Sometimes, people just aren’t ready for a certain band. It’s happened countless times throughout history where an act or an artist wasn’t as appreciated in their heyday but took on near-legendary status as the years went on, oftentimes after their death or breakup. From Robert Johnson to Ride, there are scores of examples of musicians who years later the rest of the world finally got it.
Failure is one of those bands. Dubbed as alt-rock when they emerged from Los Angeles during the early-90s grunge explosion, the three-piece turned the underground on it’s ear with the release of it’s third album Fantastic Planet exactly 19 years ago yesterday. The record was a multi-layered, with elements of alternative, industrial, space-rock and simply bad-ass progressive hard rock, it became a head-scratcher for most, yet adored by those in the so-called “know.”
Throughout the nearly two decades since it came out, Fantastic Planet has grown considerably in lore and popularity. The only problem? Failure called it a day just about a year after its release. Good news for those late tot he party, last year saw not only the reunion of the band, but also a brand new album, The Heart Is a Monster, which came out in late June. It’s a worthy follow-up to Fantastic Planet, though the development of which was fraught with uncertainty and expectations to be lived up to.
Vanyaland caught up with Failure frontman Ken Andrews yesterday just after soundcheck for the group’s show in New York City at Webster Hall, two days before Saturday’s show at Royale in Boston. We talked about the reunion, why it’s taken so long for people to get it and living up to expectations.
Michael Christopher: Given the legacy of Failure, what sort of pressure did you feel going into the recording of The Heart is a Monster?
Ken Andrews: I definitely felt pressure. Since the day we finished Fantastic Planet back in ’95, I’ve always been really proud of it and it’s had sort of this weird resurgence over the last 15 years becoming this kind of culty-like album. I definitely felt like I didn’t want to do this reboot at all unless we felt like we could operate at least at that level songwriting-wise and recording-wise.
How did you approach it in wanting to retain the Failure “signature sound,” yet not sound like it was pulled out of a time capsule from 15 years ago?
That part wasn’t that hard, because a lot has happened to us musically since then; all the changes that you go through as musicians. As far as the Failure sound, I mean, it’s just not that hard for us to do. When we get together and we start jamming? That’s what it sounds like. Maybe there was a few times where it was like, “Maybe this sounds a little too close to our other projects,” and we maybe veered away from that, but for the most part, getting whatever the sound is was just kind of natural.
There’s also going to be a subset of fans who want Fantastic Planet Volume II; how do you find that balance in finding what people wanting you to sound exactly like you did before, but still being able to move forward as artists?
You know, the good thing about Fantastic Planet was that, at least to me, it was such a kind of sprawling album with lots of different kinds of songs and tempos and different lyric content. I think fans of that record actually would almost be forced to give a bit of breadth to what our next album would be like. I remember sequencing Fantastic Plant and thinking, “If this record hits, we can do whatever we want on the next album.” Not “whatever we want,” but that we wouldn’t be limited to a certain type of song. Even 20 years later, that’s still the case. I don’t think anyone is upset that it’s not Fantastic Planet Part 2. For the most part, people seems to be accepting of the updated version of the band.
In recent years, there’s been a large degree of 90s nostalgia when you have bands like Soundgarden and Faith No More getting back together. But then you have acts like The Afghan Whigs, Quicksand and Failure who weren’t as mainstream, but had devoted fanbases at the time, and are now regarded as bands you missed out on and sort of this, “Thank God they’re back” mentality. How surprising is that to you?
Really surprising. I mean, the whole reboot has been fan-driven from the beginning. Strangers, fans, friends and quite a lot of musical peers as well. And then when [Failure guitarist Greg Edwards] and I started doing spots together more and more, our friendship reignited. What’s been really happening is that there’s a younger crowd who discovered Fantastic Planet after we broke up. I just feel like it’s such a blessing that that occurred at all. For a band like us that didn’t really penetrate that deeply into the public’s mind, to be kind of like resurrected by new fans who discovered us way after; I think that’s kind of different than the usual reunion story.
When were you aware of the legacy that Failure had developed since breaking up, like, when was it real enough that you started considering a reunion?
It kind of happened in different stages. First was we just really enjoyed hanging out together, talking shop. Then it was, “Well, if we are going to try and be a band again, we should go into the studio first and make sure that we still have that spark.” And just like anyone else, we’ve seen reunions that have been just, kind of bummers. That’s why we went into the studio first and wrote the first four or five songs for The Heart Is a Monster, to prove to ourselves that we still had it. Before we would commit to a major endeavor of recording a full album, we would play one show and see what the vibe was. And we booked the show at the El Rey in 2014, and it sold out immediately. Then when we played the show and saw the love for Fantastic Planet and the fact that probably 60 percent of people in the crowd were in their 20s; and that was the moment where it was like, “I guess what people have been saying is true.”
Seeing the crowd an people being in their 20s, where do you think that comes from, as opposed to the original time you came around?
Well, they weren’t born yet, or they were young. That first show that we did, a 17 or 18 year-old kid came up to me afterwards and said, “I was actually born on the day you guys broke up in ’97.” It’s the Internet basically. It allows people to say, “Hey, have you heard of this band?” And it came from that simple exchange of our music and a word of mouth type way.
Obviously you’re busy with Failure and touring in support of the new record, but I have to ask, is there a possibility of another On record on the horizon?
You know, I actually last week went back and listened to Shifting Skin, and I’m super proud of that record. It’s a whole different kettle of fish, and for me that was the furthest thing from a Failure-type sound. Just listening to it last week, I was really into it. I went into a whole different direction, but I enjoyed that direction. I really enjoyed making that record. When I look back on that time of my life, it was a really fun, experimental time for me and I actually could see revisiting that at some point.
FAILURE + HUM :: Saturday, August 15 at Royale, 279 Tremont St. in Boston, MA :: 5:50 p.m., 18-plus, $33 advance and $35 day of show, sold out :: Bowery Boston event page