Corey Feldman requires little introduction. Fans around the globe know him from his memorable roles in classics ranging from “The Goonies,” “Stand By Me,” “Dream A Little Dream” to “The Lost Boys.” A multi-faceted performer, Feldman has entertained audiences worldwide for more than three decades and ingrained himself in the fabric of the pop culture landscape along the way. What is often overlooked about him as an artist is his work as a musician. Through the years, he pursued his passion for music and amassed an impressive body of work. His devotion to the craft resulted in broadening his musical horizons and adding the titles of singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist to his already impressive resume. His latest musical endeavor is, without a doubt, his most ambitious undertaking to date. On June 22, after almost a decade in the making, Corey Feldman will unleash his double album “Angelic 2 The Core.” This powerful new album is Feldman’s third complete solo album and is the first to be produced under his independent label CiFi Records, which was founded in 2009. CiFi Records also released Corey’s Truth Movement album in 2009 and released digitally remastered versions of his early solo work in 2014. As eclectic as the work fans have come to expect from him on the silver screen, “Angelic 2 The Core” is a musical journey through all types of sounds from EDM to pop to rock to hip-hop.
The double album contains 22 songs featuring collaborations with five generations of Hip Hop artists such as Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit), Snoop Dogg, Doc Ice (Whodini/UTFO), Kurupt and up and coming rap artist Demario “SB.” Additionally, Corey enlisted contributions from incredible recording artists, songwriters and musicians including but not limited to: Kaya Jones (Pussycat Dolls), R1ckone (Black Eyed Peas), Scott Page (Pink Floyd), B.Howard, POET (Black Eyed Peas), Dave Dunn (Infectious Grooves), The Wizards (Production Team), Jon Carin (Pink Floyd), Manny Mijaris (EDM producer), Thomas Van Musser (writer for Black Eyed Peas), Graham Ward (Paul McCartney), Glasses Boys (EDM collective), Michael Debarge (Debarge), Truth Movement, Tommy Daugherty (Death Row recording engineer), Angel Courtney Anne aka DJAC and, of course, Corey’s Angels (backing vocalists). “Angelic 2 The Core” is also a breakout launching pad for the Corey’s Angel’s brand, which helps beautiful young women realize their dreams.
As this album spans a decade, it includes a few songs previously only available on soundtrack albums. These songs include “Negativity,” which appeared in “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star,” and “Take a Stand,” which appeared in “Zero Dark Dirty,” an independent comedy released last year. The best evidence of the progression of his instrumental work can be seen on “Ascension Millennium,” “Test 1,” and his heartfelt rendition of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero.” A true labor of love, the album was painstaking recorded and arranged by Feldman in his home studio. However, as Feldman would be quick to share, “Angelic 2 The Core” wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for his legions of dedicated fans. In early 2016, he launched the “Elev8or 2 Ascension” crowdfunding campaign. Answering the call, people from around the globe raised enough funds to make this passion project a reality and bring it to the masses!
Jason Price of Icon vs. Icon caught up with Corey Feldman to get an inside look at the blood, sweat and tears he poured into the creation of “Angelic 2 The Core.” In the interview, Corey offers an inside look at the creative process, the challenges he faced in bringing the album to life and his unending gratitude to the fans who made his musical dream a reality. We also take a moment to shine a light on the amazing work he and Corey’s Angels do for deserving charitable organizations. It doesn’t stop there! Feldman also gives us the scoop on his evolution as an artist and his upcoming gender-bending role as Queeny in “Corbin Nash.”
Thanks for taking time to talk with us again today, Corey. I know you have a lot going on so your time means a lot.
Absolutely, man. I love you guys! You guys have been such great supporters and I really appreciate all the support you have given me. It’s really cool.
It’s our pleasure. I know you have been out there working hard, so we love spreading the word.
Yes! The work is done! We have finally delivered the masters to the plant, the copies are being made, the digital copies are being transferred over. The artwork is done and everything is ready! Now, it is just a matter of waiting for the factory to pop them out and get them in the hands of all the retailers.
That is great news! The title of the album is “Angelic 2 The Core” and that is something you established early on. What does the title mean to you?
