Ken Andrews Interview: Failure frontman discusses band’s reunion, future and his diverse body of work.
Failure were one of the great unsung bands of the 90’s. Fusing power-pop, alt-rock, space-rock and more, they were as unclassifiable as they were unforgettable. But lack of exposure, record label pressures, and internal band conflicts led to an early demise in 1997.
Since then, band frontman and guitarist Ken Andrews has kept busy with a variety of engaging projects including his electronica work with ON, the gritty rock of Year Of The Rabbit, and as a in-demand producer and mixer for a variety of artists including Chris Cornell, Nine Inch Nails, and Paramour.
And now, almost 15 years since their breakup, Failure have reformed with its original lineup (including Greg Edwards and Kellii Scott). They recently wrapped up as tour openers for Tool and are about to embark on their own ‘Tree of Stars’ tour, giving fans who never had a chance to catch them in their heyday their long-awaited sonic fix.
I recently spoke to Andrews regarding the upcoming Failure reunion tour, new Failure music as well as his other musical endeavors.
SLIS: So what was the impetus to get the Failure reunion started. When did that first come into shape?
Andrews: Well it was a long process of an evolution of things; Greg and I sort of rekindling our friendship that basically ended in ’97 when we broke the band up. He reached out to me in 2005. It was slow going for the first few years with getting to know each other again and that all kind of sped up when we both ended up getting married and having our first kids about 3-4 months apart…and being like new dads together. We got back into our full friendship at that point and then you have this other element of the music. We started finally talking about it; should we actually try to do something together? And then we were talking about doing something that wasn’t Failure maybe, and then we finally go back into the studio to see if we still had some sort of cool energy together.
Well the stuff we started coming up was pretty close to what Failure was doing, so we just decided to do a Failure record. And it was gonna be like, let’s just do like a Failure EP and just put it out and not really do shows. But then we started talking to all of our friends who were kinda finding out that we were doing stuff together and they were like Oh my God you guys have to do shows! They were saying Your following has grown a lot since you guys broke up and you should check that out. So we booked a show at the El Rey theater here in L.A and it sold out in 5 minutes. So now the reunion is full steam ahead.
SLIS: So how was the chemistry when you started to jam and play together again? Did it feel like you were picking up where you left off, or did it feel different at all?
Andrews: At first it was a little kinda weird, getting to know each other. But by the time we started playing the old stuff together it really felt like we had just kinda started up again a few months after that ’97 Lollapalooza you know? Especially learning the old songs; it was crazy, it’s like our hands went to the right chords without really telling them to.
SLIS: I know you made the decision to not have any opening acts for your headlining tour so you have more time to play your material. I also read that you’re working on new material. Will you be playing any new songs during your set?
Andrews: Yeah, I think we’ll probably just play one new song. But we are also going to have a tour-exclusive EP that we’re going to sell at the gig that has a new song on it. But that song and the song we play during the set will be two different songs.
Click here to listen to new Failure song ‘Come Crashing’
SLIS: Excellent. So did opening up for Tool help get your feet wet in a live environment?
SLIS: What songs have you enjoyed playing the most live from your older material? Are there any that stick out for you as being really fun to revisit or any in particular that were difficult for you to play again?
But for this tour we basically want to play the most satisfying set for our fans who have listened to our 3 albums that we did in the 90’s. So that definitely means playing Smoking Umbrellas and Pillowhead. We’re playing most of Fantastic Planet and about a third of Magnified and about a quarter of Comfort. So you know, it’s quite a few songs.
SLIS: So I was reading the Hall Of Fame piece in Decibel about Fantastic Planet. And I was wondering were you surprised being approached by a heavy metal magazine, given that you’re not really a metal band?
Andrews: Well, we have metal fans for sure. And we have regular rock fans…like even within the individual fan, they usually have a fairly wide taste in music that covers many different genres, and I think we’ve always had an appeal to fans of harder music. Because we have some hard-ish moments in some of our songs….the sensibility that a lot of fans of heavy music like.
