PCM's
Kristyn spent some time chatting with Freddy Wexler from
the band Freddy and the Dials. Freddy shared insight about
how the band got their start to where they are headed in
the future. Read on to enter Freddy's world...
KC: So how are finals going?
F: They're going well, ya know. I really tried to get a
lot of stuff done early because I've had a lot of writing
recently. I've had a lot of writing sessions and it's extremely
hard to balance with school so I tried to get a lot of this
stuff done awhile ago and now I have only two left. But
one, surprisingly is in photography which I took as an easy
'A' and it's definitely the hardest class I've ever taken.
You know the thing is, the way I've been able to manage
school is I'm an English major and I can write all my papers
and stuff from the road, in the studio - it doesn't matter,
I just email them in. In photography, you have to be in
the dark room and it takes so long.
KC: And they're not doing digital photography with you?
F: nope - film.
KC: oh wow well that's pretty cool though, because most
of them have switched over to digital now - we got a choice
when I was in school. We could learn the darkroom or go
digital.
F: Right. Here if you want to do digital you
have to do the basics first
KC: That's good - I think it should be
a requirement anyway.
F: Yea. I've actually grown to really like it - it's really
fun but it's taxing. But it'll all be over on Friday.
KC: chuckle Well that's good. Are you doing anything
to celebrate?
F: Well, it's my best friend's birthday on Saturday, so
we'll probably have a little soiree.
KC: Sounds like fun. Okay, let me jump into some questions
I have for you . . . Can you tell our readers a little history
behind Freddy and the Dials, like how did you get your start
and where are you guys from originally?
F: Sure. I'm Freddy and I'm from New York City and basically,
I started writing - I've been a musician my whole life.
I started writing, really writing, when I was 16-17. When
I was a freshman in college, I made a demo and I sent it
to this site called PureVolume.com
KC: OK
F: And they featured it and it's actually
a really fun story, and I won't go into why they featured
it, but anyway - they did. And it became, miraculously,
the number one downloaded thing or played band on the site
for about a month. It was like Freddy (the Dials came later)
and then Fall Out Boy and then Panic At The Disco and it
was the craziest thing. So between that and a couple sold
out shows based on that I found myself in an amazing situation
with all these different labels that wanted to sign me.
I ended up going with Virgin and just as I was about to
finish my album, Virgin Records and Capitol Record merged,
which was really bad for any new artist because they couldn't
finish records. Fortunately, Jason Flom who was head of
the label, was really good to me and let me leave with my
masters for free. So I found myself having this amazing
record with everyone from Maroon Five, Good Charlotte to
Goldfinger, Buck Cherry to all these producers - everybody
played on it. There's a lot of support in the music community
for the music and I owned it and I was kinda like, what
do I do? So I just went to different music clubs, played
different bands and at one, it was Eileen's Grocery I think,
which is a venue in New York City, I met the Dials which
was just four guys who had really just done the music. We
started playing and became a band. We recorded a bunch of
stuff and so it's called Freddy and the Dials . . . maybe
that'll be one of your questions but that's how we met I
was signed and it was sort of in this interim period that
was really just a blessing in disguise. That we were able
to make this record with amazing producers and amazing people
to work with. And I came out owning it, and I met these
guys and we all started playing it together. It was really
the first time I'd heard it played live, like with a band.
I'd been in the studio for like 8 months and . . . I don't
know if that answered your question.
KC: No, it did . . . are you on Indie Label now or are
you record label shopping now?
F: No I am - I'm not on a label. It's been kind of amazing.
What happened was, when I left Virgin, I met these guys
and started playing. In the past . . . 2 or 2 ½ months
, just having leaked a couple songs like on MySpace, the
reaction was amazing. Like on my MySpace page like jumped
from I think 350,000 plays to over 1.6 million.
KC: Wow - do you maintain your own MySpace
page?
F: Yes - . . . all fan mail. I really do - or we all do,
but I kind of make sure it happens cuz it's important, ya
know?
KC: Oh definitely. Well it makes people feel better so they
know it's not a robot answering their emails.