Well, it means so much. If you have seen the album artwork, you can see it all ties together. I have been designing concept albums for my band, Truth Movement, because it is kind of a concept band. That is kind of what we do, every album has a story and it has a beginning, middle and an end. It is a lot harder to establish that sort of thing with a pop album and I never really dreamt of trying to, to be honest! It all came very naturally. What happened was this, around the time of my divorce, I created this concept of Corey’s Angels. That really just came from me being a guy being out and about, dating these various girls and having these parties that were connected to Playboy and all this kind of stuff back in the day. Then I started throwing my own events. I was like, “This is a great concept for music. It is a great concept for an album!” It has to do with good, evil and perception. A lot of stuff I deal with in my music deals with perception because I feel the perception of society is very askew from the reality of what is really going on. I think the media plays a heavy part in that. A lot of what I try to do with Truth Movement is to speak the truth and dispel some of the idealisms that are out there in modern, pop culture thinking. That, in large part, is through the lyrics, the themes of the songs and what it is about. Doing that with pop music is obviously a lot trickier because you want three-minute catchy songs that are going to be played on the radio and can’t have as heavy a context. If they do, it can be a little distracting to make it a dance song or whatever. I started this album 10 years ago, so it has been a decade in the making. I know this is a long-winded answer but bear with me, as it will all tie together.
Ten years ago, when I first started writing this record, I wrote the first few songs. At that time, it wasn’t related to any concept. It was me saying, “OK, I am going to write a few pop songs.” I wrote one called “Baby Blue Eyes” for my son when he was born. I wrote “For My Love” for my wife at the time. I wrote a few more with this great producing team called The Wizards. Together, we did “You Got Me” and “Bad People.” We did all of these songs and they all kind of flowed together in a nice way to make some sort of an album. Well, about halfway through the process, I got a bit distracted because that is when we made the deal to do “The Two Coreys” series. We did the first season of “The Two Coreys,” which I was not only in but I executive produced, so I had a hand in the writing as well. That became a very time consuming project and I didn’t have a lot of energy left over for working on music. Right after we finished the first season of “The Two Coreys,” I went into “Lost Boys: The Tribe.” I also became loosely involved with the production side of that project with the writing and stuff. I went from that into the second season of “The Two Coreys” and from that into “Lost Boys: The Thirst,” which I ended up executive producing and also doing music for. During the second season of “The Two Coreys,” I was given an assignment by the therapist on the show. They said, “I want you to write a song for your dad, a personal message.” So, I wrote the song and at this point I hadn’t written in a couple of years because I had been working as an actor, producing and doing my thing. I said, “OK. This is interesting. Let’s throw another song into the middle of all this! Let me try it!” [laughs] I wrote the song for my dad and it ended up being a great song called “Me Not You.” It was a very powerful, classic rock, anthemic type sound and I thought, “Wow! This is a great Truth Movement song! The guys would love this.” I sent the song to them and they loved it. I became so inspired by this first song that it sent me on this crazy writing spree. I ended up, between the second season of “The Two Coreys” and shooting “Lost Boys: The Thirst,” writing an entire album, finishing it, getting a couple of guys from Pink Floyd involved. I don’t know how it all happened! [laughs] Somehow, every album I have done has taken about four years in the making. That album somehow, and I say it is divine intervention, came together in three months time. From the first song I wrote to when the album was literally finished, packaged and ready to go was three months! It was this epic, huge sounding album and I don’t know how I pulled all that off but it was pretty cool! [laughs] I ended up touring the Truth Movement for the next two years because we did a couple various tours with it.
We did these projects, literally, back to back to back. By the time they were done, I did a couple more movies: “Six Degrees of Hell” and “Operation Belvis Bash,” which later became “Zero Dark Dirty.” After that, I went back into the studio. By this time, I was single and I was going through this thing about creating Corey’s Angels. I had moved into a home where, for the first time, I was able to build a home studio. I had always said, “If I build a home studio, I am going to get a lot more done. The reason why I only do one album every four years is because I have to rent the studio space and get all the musicians together. If I have a studio in my home, I can figure out how to play a lot of the instruments myself, I can produce it myself, I can get an engineer who is willing to kind of live there with me and just get it done!” I knew I would be able to work a lot faster and I did indeed! During that time is when I really developed the whole concept of Corey’s Angels, the concept of “Angelic 2 The Core” and I started feverishly writing. In that time, I wrote about 17 songs! The rest of the last three years has been mixing, editing, re-recording parts, overdubs and getting it perfect. It is kind of like I have spent the last four years on this album and a few years prior to it and in between there were a few years off. It wasn’t like I was working the whole 10 years but that is how it all developed.
