MTV Newsroom

By Zachary Swickey

How often would you pay to fall out with your favourite rock star? That was the motion I considered when I say around the discharge of Josh Freese's latest solo album last summer. (Freese, of course, is one of the rock world's best drummers, who has worked with the Vandals, Devo, A Gross Circle, Nine Inch Nails, Guns N' Roses - basically every important rock band of the past three decades.

The solo album was sold in packages on Josh's Web site that included everything from a personal telephone call (that went for $50) to a private tour of Disneyland to even Josh's personal Volvo. I personally settled on the software that included dinner on the Queen Mary with Josh followed by drinks at Alex's Bar, topped off with cutting each other's hair in the Long Beach Courthouse parking lot (yes, I'm serious). His fund-raising campaign had been passing on for a year, so I was unsure that I would even hear back when I inquired about it.

Lo and behold, Josh's wife emailed me back with all the info. Two weeks before I headed out to see him, I got an e-mail asking if it would be fine if on Friday Josh swooped me up for dinner and a Vandals show, followed by Alex's on Saturday. That sounded like an advance to me (plus, there was no longer any note of cutting my hair), so I went on with it.

I finally got to my hotel in Long Beach and Josh gave me a call. A few hours after he pulled up to a restaurant on the tree and greeted me whilst filming. It was already pretty late, and so grabbed some In-N-Out Burger on-the-go. "Don't we want to be there?" I asked, slightly concerned about his professional welfare.

"We don't want to soundcheck. It's all good," he reassured me. Meanwhile, I was throwing out questions about A Gross Circle, since they had just announced a little west coast tour at the time of our conversation. "We're gonna play some smaller shows and make certain that mass will come," he said. (I don't believe that will be a problem.)

We got a little lost, and I had to give Josh a difficult time for rolling in a Prius and seeking the aid of my iPhone's maps to determine the venue. "That's not very rock star, dude," I told him.

Backstage at the Vandals show, there were neither drugs nor hookers - no real illicit shenanigans at all, for that matter. Is this not Los Angeles and a tough rock show to boot? Everyone was friendly, and I managed to make some free beer and a big opinion of the picture from right beside Josh's kit. They had not rehearsed or played a gig in months, but they looked like old friends having a capital time on stage.

After their set, the party died fairly quickly. Josh had to get support to his three kids and pregnant wife.

The following day, Josh picked me up for drinks at his friend Alex's bar, which is fitly called Alex's Bar. "They take the bar scenes of 'True Blood' here," he told me. "Johnny Knoxville interviewed me once at that booth for a thing." We talked about Dave Grohl's drumming on the self-titled Killing Joke album and how he ended up doing several songs on the With Teeth record for Nine Inch Nails. Josh then told the level of how he got the visit to work on Slash's recent solo record after Slash saw him act with Nine Inch Nails at Lollapalooza in 2008. After a few drinks and some ridiculous pictures in the photo booth. Josh told me we had one more stop. "But don't get too excited," he warned. "It's not Trent's house."

We pulled up to a cozy California abode and Josh revealed his acquaintance was having a barbecue. As he open the door, he was bombarded by his children shouting, "Daddy!" It didn't take much coaxing from them to get Josh in his swimming trunks and in the pond with them. His oldest son Hunter had hardly got returned from his first European tour with pops. "What's the coolest place you've always been to with your Dad?" I asked him.

"I know it's difficult to believe, but Chicago was the best!" he told me excitedly. "We stayed at this hotel and it was attached to a mall!"

After hanging out with some great mass and awesome little kids (who showed me how cool "Yo Gabba Gabba" can be), everyone said goodnight and Hunter asked to join Josh and I for the car ride back to my hotel. "You need to get over tomorrow and catch 'The Office'?" Hunter asked on the way back.

"Wish I could dude!" I told him. Josh thanked me and I tried to put into words how amazing the see was, and that was that. I expected to see a raging rock star, but I met a dude named Josh - a dad and cool, regular dude who happens to be an amazing drummer.

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