F: No we totally answer. We really appreciate fans and the
MySpace crowd, especially a lot of the ones in England,
they have been amazing in promoting the band and we totally
appreciate that stuff and try to give stuff away. So that
happened with MySpace. Whoopi Goldberg heard the story about
how Ivy League Kid Turned Rock Star - huge deal with Virgin
Records and that falls apart and he decides to still do
it on his own and she loves it so she has us on her show.
Then after that, SIRIUS radio, actually Hits1, which is
their Top40 channel heard about us and they started breaking
one of our songs called "Something About that Girl",
and that's the latest thing that's been happening. So all
of that is rolling along by itself. A lot of people that
the support is coming from, also like the GAP is playing
one of our songs across the country and so is Old Navy and
we're talking to Urban Outfitters about doing something
with them, so its like a lot of these people are into the
idea of a pop band breaking independently of a label - rock
bands to that all the time,but there's really no history
of a pop band can truly break on their own other than like
Lisa Loeb who goes through a movie and then ultimately signs
a deal, so as a really long round about way of answering
your question, right now we are unsigned but kind of by
choice. Because the support we are getting as an unsigned
band is amazing. That being said, the new year is coming
up and I think we'll definately explore the interest from
within the label community that we've been getting and,
if the fit is right then probably do that.
KC: Ya know, you guys don't seem to be doing too bad right
now, so . . .
F: Yea so either way. I just really want to get the music
out to as many people as possible. I was saying to a friend
- another band - All I really want is a chance to let people
say if they like this music or not. I genuinely believe
the music is universal and uplifting and whatever, but that's
what I really want. Whoever can make that happen, no make
us sell records that make us money, but just make it so
people can hear it. There's only so much we can do ourselves
through MySpace or whatever, but I just want people to "oh
yea, I've heard that band and they suck" or "yea
I've heard that band and they're great". I just want
people to hear it.
KC: Right. I noticed a lot of your songs have a like - I
almost want to say an 80s pop vibe, kind of - at least that's
my opinion.
F: Yea, they are definitely different. I would say its more
of a British, like a 60s British thing than 80s, because
when I'm thinking 80s, I'm thinking more like Duran Duran
and certain bands that I absolutely love, but I have more
. . well first of all you have the album. So I'm trying
to - these people are going to probably looking at the EP
- it's a little confusing. It's a little of a centi groove.
But we've released an EP - like a five song kind of sampler
on ITunes. Compared to what we were doing which was exclusively
digital EP so we didn't have anything - Apex Exposure didn't
have anything to send to you except the hard copy. So I
told them they could send you the album which is really
kind of crazy. You're the only person probably in the world
other than me and my band who has the album - not even any
labels, so whatever the people who read this are going to
hear are just the songs that are on ITunes. That, they are
gonna bite on and buy the album. And of those songs, yes
I think there is definitely a session called "Perfect
Wall" or I should say "Free Rabbit" which
was the song that originally got me signed. It was inspired
by kind of a Motown Shuffle., like "You Can't Hurry
Love" it's kind of like its too far . . . don't quote
me on those numbers, I might be wrong and that would be
embarrassing. It's a shuffle and it's like Motown. There's
another song called "Perfect Wall" that's also
like British Invasion. To me it's more the influence - I
don't care. I love the 80s. If you hear an 80s influence
that's fine. That's what I would say.
KC: No I can agree, I can see that. I think 80s if the
first thing that popped in my head. I was kinda, "oh
look, I kind of bounce around to this", ya know.
F: Right and ya know that's totally funny. That's exactly
what I wanted to do. I love the sound of music and its funny
because I write for different artists, I write different
stuff for myself and the friends that know that I can do
that are like, "come on why aren't you do more stuff
like that" and its almost like they think that's cooler.
To me it's exactly what I wanted to do with this record
- make you bounce around, tap your foot, kind of smile.