The concept of Corey’s Angels is something that came from me having a lot of personal torment in my life regarding women. [laughs] I have literally had 18 serious relationships in a row. Every single one of those relationships ended badly and let’s just say not by my doing. I guess that is the most polite way to put it! [laughs] It created a lot of mistrust between me and women. I also had an abusive mother, so I was dealing with a lot of baggage. I felt the best way for me to redeem myself was to somehow try to help these women. I thought maybe if they had some sort of guiding light or voice in their head that directed them away from taking the low road or the wrong avenues, it would give them the chance to be creatively artistic. A lot of beautiful women, for whatever reason, get beat up. I realized, “Boy, they are just like I was.” By that I mean, in school everyone always beat up on me, picked on me, told me I was fat, ugly and all this other stuff. They said the same thing to most beautiful women. Right away, I knew there was a connection and I could understand them on a deeper level because they have been through the same types of ridicule that I had as a kid. So, I thought, “I bet they probably feel like I do, which is that they have low self-esteem. If I didn’t have the celebrity already and this established name in the business, I probably wouldn’t have the drive to keep myself going. I would probably fall by the wayside and take some lower end job, something beneath myself or even dangerous, which is what a lot of them end up doing.” I wanted to kind of be this voice of reason for them and say, “Look, I can create a company for you where I can manage you, develop you and help put you in some of the projects that I myself produce and create. Also, through the management side, we can help submit you. The deal is that you have to be talented, driven and willing to do whatever it takes in a business aspect to be responsible, show up and be productive. If you are willing to do all of that, then I can help you.” That was really what the basis of Corey’s Angels was. It was really interesting because the business was created and formed around the concept of the album and the album concept developed around what I was doing. It really did become this war between good and evil. At the end of the day, I am trying to do something that is helping these women stay away from the bad things in life or the bad avenues they could take, while having them believe in themselves as artists and take time to develop their art and creativity. I saw this as kind of a fight between heaven and hell. In some way they really were angels and in some ways I am angelic because I am helping these women but in many ways they are helping me. They have helped me to understand the messed up women in my past and the trauma that I have experienced and helped me heal.
The whole thing has been a very healing process. It all started with “Ascension Millennium.” That was the first single we put out. We didn’t even put it to radio. We just made this video and threw it out there. Then I released the single on iTunes. It was kind of like a thunderstorm! I have never experienced anything like it! We gave it to MTV and they put it on. It achieved buzzworthy status within 12 hours and over the next two weeks, it garnered over 250,000 views, which was insane to me! In the next two weeks, I took it to Youtube and the same thing happened. It just kept growing and growing to the point where it has been seen by millions of people. It was even talked about on “Glee,” albeit as a joke. It doesn’t matter, it is more about the fact we gained that much notoriety to be that prominent in pop culture with the song that I wrote. That is a huge thing because most of my life I have been doing music but it never really got much attention other than from my hardcore fans. This was the first time that a song that I wrote really expanded beyond that hardcore fanbase and went out to the masses and was being received and loved by the masses! Then we started releasing singles to the radio and we did “Everybody,” which is the song that features Doc Ice from UTFO. We put the single out to radio and it went all the way to #13 on independent digital radio charts and stayed there for three weeks. That was kind of my first certified hit! The interesting thing is that in the middle of all this, DJAC (The Maingel Courtney Anne) and I did a lot of Corey’s Angels promotion. I would never really say what Corey’s Angels was and I was throwing these parties ominously and getting all of this press about Corey’s Angels. We created a talk show called “Corey’s Angels Talk Live,” which was on for 10 episodes. We did a huge promotional campaign where we were going around last summer on spot tours. We would do things like go and play Bonnaroo with an all Angel band. We played some baseball games which got a lot of unwanted attention over last summer! [laughs] It was things like that and it was certainly an interesting ride.