Also the connection with Tool has fostered that as well, because they’re kind of the ultimate heavy band right now and even were back in the 90’s. And we played so many shows with them that I think people liked us as an opener…it made sense for them. We have a few songs that maybe get a little poppy in the choruses, but for the most part they can appreciate the overall sound that we have. It’s a little left of center… just a little off enough that people who like metal can get into it.
SLIS: Were you ever influenced by any metal bands growing up?
Andrews: Oh yeah, as a kid I was totally into Judas Priest and Van Halen and AC/DC. I liked a ton of heavy stuff. And I still do. There’s some of it I don’t really care for, but there’s at least 10 or 20 metal bands that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed over the years.
SLIS: Well speaking about Fantastic Planet; I’ve listened to it again while preparing for this interview and it still holds up amazingly well. What blows me away about it aren’t just the songs, but the epic soundscapes. Were you inspired by any other albums while you were creating those sounds?
[amazon_image id=”B000002N89″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Fantastic Planet[/amazon_image]
Andrews: We didn’t have a road map of what we wanted to do sonically in terms of how it actually ended up turning out. It was more like we had set up parameters in that we really wanted to be in complete control of the whole studio and we didn’t really want any outsiders around. Because we just felt like on the demos for the previous records that was where we were getting the most unique sound and by the time we went into the studio with the proper studio or proper recording engineer…sometimes they were great versions and other times we kind of wondered; are we were losing something from the demos? Because the demos document your original discovery of the song and sometimes that initial excitement and take on the presentation of how it presents that song…you cant really get that back once you demoed it.
So we made a pretty conscious decision not to pre-write any songs before we went in to re-record, which, at least in that time wasn’t the common thing to do. People were all about doing pre-production; you’re not recording for any kind of sonic quality…more just like references for different arrangements. As a producer I’ve done that with bands before. So there’s a time and a place for that sometimes.
We were just at a point where we didn’t want to do that…we were like lets just bypass the demo process…and start recording the record. We felt like we had just enough know-how to pull that off. And surprisingly our label Slash records…when we presented this whole concept to them, they liked it (laughing). Which our manager at the time was not thinking they were gonna be into. In fact, he was like we don’t even need to take this meeting because I already know what the answers going to be; you guys haven’t had a big hit yet, and it’s not time to do your experimental album yet…and we were like; We don’t care…this is what we want to do, this is where we are at creatively head space wise.
And the owner and our A&R person at Slash were like, normally we’d have said no, but we agree that we liked the demos for the last two records better than how the albums came out… so go ahead, take your budget and record the album yourself. So, as much as we’ve had our differences with them, they did do a few cool things at a few opportune moments for us. And that might be the biggest positive one.
We just rented a house and bought a bunch of low to mid-level recording gear and holed up there for 6 months and made Fantastic Planet.
SLIS: That’s incredible; it sounds like it was recorded in a huge studio.
Andrews: Yeah. We had time to mess around…we did weird stuff: like the living room was a good size room to record drums…. ’cause with rock drums in general, you want some ambiance around them, because it helps them speak in the track with other bigger sounds. If they’re too dry they just sound too thin and quiet. So this living room was completely carpeted and it had this slightly absorbent wood paneling on the walls… and it was unbelievably damped and quiet. When you played drums in there it was dead… so we just drove down to Home Depot and bought 10 4×8 sheets of Formica-coated plywood like you’d use for kitchen counters. It was highly reflective, the plastic coating is almost mirror-like in its reflectivity, so you get this incredible snap off of it.
And we placed those on the floor and against the walls…and then we experimented…repositioned them…and that was before we brought the mikes in, it was a several day affair. And there was just no way you were going to end up with a normal sound in that environment. You know you spend 2 days on a drum sound at a regular studio and you often end up with a really good drum sound, but you’ve probably heard it before because of all the other records that have been made in that studio.
You get a few things for free in terms of the unique aspect of things when you record in a non-standard makeshift studio. The drum sound of that record is very much a product of that.
SLIS: And given that you were so involved in the production of that album, did you discover you enjoyed production just as much as playing music? How did that feed into your current role producing other artists albums?