It's funny, you know, as amazing as it was being 19 years
old and getting a pretty crazy record deal, moving to LA,
the works . . it was very isolating process because I didn't
have a band. It was just me. So as cool as it was to go
to the Grammy's and sit next to SteveO, if you're by yourself
and there's no one to share it with . . . or even worse,
when you're down because your whoever doesn't like that
vocal change or whatever - there's no one to share that
with sucks. So the actual process of making the record in
the beginning was like a little depressing. So I finally
decided then and there that I wanted to try to make it really
happy and it makes you happy. So that's what happened. To
me, when I think of tapping my foot, I think more like Motown/British
Invasion, but if its 80s for you then its 80s. There is
one song that we recorded, it's called "Too Much"
and that's total 80s so you should hear that.
KC: okay - let's hear a little bit of the story behind
your official site.
F: The thing with the site was, I was an intern before I
started trying to become a rock star and I was an intern
for Sony Music. I interned there. My job there was in A&R,
particularly the online A&R. I noticed a lot of the
other scouts would spend time on the same sites every day
and I remember one day asking this girl, Liz,' that band
must be really great, you're always checking them out'.
She said 'no, it's just a fun website'. So I realized if
I ever had made it, I better have a cool website. So when
I finally quit my job and wanted to do it myself, I found
this guy named Dante, who's this Italian creative wizard
that one of my engineers recommended and I told him that
I had an idea for . . (aside: I'm sorry I can not help you)
my roommate just lost his midterm. . . . anyway so I told
him I wanted to do something cool so we were just brainstorming
and New York, oh it's not NY City, anyway it was first about
NY City because NY is about really who I am and what I'm
about. So we go the idea of a virtual or video game walking
around where you can control me. and after we looked at
the album and there's so much weird stuff that was really
perfect, sometimes I hear little noises, sometimes I see
things when there is nothing there. And of course as I close
my eyes and see a silver screen and moving picture of me,
I close my ears of hear a symphony and I think they're playing
for me. it's all about the inner workings of my mind and
so we decided to make a site where it's like you're walking
around in my mind, where there's flying fish and aliens
and bathtubs and windmills and balloons and I don't know,
various stuff. And so that's kind of how the site started.
KC: So how did the videos tie in - you
click the billboards and the videos come up.
F: Are you saying when were those videos made
or how they fit or?
KC: yea like how do they tie in to everything?
F: I guess they do in the fact that they don't. How much
of a bullsh*t answer is that? (chuckling) The video, actually
is a really funny story, we were gonna make a really low
budget Indie music video, and it was really ambitious. We
were trying to shoot in 22 locations in 2 days. Obviously
we weren't people who had made a video. It didn't work.
And we were left with a bunch of great footage, but no story.
So we sat around for weeks, trying to edit stuff together
to see what could we do, and we ended up deciding to make
an ETK or a string ETK that was kind of a day in the life
of Freddy making this EP. So that's what the video really
is. It's a true story that happened but it sort of tied
together with music video minettes. So the things are like
transitional parts of music videos are five to seven seconds
segments of what a music video could look like for that
song, but it's really just a trippy take on a day in the
life of Freddy making this EP. It is based on a true story
when this one time I broke a keyboard, my keyboard broke
down in the studio, and I had not idea who . . I needed
to get the same exact keyboard and it was so heavy and I
couldn't fit it in a cab and I'm thinking who's car can
I borrow. Nobody I knew was home, everyone was at college;
my parents weren't home. So I called my dad's heart doctor,
his cardiologist and asked, hey, do you think I can borrow
your car? And he's like, oh 'who is this?' And I'm like,
'this if Freddy, you know, Freddy Wexler'. And he's like,
'how are you?' 'Everything's good, I was just, umm have
a little bit of a problem. I have this keyboard and . .
. ' anyway, he let me borrow his car. It's a brand new car
and I'm driving, and I know it sounds so nervy, but like
I was in a desperate situation. So I'm driving the car and
I swear I did not get into an accident, this is really what
happened! I'm in the meat packing district and there's like
a wind tunnel on 13th or 14th and 9th - I don't remember,
and I open the door and a gust of wind, must have been 40
miles and hour, just takes the door off! Not l off but bent
the door back, you could tell it was broken. I'm like 'Holy
Shit!' and it was just crazy. Incidentally, I'm with Dante
who did the website, and did the video and we were doing
a photo shoot and he's like, 'come on, let's go inside'
and I just looked at him frozen and I was like - 'get back
in the car - we need to find a Jeep dealership' or a Mercedes
dealership or whatever kind of car it was, I don't remember.