The other interesting element was that the people loved it but there seemed to be this dark undertone of negative, nasty, bottom-feeding press that kept trying to destroy me every time I would come out with something. Any time I would put out a new song or video, the public would love it and go crazy but then there would be swarms of haters. It was obviously a group of people because it would happen every time we would do something. For example, we had “Celebrity Wife Swap,” which ended up being a complete nightmare because these producers totally franken-bit my episode and re-edited it to make me look like some kind of psychopath. I don’t even understand what that was about. Anyway, any time something would come out, we would get this attack on Twitter and Facebook, which I would research and they weren’t even real profiles. They would have hardly any followers and weren’t real. They were created just for that moment and just to harass me. Obviously, there was an organized attack going on and they kept coming after me. The interesting thing is that the more they did, the more it grew the public support for me and what we were doing with the project. The more I started taking about Corey’s Angels and the concept of what we were doing, the more people started getting it and getting behind it. This whole thing has developed and expanded over the last three years and now I feel like, “OK, the album cover ties into everything, if you think about it, that I have been through in the last five years.” It really is a battle between good and evil, heaven and hell. I feel like God is watching everything and my mission is to spread love and truth. I also feel there are these dark forces trying to pull me down and have been all of my life. At this point, I feel like I am a bit of a survivor, a bit of a soldier and my Angels are my team. Together we are creating music, entertainment and a lot of awesome things together! It is all working! Is that a good answer? [laughs]
Absolutely! I think a lot of people will love to hear the backstory as I don’t feel it is always presented in an easily digestible way.
That’s right. You are exactly right! It’s unfortunate but things are so misconstrued and they are juxtaposing everything into something that looks sleazy or dirty. That is kind of the whole point of this — stop judging a book by its cover! Just because you see beautiful girls dressed scantily, it doesn’t mean that it is something dirty or something bad. It is just sex appeal and sex appeal sells. At the end of the day, the very fact that we are doing this to keep these women from doing worse things and to help them expose their art, be artists and to stay on their creative path is a very positive message. What we are really doing is trying to help these women and I guess the press has many times painted it as the opposite of that.
I think it is important to mention all of the positive work you and Courtney Anne do for so many charitable organizations. What can we help shine a light on for you at this point in time?
Thank you, that’s beautiful! You know, we have done a lot of stuff over the last year and it is great to get out there. We really enjoy helping wherever we can. We are very involved with a group called Project Beagle Freedom. Project Beagle Freedom releases lab tested animals to freedom! They have helped change laws and it is really incredible. I have been involved in the push to help change the laws. I have met with the local city councilmen. Him and I have had several lunches and he is a great guy. We try to get involved with all of these things on a very personal level.
Many people don’t know this but through the years, I have actually been involved with the passing of several laws regarding animal rights. I entered onto the Senate floor in Boston in regards to a bill we were trying to get pushed through and we ultimately did achieve, which brought an end to gestation crates in Boston. In California, I was actually part of a bill that helped with Farm Sanctuary, which is another animal rights organization I work with. Together, we help create a ban on Fagra, which unfortunately has since been reversed. That just happened within the last year but we were the ones that got the ban in place. It is a terrible process where they take a duck and stick a hose down its throat and keep feeding it until it explodes. It’s really awful. That is one of the things I helped change. The Beagle Freedom regulation, which we just got passed last year, established that any laboratory that is testing on animals now must turn those animals over to a sanctuary to release them into the wild once they are done being tested on. Of course, the next obvious evolutionary stage of that is to pass a law to prevent animals from being tested on whatsoever, which of course should be the standard operation but unfortunately it’s not.
In addition, I also created this day called “For Love of God Day.” Basically, I encourage people all over the world to use social media to join me on this day by creating events in their local areas to give back to the universe and be a loving, kind person for one day by doing something completely selfless. I organized a group of the Angels and went to downtown Los Angeles, where we were joined by my son and ex-wife, and brought a ton of food, clothes, toys and handed stuff out to the homeless. We asked people around the world to do similar things, whether it was go clean a local park, help out an old lady or whatever it is you could do to help someone. That is something I will definitely do again next year. I am looking forward to it because we had a tremendous response to that. We have also been working very closely with The Children’s Hospital. We have been visiting a lot of kids over there. We have done a couple of events and even did a live performance for them. The stuff we are doing is all over the map but generally anything that involves animals, the environment or children. Those that do not have a voice, we try to lend ours to. That is the concept behind the charity work that we are doing.
You’ve brushed elbows with, worked alongside and had friendships with some true greats in the music industry. Did anyone ever give you advice that impacted what you do as an artist and performer?