Andrews: Well that album was where I just fell in love with the studio. I had a realization of how powerful a studio can be, and how once you get to a certain ability, you can play it like an instrument. And it becomes another instrument in the process. And in some ways it’s the most powerful instrument in the record making process. So yeah that was it…I’ve had glimpses of it in the past…prior to making that record in terms of doing the detailed demos on Magnified with a very inexpensive Best Buy style recording set-up…I really cut my teeth engineering-wise more on cassette four-tracks.
But Fantastic Planet...that’s where I learned a ton…because I would just work on stuff until I was liking it…and sometimes that would just be 5 seconds…and sometimes it would be a whole day just getting a sound. It was a different experience than being at an hourly or day rate studio. You just don’t find yourself doing stuff like that in those clock-is-ticking type of scenarios.
SLIS: I know you’ve produced a ton of artists. What’s the main criteria that draws you to projects?
Andrews: Well in general it’s the artists reaching out to me and asking me if I’m available. I like mixing a lot of different stuff. Even stuff that I wouldn’t personally buy myself…because I just enjoy the process of mixing. For producing I gotta feel like, Would I consider joining that band? Like if they asked me to join as a guitar player, would I want to do that from a creative standpoint? That’s where I come in as a producer; it’s a big deal to work with people on their material and get right in there with them on their performances.
Mixing is kind of a different thing…the recording’s already happened, so you’re shaping something that’s already there. Most of the people that I worked with, it’s just a matter of them calling me up and saying Hey would you like to try a couple of songs and see what happens…or can I hire you to do this whole record? And I just say yes or no based on my schedule at the time. I haven’t really sought out artists to work with…I just haven’t really had time to.
SLIS: What artists have you enjoyed producing the most?
Andrews: Well this was a long time ago, but I really look at my collaboration with Jordon Zadorozny of Blinker The Star as being one of my most creatively satisfying producing roles. He was essentially a solo artist under that moniker, so it really came down to mostly he and I in the studio making the August Everywhere record. We’d actually made the previous record together as well, but it was low-budget, so we couldn’t spend too much time. But August Everywhere was like okay; we’re actually going for something really special…paying attention to the sonics…we didn’t so much pre-production; what we did was listen to older records a lot…and what did we like about those, and how can we pull some of these elements into the Blinker The Star world. That one was full-immersion producing for sure.
SLIS: And when you work with someone like that, do you ever come away inspired to try something new with your own material?
Andrews: Oh yeah, all the time. I’d actually worked with him on some of my solo stuff…but even before that I got to know him so well as a musician that I would come up with guitar parts and I would literally say to myself; that’s a Jordan part, that’s cool! (laughing)…and even if it’s really small stuff like how they tune their guitar or little singer techniques and stuff like that…a lot of is just kinda like unconscious osmosis. You’re just spending so much time with someone else’s musical conscious that it just kinda floats into your conscious.
SLIS: So is there anyone on your shortlist that you would love to work but haven’t yet?
Andrews: Yeah. I’ve actually worked with Beck a few times. I want to do that again and if he feels like it, get more in a producing role with him. I just love the way he works in the studio. I just think it’s super creative and he’s really in the moment. It’s almost like a performance in terms of getting into the right vibe, playing the right records before things get started…how he talks to the musicians…it’s not cookie cutter at all…I would like to get back into the studio with him. We’ve had a couple of near misses just for scheduling…I’m super into his new album. I just think it’s incredible.
SLIS: In addition to Failure, I also really like your work with ON. Are you ever planning on revisiting that in the future?
Andrews: I don’t have any immediate plans…I mean I’m kinda getting swept up in the whole Failure thing right now…and to be honest, we’ll do Failure for as long as it ends up going…and knowing me, I’ll probably need to take a break from doing artist stuff and just relax a little and help some other people make their records. Because it’s kinda intense. It’s like every time I stop doing it and then I come back to it I kind of forget how intense it is in contrast to producing and mixing.
[amazon_image id=”B0013AT5GG” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Shifting Skin[/amazon_image]
SLIS: So it’s a lot more investment and immersion when doing your own stuff.
