t jibe with my personal narrative surrounding the novelty of this being the Josh Freese solo album so I’m reticent to burst that bubble and potentially find out he pulled a Phil Collins and recorded a heart-on-his-sleeve divorced drummer record or something like that.
I’m just happy he’s out there, drumming for every band in existence like an absolute maniac. You do you, Josh Freese, it seems to be working out.