Absolutely. Oh my god, yes! I will give you a couple of examples. Michael Jackson, obviously, was the number one influencer in much of my pop music and my pop and solo career. Him and I wrote a song title together for one of the very first songs I ever recorded. It was a song I ended up writing and recording with Michael Damien called “Naked Sleeping.” The original title and chorus was created with Michael and I. I never ended up releasing the song but it was recorded and that was thanks to Michael. A lot of how I dealt with fans came from him as well. I would even ask him questions as simple as, “Is it easier to sing on an empty stomach or a full stomach.” It was things like that, which you would probably ask a vocal coach but I never had one! Michael answered those questions for me, as silly as they might have been, but those were the things I needed to know. I also asked him about sustaining yourself while singing and dancing. He was very influential with all of that. Michael is the obvious but I will give you another one.
David Gilmour from Pink Floyd is someone I was very lucky to spend some time with on his one of his last tours with his solo album, not his most recent album but the one before it. I was backstage with pretty much all of Pink Floyd, because even though it was a solo album it was a lot of the same band members. It was Richard Wright, Jon Carin, you know, all the guys who have been there forever. We were all talking about music and it was an interesting moment. I was there with my ex-wife and she was learning how to play sax at the time. I had just bought her a sax for Christmas. We were standing in the little hallway area and it was myself, my ex-wife, David Gilmour, Scott Page and Dick Parry, who was the original sax player from Pink Floyd and did “Dark Side of The Moon” and “Wish You Were Here.” David Gilmour had just learned to play sax at the time. So, you had the original sax player, the 1980s sax player, David, who is now a sax player, and my ex-wife who was becoming a sax player. It was four generations of sax players standing in this little hallway at Universal and they were all talking about the fact that they had taken on this musical instrument. David had just learned for this tour how to play. He was saying it was just another extension of him and how he writes. When I heard him play the sax, it sounded like the same language that was coming from his guitar, only it was a different instrument it was transposing through. I asked him about it and he said, “It is. It is just another extension of me. You seem to know a lot about music. Do you do music as well.” I said, “Yes, I do.” He said, “Oh, really. What type of music do you play?” I said to him, “You know, I have a band and it is actually very similar to the stuff that you guys do.” He said, “Really? What is it called?” I told him, “It is called Truth Movement.” To which he responded, “Truth Movement. That will do. That will do! Is it good?” I said, “Yeah, it is really good but I don’t think it will ever be as good as yours.” He said, “Well, why not?” I said, “Because I don’t know how to read or write music.” He looked at me and kind of shrugged and said, “Neither do I.” That blew my mind! At that very moment, I realized that my limitations were only in my own mind. Once you hear one of the most achieved, prolific rock stars of our time tell you that he doesn’t really have any greater ability in songwriting or reading the music than you do, it’s like, “Wait? I really don’t have this limit. It is only in my mind and I am only telling myself that I have limits.” Having that new information really gave me the confidence to move forward with my next Truth Movement album and make it the great album that it was. I really owe that to him. I think that answers your question!
Going back to “Angelic 2 The Core,” you lived with this album for quite a while now. How have you evolved as an artist through the creation of the album and where do you see yourself headed musically in the future?
I have to say I feel a great evolution as a musician. Prior to this project, especially on the Truth Movement albums, I did very little musically. I think I played a couple keyboard parts and arranged on the last Truth Movement album. The band, being comprised of such brilliant musicians, I certainly had no place being there! In prior solo albums, I might have played a little guitar part here and there, a bass line or programmed some drums but nothing very serious because I was really a developing artist. Now, after a lifetime in the music industry, building a home studio and fortunately being able to acquire a multitude of instruments, I now spend time actually playing those instruments, using them in the studio and recording myself. I do have that luxury. One of the interesting things about this album is that it’s 22 songs and covers every genre of music. It is kind of broken into four parts, I would say. The first part being EDM, the second being hip-hop, the third part being rock and the fourth part being pop-soul. It is all in there! Each chapter of it flows right into the next in the transitions from the musical sounds.