Andrews: It seems kind of obvious, but when you’re actually experiencing it sometimes it gets a little overwhelming. But it’s all good though. We’re definitely having a good time so far; it’s been pretty enjoyable and because we’re all a little older we’re able to enjoy each others talents I think more than we did in the past.
SLIS: I feel that all your work, be it Failure, ON, Year Of The Rabbit, etc, has a sonic hallmark. You’ll have a big melodic hook followed by some dissonance or a musical left turn. It gives your songs a very unique, often disorienting feel. Do you do that intentionally to spice up arrangements or is that just something that organic to your style?
Andrews: Sometimes it’s probably not even noticed just because it’s just kind of an innate part of our writing at this point. I think I’m just not interested in hearing chord progressions that I’ve heard before you know? I think that’s kind of one of our mantras. It’s not a hard and fast rule but in general if it sounds too familiar to us then we just usually don’t do it. And so that makes our ears more attracted to chord progressions that most people consider a little out or too dissonant…but after a while they start to seem more normal if you really listen to them and kinda experiment with chaining them together and stuff, or if you kinda trick the mind into thinking that; no wait this is cool…there’s different
And to be honest I think that’s like why we’re partly doing this reunion now, because there’s a sense that people finally started getting into the band after we broke up. In the 90’s there was such a grunge Nirvana, Pearl Jam thing, it made it difficult for us because we weren’t so clear-cut. I mean, we had some grunge elements in that we played power chords sometimes and we had kinda rocking rock songs, but it wasn’t a complete description for us at all. And that hurt us I think and confused people. Now, we had plenty of people who understood us back then but now it feels like …I don’t know what’s gone on in the musical years….what the total summation of it is, but it’s allowing people to get what we’re doing a bit easier I think. It starts to feel bit more normal or a little less abrasive.
SLIS: I’m glad you mentioned that because I was going to follow-up with a similar question. In the 90’s you had a bunch of bands who played in odd time signatures, or tuned their guitar low or had some dissonant notes but it wasn’t the same thing because you had such a mix of the melodic and the dissonance that was very unusual and I think that’s probably served you better longevity wise. It’s familiar but exotic at the same time which really keeps the ears interested, for lack of a better term.
Andrews: Yeah, we always just tried to make stuff that we liked, that we would buy or go see a show of. But maybe we were just a little too far away from the curve or something back then…and I really haven’t listened to those Failure records over the last 15 years. But when I was on the stage at the El Rey I was just like these songs just don’t feel 15 years old to me. Its weird…I could kinda zoom out for a second and realize that they’re not feeling dated which was really cool. Plus, the whole front of the crowd were all people in the 20’s which was very interesting and cool.
SLIS: I think I’ve read in the past that you have a bunch of pedals that you use when you play live. What’s your current set up on stage as far as getting all those different sounds. Do you have a pretty immense pedal board?
Andrews: Well back in the day we had all analogue setups that were just massive…just tons of speaker cabinets and power amps and guitar pedals and switching systems and it weighed a lot and it was really hard to troubleshoot because if something went wrong they were literally hundreds of specific cables that needed to get checked. But our set-up was pretty cool and it was fairly capable of getting pretty reasonable facsimiles of what we were doing on the records. But all those rigs were dismantled and carted out and sold off and we all have different stuff now so it was kinda like how are we gonna do this?
So we researched rebuilding those rigs we had and we discovered a company called Fractal Audio Systems, and they make guitar amplification solutions; it’s an all digital emulation of guitar pedals, guitar amps, guitar cabinets and even microphones on the guitar cabinets like you would do live or in the studio…and when I had my choice, I always used real amps in the studio; until I heard this thing…I think if we look back on this time it’ll be like Fractal was the first one to really crack the code and make something that truly sounds like a real amp. And the pedal simulations are just as accurate and dazzling…so we basically got all digital systems now. Greg has one of those and we have the same setup and it comes with an integrated pedal board for controlling all the sounds that we all have programmed for all the songs…and I would say half of my time in rehearsal is spent sound foraging basically…it’s pretty involved.
