Drummer Takes Tiered Buying Options To Extreme (And Hilarious) Levels

from the connecting-with-fans-and-giving-them-a-reason-to-buy dept

Over the past year or so, we've chronicled multiple different musicians adopting a "tiered" approach to selling things. It makes a lot of sense: give people different options, and added value for paying more, and they'll often take you up on it. Two of the more impressive examples of this were Jill Sobule and Trent Reznor (two very different artists, obviously). Now it appears that Josh Freese, who has played drums for Reznor's Nine Inch Nails in the past (as well as spending time in Devo, Guns N Roses, the Vandals, and backing a bunch of others... including Sting, Katy Perry, Clay Aitken and various others), is releasing his latest new album with a rather hilarious (if hopefully tongue in cheek) take on the tiers (thanks Brian).

The tiers start out normally enough, though, there doesn't seem to be a free tier (boo!) and the prices even seem slightly higher than Reznor's successful tiers. But then, he starts adding a ton of higher end tiers with various (often extremely funny) options -- all involving access to him or other musicians he's played with (access is a scarce good, of course). It starts at the $50 level, where you can get:
"Thank you" phone call from Josh for buying Since 1972. You can tell him what you like about the record that you purchased, or what you thought sucked. Ask whatever you want, like "Is Maynard really THAT weird?" or "Which one of Sting's mansions has the comfiest beds?" or "Are Devo really suburban robots that monitor reality or just a bunch of dads from Ohio?" or "Why don't the Vandals play more stuff off the first record?" It's your 5 minutes to yack it up. Talk about whatever you want.
And then gets more involved ("lunch date with Josh to PF Changs or The Cheesecake Factory (whatever you're into)") the more you pay. At $1,000, there's: "Get drunk and cut each other's hair in the parking lot of the Long Beach courthouse (filmed and posted on YouTube, of course)." And, of course, all the way up at $75,000 you get the following:
$75,000 (limited edition of 1)
  • Signed CD/DVD and digital download
  • T-shirt
  • Go on tour with Josh for a few days
  • Have Josh write, record and release a 5-song EP about you and your life story
  • Take home any of his drum sets (only one, but you can choose which one)
  • Take shrooms and cruise Hollywood in Danny from Tool's Lamborghini OR play quarters and then hop on the Ouija board for a while
  • Josh will join your band for a month ... play shows, record, party with groupies, etc.
  • If you don't have a band he'll be your personal assistant for a month (4-day work weeks, 10 am to 4 pm)
  • Take a limo down to Tijuana and he'll show you how it's done (what that means exactly we can't legally get into here)
  • If you don't live in Southern California (but are a U.S. resident) he'll come to you and be your personal assistant/cabana boy for 2 weeks
  • Take a flying trapeze lesson with Josh and Robin from NIN, go back to Robins place afterwards and his wife will make you raw lasagna
He may just be mocking the concept, but it's pretty amusing, and I'm sure plenty of fans will take him up on the lower level offerings, at least. Though, he may want to watch out. As Jill Sobule learned, even if she thought no one would take her up on the $10,000 option, someone did. For Josh, at $10,000, that would mean that someone gets to spend some time at Disneyland with Josh -- and then get to keep his Volvo station wagon (yup, that's what it says).
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Filed Under: business models, josh freese, music, tiers


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2009 @ 3:01pm

    AL

    Lmao!! This is wonderful!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    cvpunk, 20 Feb 2009 @ 3:35pm

    this is great...

    read this yesterday and was LMAO. Josh Freese is not only a great drummer, but obviously has a really great sense of humor.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      john, 22 Feb 2009 @ 9:09am

      Re: this is great... yeah OK

      Perfect example of someone with too much time and money on their hands who also thinks they are funny. YAWN

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Drummer, 26 Feb 2010 @ 8:32am

    Josh Freese, Awesome Drummer.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    josh freese, 15 Apr 2010 @ 8:41pm

    met josh

    I met josh at a big 5..he was a real ass. I even asked him if he wanted to do a quick shoutout on my youtube channel and he came back at me with some smart ass shit

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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