One of the first songs that I did when I got my studio built was a song called “Test 1,” which is a song featuring a brand new hip-hop artist by the name of S.B. Scotty Page from Pink Floyd returns to this album and does quite a bit on it actually. He writes as well, plays sax and even plays the electric guitar solo on “Ascension Millennium,” which a lot of people didn’t know. He was very heavily involved. I started this whole album out by plugging everything in and getting the studio up and running. On the first day, the first session, I was literally making sure this line worked or this chord worked. As we did it, we would test a little piece of an instrument each time. My long-time friend and musical partner David Dunn, who has been in pretty much every album I have done at some level, came aboard and helped me build the studio. He sat there and played this really trippy piano part. After he laid it down, we kept it. Then I said, “OK, check this out!” I played a synthesizer part over it. Then I played some drums on top of the click track we had built. I played everything! I played the guitars, the rhythm guitars and so on. By the end, we got this whole song that sounded like a really cool jazz piece. Scotty Page stopped by and I said, “Hey, man. We have this song. What do you think? I think it might work with a little bit of sax over it. What do you think?” He ended up laying down all of this incredible stuff! Right after that, I had some friends over and this guy said, “Hey, I’m a rapper. Do you have any beats?” I said, “Not really. The only beat that I have that isn’t finished, or maybe it is because I think it is an instrumental piece, is this one.” I played it for him, he heard the beat and he said, “Oh man, you’ve gotta let me throw down to this!” I was like, “Okay. Why not! Let’s experiment!” [laughs] He went and tried it out and did some rap. It ended up being incredible and ended up inspiring me to then flourish it and color it into a whole song. We mapped it out and made it a full song, mixed it and it turned into this great, long, incredible piece. It is an ironic thing because Test 1, in fact, ended up being a full song called “Test 1” and one of the coolest, hippest, slickest songs on the whole album, when it started as an experiment and was never really meant to be released. That was the first song where I played all the instruments.
Shortly after that, I did “Ascension Millennium,” where I again played all of the instruments, except for the bass solo and the electric guitar solo. Again, the electric guitar solo was Scotty Page and the bass solo was my engineer but everything else you hear is me playing. As the album went on, we started adding more and more musicians but I would say there are a good four or five songs on the album where I play everything myself. That is definitely a first! I never would have attempted that if I didn’t have the ability to edit, mix and do all of that as I went because I had my own studio.
We can’t talk about this album without mentioning the incredible role your fans played in getting the word out and getting it funded.
I was so blown away by and so overwhelmed with heartwarming joy that the fans pulled together in the way they did. They showed such a tremendous force of positivity in getting this project completed. It was really, really heartwarming. I happen to know my fans really well and I have a very good relationship with them. There is the casual fan who chipped in 5 bucks or 10 bucks and each one of those guys means alot to me. However, you also have certain fans who really went above and beyond what I would have expected any one person to do. Some of them I know could handle it and there were others who it is not really in their economical profile to even do that. In some cases I felt guilty that these people were contributing so much. There were even cases where I asked certain people not to contribute so much! They would say to me, “I am going to put all of my money together and do this. What do you think? I am going to go scrap some change together or dig under the couch. I might not be able to eat for a week but I am going to help you.” I am like, “No! No, no no! Don’t do that! Please don’t!” [laughs] The point is that many of them were almost overly giving in a way and overbearing with their graciousness and generosity. I really want to take a moment to say that if it was not for the fans, literally, this album wouldn’t be coming out right now. It’s not to say it couldn’t have gotten released at some point. I could have obviously continued working on new films and other projects and pulled more money from my own income to complete the project but it would have taken another six months to a year to do everything we have been able to accomplish in the last two months. There really is a huge debt of gratitude I owe the fans for getting the album out on time, on schedule and actually making it happen.
There are a couple of fans I want to thank in particular. There is one guy in particular who is actually a sergeant in the U.S. Military, he’s in the Army, and his name is Will Fredricks. This guy is amazing! He contributed more than anyone ever could have dreamt of contributing. It wasn’t like he bought one big thing. The way he did it was by continuing to splash the pot and keeping the public interest there by rousing people and buying gifts for people. This guy was going out and donating on a regular basis in other people’s names. He would be like, “Hey, this is your dream. Your dream is to get an autograph from Corey. I’m going to get you that autograph!” Or, “Your dream is to talk to Corey. I’m going to make sure he calls you!” He really went above and beyond as an exceptional member of society and, more importantly, as a serving soldier in the United States Army, I want to say this man has nothing but my utmost gratitude and respect. I really want to pay a special acknowledgement to him. There is also a little girl from England named Destiney Rauh, who also went above and beyond. I know it is not really within her financial means to do the things that she did but I know that she wasn’t going to listen to me! I told her she didn’t need to do it and she did it anyway. She spent a really healthy amount of money, so I really wanted to give her a special acknowledgement as well. Both of them are truly beautiful people and were a huge part of really making this happen. I also want to thank everyone else who spent the time to support me, even if they didn’t donate, by spending the time to retweet everything, posting about the campaign or talking about it. It really kept the energy and momentum alive. It was really overwhelming and flattering, so God Bless them all and thank you to all of them! WE DID IT! That is all I can say!
What was the experience of crowdfunding like and what did you take away from the process?
It was very scary, I can tell you that much! [laughs] I was very nervous because in the beginning of the crowdfunding stage, and this goes back to that whole good versus evil thing, we got massively attacked on Twitter. I don’t know if you were watching when all of that stuff went on but there were all of these people saying they were Anonymous and giving me all of this grief and really beating me up. It turned out, in fact, that many of them were not really Anonymous but people posing as Anonymous and were part of this evil group that was trying to hurt me. What happened was I had a few of the real Anonymous guys hit me up on Facebook and said, “Hey, we don’t know why you are attacking us. We are actually supporters of you. We think you’re great. We only go after bad guys and we wouldn’t go after you because you are a good guy.” I was like, “OK. So what the heck is going on?” They said, “We can help you try to weed through some of it and see if we can burn them out, these people who are attacking you.” I said, “Great! That would be awesome!” They did and within a few days, all of the negative stuff ended and it was all of my fans again. From that moment on, the campaign really took off. Fortunately, it did find its life but it did take a really long time to get its start. I would say the first week was almost completely a waste. We didn’t get much at all because of all the interference. We extended it a week and it went really well. Along the way, we kept gathering momentum but the unfortunate thing was right when it was really peaking it stopped because of a TMZ article. They put out an article talking about the campaign, which actually ended up helping us. We raised $5,000 in one day when that happened, so it is crazy how things can turn around from a little bit of press. Anyway, we ended up finishing the first campaign with about $15,000 to $20,000, somewhere in there. We ended up getting another $10,000 or $15,000 in the second stage. All together I believe we raised about $30,000 from the fans. That was exactly what we needed to get the album finished, the artwork done, the mastering done, the packing, the duplications and all of that kind of stuff, along with a little bit of radio marketing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly what we were looking for because originally we wanted $100,000 so we had the money to do a big time promotion like a major label would where we could afford to take out full page ads in magazines like “Rolling Stone” or “Billboard.” We could have possibly even thrown up some billboards in certain cities or bought radio commercials. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the budget for all of that but we did get enough to actually get the album released and the radio campaign going, which actually starts this week! We also shot a video for “Go 4 It,” which is being edited right now. I think you will probably see the video within the next week or so.
Where are you looking to go from there? Will you possibly be able to branch out and do some tour dates?
That is the goal! The ultimate goal is to do a worldwide tour with this. We have had worldwide support and I get emails and fan letters from Japan to China to Australia to Europe to The Middle East to South America and, of course, all over the United States. We have support from virtually everywhere. The point is that we know that the fans are everywhere and we know they want to see it. The problem is that the promoters out there don’t realize the weight of what we bring because we have never had the traditional music history. We have never sold a million albums. We have never done a big stadium tour or anything like that. The crazy thing is that we know we can sell those types of shows out based on a few appearances that we have made. For example, we did one in Santa Cruz, which was for the 25th anniversary of “Lost Boys.” We did a concert at the Boardwalk where we showed the movie and did a concert before the movie. We started it in the afternoon and we ended up getting the highest amount of audience participation and the most people that had ever turned out for any event at that location in the history of the Boardwalk! We got 15,000 people to show up! We know we can pull those kind of numbers! That was with Truth Movement, that wasn’t even with the solo stuff and with pop music, it obviously expands to a much wider audience. We have also done concerts in LA. We did one with Streetfood Cinema out at Exposition Park where we showed a movie and did a concert and we had 5,000 people come out to that one, which is in LA by the Coliseum. LA is usually the hardest place to get people to come out and buy tickets. The point is that we know we can do really well all over the world but we need the promoters to understand it. We feel that by putting out a really good record campaign, a good radio campaign and getting the new single featuring Snoop Dogg to chart on Top 40 on the Billboard charts, which is the goal, we will have promoters come knocking on our doors and we won’t have to go looking for them!
