INTERVIEW: Ken Andrews Vows Failure's Return No Nostalgia Act

By Casey Moffitt in Arts & Entertainment on May 19, 2014 4:30PM

Failure is out on its first U.S. tour since 1997 and will make its way to Metro May 22. We caught up with co-founder and frontman Ken Andrews the week before the tour kicked off and after one of the many rehearsals the band had scheduled to get ready.

"Right now we're learning to play some of the new songs to throw into our live set. We've got about four and half new songs that we've been chiseling away at for the past few months," he said. "We're cutting it really close, and in fact I'm feeling a little stressed about it right now. But I'm not scared. I hope it can come together quickly."

There are a lot of bands that made it in the 90s hitting the road this summer, and in recent summers past. Andrews said he had no interest in bringing Failure back to become a nostalgia act.

"It was a prerequisite to keep writing new stuff to do the reunion," he explained. "What I don't want to do is play the old songs and then that's it. Let's really do something and show that we can be a viable band again. I didn't know if we could do that."

Andrews, with his mates Greg Edwards and Kellii Scott, have been working on new material for at least a year. Andrews said they took their time working in the studio to produce material that satisfied them before committing to playing shows or touring.

"I see this more as a reforming rather than a reunion," he said. "To me a reunion is playing a few shows and then that's it. It's done. We're going to do a full new album and then a touring cycle on that album at least. After that, we really don't know."

The band split in 1997 after producing its strongest and most popular album, Fantastic Planet. Andrews said the split was pretty acrimonious, and it took a long time for he and Edwards to become friends again. After hanging out with each other and their children, they started talking about creating new music. Collaborations started and eventually they decided to call Scott and get Failure up and running again.

"We definitely thought about doing something new and we went down a few different paths," Andrews said. "We were playing around with electronica stuff and all sorts of things. But the stuff we kept playing back and listening to and liking sounded a lot like Failure.

"The way we were collaborating and sounding the best was a lot like how we sounded on Fantastic Planet," he continued. "I think we still have a lot to say in that way. We didn't exhaust it. We have at least one more album in us."

There also is a whole new generation of Failure fans that never got a chance to see the band back in the day. Andrews said it's "weird," but the band seems to have a bigger following now than at the height of its popularity in the 90s, which was evident during its first two shows after the split at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles in February.

"The El Rey shows sold out in minutes, which never happened to us in the 90s," he said. "I was standing on the stage at those shows and up front were all these younger people. During the show I asked how many saw us in the day and probably less than a third raised their hands."

Andrews said he has one theory as to why the band's popularity has increased since the split.

"It's a little presumptuous, but I'll share it with you anyway," he said of his theory. "I think there was something about the actual sound of the band that was rubbing people the wrong way. When we came out, it was during the whole grunge thing with Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. I like all those bands, but musically they all were in pretty familiar territory just presented in a different way. When you break down that music, they weren't breaking a whole lot of new ground. It's still all very blues-based."

"With us, we were bringing in different chords to a rock album experience," he continued. "We were using dissonance more and we were a little worried that it come off as more jazz than rock. We had some challenging intervals. I think what's happened in music in the 15 years or so since the break up is that people's ears are more open to hearing and appreciating what we were trying to do. Of course, I don't know if any of that is true."

Andrews said the real kicker to getting Failure back up and running is when he got a call from Tool's Maynard James Keenan.

"He asked if I would consider putting Failure back together for these Cinquanta shows at the Greek Theatre (in Los Angeles), which is basically going to be Maynard's birthday party," he said. "He called not knowing that we already were playing together again. I said, 'Well, we've been playing again for about the last year, so yeah.' That pretty much sealed the whole thing."

So Andrews, Edwards and Scott are hitting the road again - just the three of them without any additional musicians on tour, which is shaping up to be a bit more of an aggressive version of Failure.

"It's a little lean, but it's also a little more intense," Andrews said. "It's easier to hear what everybody's playing and we can get more bolder with the sound."

Andrews also said he's impressed with how Scott has progressed as a drummer in the time the band split and reformed.

"The most improved musician award definitely goes to Kellii," he said. "He's an amazing drummer now."

Failure also will be selling a new, five-song EP, Tree of Stars, exclusively on the tour. It features four live songs from the latest shows at the El Rey and when they supported Tool on tour in March, as well as a new studio track. Live tracks include "Let It Drip," "Frogs," "Sergeant Politeness" and "Heliotropic."

"We never would have done a live record in the day," Andrews said. "It would have been hard to have all the things we didn't like fixed. There were just too many things we weren't digging on those recordings. Now, what we hear isn't too bad. Now that I've mixed it down, I think people are going to dig the live stuff."

Failure released its first new song, "Come Crashing," last week and you can check it out. It is also included on the new EP.

Failure performs on Thursday, May 22, at Metro, 3730 N. Clark, 7:30 p.m., $29. 21 +