But, I don't know - so that's what it was based on. I ended
up fixing the car so no one knew, but I did tell him. (KC:
well they do now!) yea he was like, dude you could have
told me. 
KC: So the whole ihatefreddy.com - is that
a part of the true story, too?
F: Not really, a lot of my humor is self deprecating, tongue
in cheek, whatever, and I know that I love pop music. I
love music that makes you smile, makes you laugh, whatever.
And a lot of people kind of put that music down. Although
when you listen to this album it's definitely, I think it
has a depth to it and not really just associated with pop
music. But third, I like the idea of embracing people who
are gonna hate me and the band and pop music. I built the
site for them - they can just tell me how they feel. And
they can - cuz I think it's really funny. I think it's funny
when people spend their time doing that. People who like
it can go to one of 10 freddy sites and people who don't
can go to ihatefreddy or f**kfreddy, there's a bunch of
ones that I made that are really funny that actually fans
go to and just make up story because they think its funny,
too.
KC: It is. It's hysterical! It's great especially for press
and getting your name out there. I was really intrigued
by everything - I just kept clicking on this and that, going
'oh wow, look at all this stuff!'
F: Totally, and you know it's so ridiculous how many sites
we've made and just had fun with. Like I was just telling
you about the doctor just now and in the video the doctor's
name is Doctor Pettigrul, Leon Pettigrul and I think it's
about toilet plungers if you unscramble the word, so we
have a site called plungerart.com, we have a site called
leonpettigrul.com which is in fact devoted to the doctor
in the video. We have the dailyfreddy.com which is the daily
news; we have freddyspace.com which is like a MySpace; we
have freddyteddy.com which is just a joke about illegally
transporting drugs through Teddy Bears - we don't say "drugs"
we say "contraband". We have all these sites.
The crazy thing is if you watch the video, if you go to,
ideally you go to freddyandthedials.com and look on the
billboard, but if you want to top that you go to ashowcalledfreddy.com
- if you go to that it brings you to the video right away.
And as you watch, you can click on things and it ends up
bringing you to those micro sites I just described.
KC: I found the whole Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles .
. .
F: all sorts of crazy things.
KC: So do you have any tour plans coming up or anything?
F: Ya know, we just got finished doing a bunch of shows,
we did a big show on CMJ on Saturday night, CMJ in New York
which was great. We are in the process of putting some dates
together now, it's just a bunch of promotion stuff that
we're doing, first, it's kind of dead this month. Just everything,
you know. People, most of the fan base we have is either
going on break or having finals. But it's a good time we
have to strategize for the new year. We're putting dates
together and they should be posted on our site in the next
month or so. We're also putting together a radio campaign
of different places we're going to go and do radio shows
starting early 2008.
KC: Definitely if you're in the Philly area we want to
come check you out.
F: That'd be great.
KC: So back to what we were saying about saving lives
with plungers, heroic actions with the doctor . . . just
for fun, who is your favorite super hero?
F: My favorite super hero? Oh, man. Let me think for a minute
. . . Does it have to be a super hero or can it be a fictional
character?
KC: A fictional character will work.
F: Because I'm thinking cartoons and stuff - I'm not like
a fan . . I wouldn't say Batman, I would say either Robin
Hood or I like some Tom and Jerry, which one's the mouse,
Tom?
KC: No, Jerry.
F: Jerry's the mouse? Oh sh*t, definitely Jerry - Robin
Hood and Jerry.
KC: Why?
F: Jerry I just like because I've always loved that cartoon,
it always makes me happy no matter what. He's like a very
clever dude - he's very clever, he's always outsmarting
people, or cats. Robin Hood I like, obviously, he's the
guy for the common man.
KC: Steal from the rich and give to the
poor.
F: Yes. And besides that and it's a cheesy reason for choosing
him. He's always, in every portrayal of Robin Hood, Robin
Hood is always like an A-Typical hero. He's very charming
and he always has the prettiest, like in the cartoon he
always had the prettiest fox, not slang for a woman but
an actual fox. I always liked it. And there's a snake in
the cartoon of Robin Hood.
KC: In the Disney one . . .
F: I think the one you see on TV, it probably
is the Disney one. The snake looks exactly like a friend
of mine, it's so weird! Seriously, when I see this friend
it's like, 'oh my god, it's the snake from Robin Hood'.
KC: I can't even remember the name of that
character. I do know what you're talking about though.
F: Yea, it's a very distinct look.
KC: So can you tell our readers any interesting
tidbits about Freddy and the Dials that we may not already
know?
F: Interesting tidbits? Well, there's the
Kiyanu who is our lead guitarist. He toured with, he was
Gwen Stefani's main touring guitarist for awhile. Kind of
cool.
KC: Definitely.
F: He's really, really amazing. Random things
. . . I don't know - help me.
KC: Let's see - has there been any crazy
fan experiences or anything like that? Anybody have any
weird habits?
F. What's the age group of this magazine?
KC: We run anywhere from the teenage all
the way up to adults, so it's everything in the spectrum.
F: You tell me if this is inappropriate or
not - I'll just tell you a funny story.
KC: Okay - I'll make a determination when
I'm transcribing.
F: if you go to MySpace page, there is a photo
which has been banned. In front is a table with a fish on
it, a dead fish. Instead of a fish, I've used three half
naked webgirls. So we decided to do a photo shoot at a place
in the city, in New York City - a place called Big Daddy's
Diner. It's a really cool hip place, the place is colorful
and lot's of famous black and white 8x10's on wall. The
photographer at the time the true New Yorker or New Jerseyer
or what ever the noun part of that is, he looked over at
the waitresses and it was just us there and he was like,
'hey you guys want to be in the photo?' and they said 'sure'.
And the was like, ' how do you feel about taking off your
clothes?' and we immediately, the band none of us like them-they're
sleazy, I don't want to say sleazy because if the guy reads
this, it'll make him feel like I thought it was sleazy,
but anyway. We're like, 'no, no we were just kidding!' and
before we can say that they were basically naked!
KC: Oh My God!
F: So this is New York City at like a diner
that everybody goes to! They were just like, so do we get
the CD playing? And these were the . . .
KC: Waitresses, right?
F: Waitresses, just random waitresses at the
place.
KC: Sounds like they had a little freaky
side, don't they?
F: Absolutely! It was incredible. So we have
that photo and whoever reads this will appreciate that and
whoever doesn't will just not understand why we have that
photo.
KC: Very True. So my final question is
what can we expect in the future from you guys?
F: Well, besides us taking over the world,
you can hopefully expect an album out in 2008 - we'll definitely
have an album out in 2008 and just hopefully some great,
uplifting songs, cool songs. You can't expect another band
that sounds unlike anything you've ever heard in your entire
life.
KC: I'll be sure to quote you on that one.
Is there any final message or comment you'd like to make?
F: Let me say I'm absolutely positively responsible
on MySpace, I guess the message we do - we love our fans
and we hope people will check us out and think we offer
a lot of really cool content to keep interested and more
than just songs. We hope people will take the time to look
at it.
KC: I definitely did and I hope a lot of
people will follow along with that. I'll definitely add
some links to the interview coverage.
F; That would be great. I say British Invasion/60's
Pop.
KC: Okay
F: okay - where are you from originally?
KC: Delaware
F: Awesome
KC: I'll send you a message when this goes
live, bear with me we're really backed up these days so
I'll get it up as soon as possible
F: I really appreciate it, I 'm sorry I was
kind of all over the place.
KC: It was great. Thank you so much for
talking to us.
F: okay, take it easy - thanks Kristyn.
KC: you're welcome, bye bye.
For more information about this truly unique
band check out the following websites:
Myspace
- -
FreddyandtheDials.com
- -
Ashowcalledfreddy.com
- -
leonpettigrul.com
plungerart.com
- -
ihatefreddy.com
- -
freddyteddy.com