I can’t let you go today without asking about your upcoming role in the film “Corbin Nash.” You play Queeny in the film and it is generating a lot of buzz! What drew you to this project and what can we expect?
This was kind of in the middle of it all! People kept comparing me to Skrillex, so I thought, “Hey, why not hit it right on the head and do something very Skrillex-like?!” [laughs] Just joking! Total joke! [laughs] I don’t know if you are aware of this but we actually did a concert with Skrillex. About a year ago, Courtney aka DJAC, actually played a birthday party for him and then I came out and performed the last five or 10 minutes. The funny thing about that was we did a song of mine that he insisted I perform, which was from 1993, called “What’s Up With The Youth.” He brought up 1,000 kids on stage and they were all singing my song, which was really crazy! Anyway, back to “Corbin Nash.” One day I got a call from my management and they said, “Hey, there is this project and there is a script. We think that it is really cool. We want you to go meet with the director [Ben Jagger]. He is an English guy and is really savvy. They have this cool little art film. The catch is that you will be playing a tranny!” I was like, “Well, that’s interesting! There is a stretch for you!” It was obviously something that was very outside the box and something I had never even conceived of doing before. Then again, it made a lot of sense, especially since it was a vampire movie and since I am kind of known as being the vampire hunter, I thought it would be apropos to do the other side in some really dark, twisted way! I think that really comes alive in the process! I met with the director and he was a great guy. I read the script and I knew that he was really smart and part of the writing team. I knew that these guys really wanted to make a quality film. For me, that is all that matters. When I am going to do a movie these days, I want to make sure it is going to be an interesting and challenging role for me and I also want to make sure it is something that I can really sink my teeth into for lack of a better term. I want to make sure the quality of the work itself is going to be worth doing. I can do my best work but if the project isn’t up to par, if the writing isn’t good, the direction isn’t good or the other cast isn’t really good, then it doesn’t really matter because then everyone will blame me and say it is all my fault! [laughs] It is best just to make sure you are working with a great team and I felt that is what came about with this project. The Jagger Brothers are incredible. I got to work with Malcolm McDowell again, which is always fun. Rutger Hauer, who was one of my favorite actors growing up, is in it. Overall, it was a great process!
We look forward to seeing the finished film. Before I let you go, I want to ask if there was anything else we can shine a light on for you?
Thank you. You guys have been incredible. I guess going back to the legislation and stuff we discussed, I will briefly touch on it because everyone else has. With all the pedophilia stuff going on in Hollywood, people keep coming to me and saying, “Why don’t you name names. Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?” I want to once again say, I am not the end all, be all when it come to this. I am not an attorney. I’m not a politician. I don’t really have a lot of pull or weight when it comes to this sort of thing. I certainly am not going to be a whistleblower who is going to threaten the security of myself or my family’s security, more importantly. However, there is a way that everyone can get involved and a way everyone can help, which is to write the California legislators, the lawmakers, and let them know we need to end the statute of limitations. Right now, they are currently trying to pass a bill which would end the statute, however, it would only be from the year 2017 forward. That is not good enough. That doesn’t protect all of the people who came up around the time that I did, myself and others like us. What we really need is a rollback of about 50 years, I think. That is the type of stuff we need to work on. I guess if there is anything people can help me with aside from supporting the album, coming and seeing us live when we play it is to please stop telling me to do this because it would only endanger me. Instead, I wish people would focus on doing something themselves. If you have information, you are welcome to come forward with it but otherwise get to those California legislators and tell them to change the laws and make it fair for the victims and not the culprits.
Thanks again for you time today, Corey. You have been more than gracious with your time and are always a great interview. Thanks for being such a positive force in this world!
Thank you for noticing! I really appreciate that, man! Take care Jason and God Bless!
Corey Feldman’s “Angelic 2 The Core” will be available on both physical, & digital platforms, including Amazon, CD Baby and some retail locations on June 22nd, 2016. Visit the official site for the album at www.angelic2thecore.com. To follow Corey’s continuing adventures, be sure to check out Corey’s website www.coreyfeldman.net and connect with him via social media on Facebook and Twitter.
Jason Price founded the mighty Icon Vs. Icon more than a decade ago. Along the way, he’s assembled an amazing group of like-minded individuals to spread the word on some of the most unique people and projects on the pop culture landscape.