It would be much easier if we were just like AC/DC. I mean they’ve stuck with the same core sounds since they started, essentially. We never did that…most of our records have sounds in particular songs that were only used for that one time. And that gets really cumbersome when you’re trying to build an analogue rig. But with these things man you can have like 20 pedals going at the same time and 2 amps…it’s super involved. I wouldn’t say tedious because it’s actually really fun. We’re closer to getting what we want now than we did with the rigs we had in the 90’s.
SLIS: I know prior to the Failure reunion you were involved with the Digital Noise Academy project. Did that open you up to new ways of creating music and did that perhaps inform your musical style when you came back to Failure?
Andrews: I’m not sure…my role on that was almost like executive producer in many ways. I did end up playing on a lot of it, but there’s some songs where I’m not playing or writing. That was more just like getting together with friends that I’d worked with on past projects and introducing them to each other and widening that whole community…and it worked because a couple of the newly acquainted musicians have gone to do different projects together, so it was pretty rewarding.
SLIS: You’ve worked on so many projects; do you set any parameters for each project like I’m not gonna repeat this or I’m going to do this differently? Do you have any rules or do you just let it happen?
Andrews: Well I have set general parameters a few times…I mean with ON I knew…I bought a synth after Failure broke up just because I never had one and I wanted to see what it’s like and immediately started writing electronic pop songs basically and Shifting Skin was that record. And once I had the first 2 or 3 songs I knew I wanted to make a whole record of that kind of sound. So I did say this is the ON sound and this is what I’m going to do.
And then with Year Of The Rabbit I went okay, I want to do the rock band sound…I don’t want to do any keyboards and I don’t want to do hardly any overdubs…I wanted to sound like how we played live with 2 guitar players, bass and drums…we never had more than 2 guitar parts going at the same time on the YOTR stuff. I thought it was an interesting limitation to place upon us and that was fun.
With Failure…basically with Fantastic Planet, and a little bit of Magnified, we broke past the trio sound. We felt like we could pull most of Magnified off as a trio pretty good. And then we did Fantastic Planet and it was like okay this is going way past the trio sound; what the hell are we gonna do? And that’s when we added Troy (Van Leeuwen, QOTSA, A Perfect Circle). I have a feeling Troy will end up doing something …he’s actually already joined us in the studio working on new material.
We just finished with rehearsal before I called you and we’ve been working on Small Crimes from Magnified and it’s actually really just a trio until the outro starts and then it becomes very layered and I had no idea that Greg has gotten really good at using looping stuff…he really surprised me…he had like 4 or 5 layers going at the end of the song, and it was amazing, so that’s one of the ways we’re kind of getting away with it for this tour.
SLIS: I know this might be a difficult questions to answer, but if you had to pick a definitive album, or work from your whole career, could you?
Andrews: Well I think for an artist if they don’t tell you that the current thing they’re working on is the favorite thing then its kind of weird isn’t it?
(both laugh)
As an artist you should always feel that whatever you’re doing right then is the best thing you’ve ever done. And I can honestly say I felt that way during all my projects. I certainly feel that way about Failure right now, although were not completely in new album mode. We’re kinda blending writing the new album with playing the old songs to catch up our new fans and old fans too…to give some closure to those 3 albums as we move forward. I mean when we played that El Rey show, I’ve never played a show as an artist where the audience sang every song pretty much all the way through.
SLIS: That had to be a great feeling.
Andrews: Yeah, that’s a different feeling their knowledge of the material was just incredible. I felt I could literally stop singing and they would just totally take over and it would sound great.
SLIS: I know you mentioned you’re going to be putting out an EP for people to get at the show, do you have any idea of a general release date for the finished album or is that too soon to say?
Andrews: Right now the goal is to finish it this year and put it out in the early part of 2015.
Click here to listen to new Failure song ‘The Focus’
SLIS: I know a lot of people are going to be very excited to hear that.
Andrews: We’re super excited about it. It’s so fun to be picking it up where this band left off, because we left off in a pretty cool spot.
Much thanks to Ken Andrews for taking the time out for this interview. You can check out all things Failure, including tour dates on their official website, and you can download his select discography via iTunes below:
