Failure Talks the Documentary Every Time You Lose Your Mind

It’s rare for a band’s second bite of the apple to taste better than the first, but ‘90s alt-rock outfit Failure continues to be one of the few exceptions.

The Los Angeles-based space rockers’ decade-in-the-making documentary, Every Time You Lose Your Mind: A Documentary About Failure, chronicles their early ’90s origin story, beginning with the fated duo of frontman Ken Andrews and multi-instrumentalist Greg Edwards meeting each other through The Recycler’s music classifieds.

Andrews, who took over directorial responsibilities for the doc in the middle of the pandemic, then focuses on the band’s many ups and downs throughout the production of their first three studio LPs, primarily their third record, Fantastic Planet (1996), which would go on to be widely regarded as a masterwork. Butch Vig, who produced Nirvana’s Nevermind, counts it among his top albums of all time.

During Fantastic Planet’s 1995 recording sessions, heroin invaded the band like it did to so many other groups of that era. Andrews and newly solidified drummer Kellii Scott had formed what could be described as more sociable habits, but the opioid really sunk its teeth into Edwards and refused to release its bite. A watershed moment for the documentary occurred when Andrews discovered chilling footage from 1991 of 20-year-old Edwards expressing interest in trying the drug, while also foretelling just how easy it would be for him to form a heroin addiction.

“When Ken found that first clip that starts the film, I was shocked at just how much insight I had at that age about exactly what ended up happening. It’s uncanny to me,” Edwards tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Every Time You Lose Your Mind’s Hulu release.

Amid their collective haze in 1995, the band knew that they were crafting the finest work of their young career, but one of several impending death knells happened toward the end of their Fantastic Planet sessions. Their record label, Slash Records, shelved the album’s release indefinitely amid an effort to sell itself. This unwelcome news sent the band spiraling further into the throes of depression and addiction, and they spent 18 months questioning whether their magnum opus would ever see the light of day.

In August 1996, Slash’s then-distribution partner, Warner Bros. Records, finally put the album out themselves, and despite being received with critical acclaim, Fantastic Planet wasn’t pushed to the degree that it should have been, resulting in unimpressive chart and sales figures. Meanwhile, Edwards was now a shell of his former self, raising major concerns about whether he’d be able to sustain himself as the band toured in support of their much-delayed record. (Andrews has stated many times since then that Edwards still managed to deliver strong live performances.)

In hindsight, Andrews, Edwards and Scott are relieved that Fantastic Planet didn’t receive a more robust commercial response.

“I’ve always thought that if we had gotten more radio airplay or more success [in ‘96 and ‘97], it might not have been a good thing,” Andrews says, with Edwards adding, “Yeah, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

In late 1997, Andrews disbanded Failure. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Edwards missed a second consecutive writing session due to falling asleep at the wheel and crashing his car into a series of parked cars at an L.A. Nissan dealership. Each member had their own crosses to bear in the following years, but they all went on to have productive music careers. Scott joined some notable bands before becoming a successful session drummer. Edwards gradually got clean and co-founded the alt-rock band Autolux in 2001. And Andrews launched several musical projects until making a name for himself as one of the industry’s most in-demand mixers, engineers and producers. 

During their absence, the band’s legacy quickly began to evolve, especially as the internet and file sharing took off. They soon achieved cult status, underscoring their existing reputation as “your favorite band’s favorite band.” Failure was previously one of the only bands that L.A. alt-metal band Tool championed and took under their wing. Tool and A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan reinforced his support when he helped cover Failure’s “The Nurse Who Loved Me” on A Perfect Circle’s platinum-selling second album, Thirteenth Step, in 2003. The Hayley Williams-led Paramore would also follow suit with a cover of Failure’s “Stuck on You” in 2006. (Williams and Andrews recently performed Failure’s “Daylight” at a benefit for L.A. wildfire relief.)

The tide ultimately turned in 2010 when Andrews and Edwards both became fathers at roughly the same time. Various social engagements involving their families eventually led them to pick up instruments, and by 2013, they knew full well that they could still write music that’s worthy of the Failure name. That’s when they called Scott with the good news, and the trio first set out to book an L.A. reunion show in 2014. The event sold out in minutes, something their ‘90s iteration could never boast.

In 2015, after 19 years between LP releases, the band released their comeback album, The Heart Is a Monster, to even more critical praise. Currently, they’re putting the finishing touches on their seventh studio record and fourth, post-revival, topping their ’90s output. Andrews admits that even he’s a bit amazed that Failure has been able to pick up where they left off, musically, but above all, he’s most grateful for their live audiences consisting of younger generations and varied demographics. 

“To walk out on stage and see those young faces is a gift that I was not expecting,” Andrews says.

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, each member of Failure offers their unique perspective on the demise and rebirth of the band, before adding context to some key moments from Every Time You Lose Your Mind.

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Every time I talk to David Dastmalchian, I ask him for updates on Failure, and in March of 2024, he told me that he introduced you guys to Hulu’s head of scripted content, Jordan Helman. Is David’s matchmaking a big reason why we’re now talking about a Hulu/Disney+ release of your long-awaited documentary? 

KEN ANDREWS (Vocals, Multi-instrumentalist, Co-Lyricist) Absolutely. It was a very fortuitous thing. I had David over to help me with the edit, and he was like, “To be honest, Ken, I don’t really have that much time in my schedule right now to help you because I’m shooting all these movies simultaneously. But I want to introduce you to a guy who knows a lot about your band, and he knows a lot about story.” So Jordan and I just hit it off, and he was instrumental in crafting the story of the movie. He helped me get a three-plus-hour cut down to two hours that really flowed.

Ken, you took over the director’s chair during the pandemic, and whenever an artist is in charge of their own doc or biopic, there’s usually a concern that they will sanitize their story. But that’s really not an issue here because you guys have always been brutally honest about the gory details of Failure. Did you have a similar rationale when you took the reins? 

ANDREWS Yeah, and I had seen YouTube videos about our band being tumultuous, so it wasn’t that big of a secret that we’ve had our issues. When I saw the interviews that were already shot [by the previous directors] — including Margaret Cho’s interview where she went into detail about her opinions on the connection between addiction and creativity — that’s when a lightbulb went off in my head. We’ve had a lot of problems with addiction, but we’ve also been creative through those problems. So it’s just an interesting, complicated topic, and I basically just wanted to present the situation for people to take it in on their own.

Some interviews go all the way back to 2016?

ANDREWS Yeah, the first directors picked away at it over the course of five years. They’d grab interviews when they could, but once the pandemic hit, it just became impossible for them to finish the movie. So that’s when we first got to see the footage that they had already captured. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have started a documentary on my own, but once I saw some of that footage, I knew that there were a bunch of other interesting people that might have something to say about the band and the topics that course through the band. So that’s when I realized, “Yeah, we probably have a movie here.” But it basically took ten years to shoot all the interviews. We had an album interruption and a concert film, but then we finally started editing the film two years ago.

Greg, the opening reel of your 20-year-old self sent a chill down my spine. When you first saw that footage, did you try to reach through the screen to deter your young self from ever considering heroin? 

GREG EDWARDS (Multi-instrumentalist, Vocals, Co-Lyricist) Yeah, part of me would like to do that, but the larger part of me just accepts that it is my story. It is what happened. When Ken found that first clip that starts the film, I was shocked at just how much insight I had at that age about exactly what ended up happening. It’s unreal. It’s uncanny to me. 

ANDREWS I had gone through that footage twice before, but I had not picked up on that conversation. I skimmed it and was maybe writing some emails at the same time or something. But then I went through it again, and I heard [former Failure drummer] Robert [Gauss] go, “So what are you thinking about heroin these days?” And I was like … (Andrews mimics how he sat straight up with eyes widened.) That’s when I finally decoded everything that was being said, and it became a turning point in the documentary. 

Was this footage part of a more recent discovery?

ANDREWS Yeah, I had a Sony Handycam that I had basically taken from my parents, and I was just randomly shooting stuff during that period [in the early ‘90s]. I wasn’t even thinking about what we were going to use it for, but we thought that it would be fun to just shoot stuff and look at it later. But I never really looked at it later. And then, when we were editing the documentary, I went through some closets and found some old videotapes. Of course, they were in formats that don’t really exist anymore, so I had to go on eBay and buy some old tape machines that could play them back. But that’s when I started finding all this interesting stuff. Robert actually filmed that shot.

EDWARDS He filmed me while he asked me that question? 

ANDREWS Yeah, he was interviewing you. You can hear my voice as I’m talking to a friend in another part of the room, but I didn’t know that your conversation had gone down at all until 30 years later.

Greg, when you hear all these stories about yourself in the doc, does it sometimes feel like they’re describing a stranger? Or do you still feel connected to that version of yourself?

EDWARDS In certain ways, I still feel very connected. It’s also really difficult for me to get in touch with how dangerously and carelessly I was living every day for a stretch of time. It just stresses me out to even think about it now. So that part of it I don’t understand, but as Ken was saying, when Margaret speaks so eloquently about the connection between being creative and being an addict, I don’t reject that at all. There’s an obsessiveness to the creative process that is exactly the same energy that goes into an addiction and the lifestyle of keeping up an addiction. Sometimes, they converge in a way that can create beautiful things, and sometimes, they can disentangle where one takes over.

Kellii, the upbeat energy you brought to the band on and off your drum kit seems to be incredibly valuable. When things got heavy between Ken and Greg back in the day, did you view yourself as the person who needed to break the tension or mediate?

KELLII SCOTT (Drummer) No, not with that type of clarity. That’s just my personality, and I act that way in every landscape. It just so happens that that is where I fit in with this group of people. But I don’t think I was consciously walking around, going, “Oh, I’ve got to do this again.” That’s just how my personality fit within the band, and it was definitely very necessary. You don’t really even know that you necessarily need both of those things until they’re there.

All three of you are older and more equipped to handle conflict now. Do you encounter present-day situations where you know they would’ve been much a bigger ordeal in the ‘90s? 

SCOTT We still have arguments. We’re people. But as you touched on, we certainly had a lot less tools as individuals back in the day. Some of the things we argued about were probably a bit sillier or really didn’t matter all that much. But we’ve talked about our relationship going forward, and the only thing that’s changed is we’ve all had major experiences in our lives. So, for the most part, we understand how precious it is that we’re able to make music again after all these years.

Your partner, Priscilla Chavez Scott, is another unsung hero behind this documentary. She captured a lot of the materials throughout the piece? 

SCOTT Yeah, she did a lot of shooting. There’s also a bunch of fan stuff that she captured when we were on the road doing the concert film [in 2022]. As soon as we would finish the shows, she would run outside and interact with the fans. But, yeah, she really stepped up. Before this, she was doing still photography. So she and Ken worked great together, and she learned a lot of new stuff doing this.

There’s a moment where you deliver a very pointed message to some people, and then you flip off the camera. It was in regard to Ken having to be the band’s first line of defense. Are you able to shed a little more light on what you were referencing there? 

SCOTT Not specifically, but there are definitely moments riddled through our career where he needed to push back on something dumb being said by someone, usually business people or people trying to get a better deal than the band. He was usually just sticking up for the band and making sure we got the best shake possible.

Your former guitar player, Troy Van Leeuwen, tells a story involving Stone Temple Pilots that knocked me sideways, to say the least. I won’t specify so the readers can have the same experience upon watching, but did that account make some executives pretty nervous?

ANDREWS There was a little bit of concern. We had to go through a whole process of vetting the film for legal stuff, and that definitely came up. But we spoke to some people in that world who were like, “No, you’re fine. You’re good.” I’m friends with the existing members of Stone Temple Pilots. It didn’t really happen for us together in the ‘90s; they soared ahead of us in terms of crowd size and popularity and whatnot. But there was always this connection between the two bands, and just the other day, [STP guitarist] Dean [DeLeo] sent me a video of him and Scott [Weiland] doing a TV interview before an [STP] show in ‘93. And they were asked about what bands to listen to, and Scott just went off about Failure for five minutes. So I think [the story] just points to a little bit of the craziness that was going on during those years for both bands.

When record producer/engineer Steve Albini passed away last year, did you review his footage again just to make sure you left no stone unturned? (Note: In 1992, Albini produced Failure’s debut record, Comfort, shortly before he did the same for Nirvana’s third LP, In Utero.)

ANDREWS Yeah, I did. We’re doing another version of the film that is more extended, and there’s a lot more extended stuff of Steve. Most of his headier stuff about the music business is actually in the [current] film. He was so entertaining to listen to when he’d start waxing on about that stuff, but there’s tons of other stuff. His memory was way better than mine about the recording techniques that he offered up during the making of Comfort. But that was a crazy moment because he passed right after we interviewed him.

Greg, one of the most tragicomic stories I’ve ever heard is your “bread mix” story from 2004’s Golden documentary, which I now consider to be a proof of concept for this doc. In 1997, your mailing system failed you at a particular tour stop, and so you sent a crew member out to find opioids of some kind, only he came back with bread mix that you still ingested. 

EDWARDS Yeah, I don’t know what it was exactly, but I’m hoping it was bread mix at this point. (Laughs.)

Was that story ever going to be retold for this doc? Or would that have been overkill given all the other related stories? 

EDWARDS Yeah, it didn’t come up, maybe because it had already been told. I haven’t thought of that story in a while. I knew a hundred percent that it was not a drug that was going to get me high, and yet it was like Russian roulette.

Carson Daly introduced me to you guys via KROQ, and oddly enough, I also heard about the break-up from him when he was brand new to MTV in 1997. Did anyone reach out to him for the sake of the doc?

ANDREWS He hung around back then. He was at a lot of our shows, and he introduced us a few times when we played live. But then his career took a different path and we lost touch with him.

SCOTT I’ve tried to reach out to him a couple times and had no luck. I’m still really good friends with Zeke Piestrup from KROQ. We used to hang out with Carson a lot at the old Opium Den, and that’s kind of where we first met him.

Speaking of KROQ, I also remember hearing your appearance on Loveline. (Note: Spanning nearly four decades, Loveline was a popular call-in radio program that offered relationship and medical advice.)

EDWARDS The Loveline thing is funny. I was home alone at my house in whatever [mental] state I was in, and I was listening to KROQ. All of a sudden, Loveline came on, and it was with Failure. 

ANDREWS & EDWARDS & SCOTT (Laugh.)

EDWARDS It was you guys [and guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen]. You hadn’t even told me about it. 

SCOTT We were in the midst of breaking up.

ANDREWS Yeah, it was the peak.

EDWARDS Yeah, I had no sense of anything. I was just shocked. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t been told about it. I guess you just didn’t want to deal with me.

ANDREWS Well, it was actually the manager [Warren Entner].

SCOTT We had also just done the “Enjoy the Silence” cover, and that was a big clusterfuck. So we were meeting our last few obligations.

ANDREWS There was discussion of not doing it.

SCOTT Yes, there was, and I think we were told, “You have to do it. It’s Loveline.”

ANDREWS Yeah, Warren was pretty concerned.

EDWARDS I was just so unaware of the state of things, and I was just shocked that you guys would do it.

SCOTT It’s surprising that we did it, because, in the background, things were already coming off the tracks.

EDWARDS But I was completely unaware of that too.

You reunited in 2013 after 16 years away, and overall, you guys have now been able to rewrite your legacy in a way that so many of your contemporaries were unable to do because of tragedy. Is it a relief to no longer ask yourselves, “What could have been?” 

ANDREWS Yeah, that’s part of the reason why we put so much effort into this documentary. It was to clarify our story and maybe get some closure on some of the regrets and mistakes.

EDWARDS I’ve never really asked myself that.

SCOTT After the band broke up, I had a pretty thorough descent into hell. And part of what I needed to do to get out of that and become at peace with everything was by reconciling the past. So when Ken called me [in 2013] and was like, “Greg and I have been hanging out and writing music,” I didn’t really have to struggle with that kind of stuff. It almost seemed like it should have happened that way. I had literally just dropped the proverbial rock on having such strong feelings about what could have been or what if and all of that garbage. Those questions do nothing but hold you back. You can’t move forward if you’re living in those questions. So it was something that I had to deal with long before the band even got back together, and it definitely made getting back together a lot more free and enjoyable, without having to be constantly dragged around in this new relationship by the baggage of the past.

ANDREWS I’ve always thought that if we had gotten more radio airplay or more success [in ‘96 and ‘97], it might not have been a good thing.

SCOTT Be careful what you wish for.

EDWARDS Yeah, I probably wouldn’t be here. In terms of the work that we created [in the ‘90s] and the work we’ve continued to create and the way it’s been received by the fans, there’s just no regret there. It’s done everything I could ever hope for. There could be more people that are aware of it, but the actual art that we’ve created has even outperformed what I could ever hope for.

Yeah, you’re one of the few revivals that isn’t resting on laurels and operating as a legacy act. Your new music is a logical next step from where you left off in ‘96, and I probably listen to the new stuff more than the old stuff now, granted I had 20 years with the ‘90s material. Are you surprised at all that you’ve been able to make music that’s just as vital? 

ANDREWS I’m surprised. What I’m the most surprised by and the most inspired by is the whole different generation of kids who discovered Fantastic Planet and the newer albums simultaneously. They didn’t really know anything about the band breaking up; they just thought it was a band. So to be older now and see younger versions of ourselves discovering our music is so gratifying. And to walk out on stage and see those young faces is a gift that I was not expecting.

I’ve been reading the tea leaves for the last six or seven months, and it appears you’re on the verge of finishing your seventh record. The second era of the band will officially have more output than Failure 1.0. What can you say at this juncture? 

ANDREWS We’re finishing it. That’s definitely true. We’ve got a good solid album worth of songs, and we’re mixing. When I’m at this point in the process, I don’t have a ton of objectivity on where the album fits in the timeline of the band. I just know it feels good, and I know I like the songs. But it’s hard to know how it’s going to land for people.

Are the segues between songs back? 

ANDREWS There’s some extended intros, but they’re not defined as “segues.”

SCOTT We don’t actually use that word on the record.

EDWARDS When we made our first three records, there was zero concern to the running time because vinyl was gone. Nobody bought vinyl, nobody pressed vinyl, and a CD could handle 74 minutes. But now, vinyl is a real thing again. It’s a real thing that we think about when we’re making a record. All the classic Beatles records are right around 38 or 40 minutes, and that’s what vinyl can handle before you start losing frequency response. So segues can really eat up that time on vinyl. Do you want to have a few nice segues? Or do you want the songs to sound full and big?

ANDREWS I like the challenge of making a concise record that fits on one vinyl disc. I guess it’s because so many of my favorite albums did that, and while it is an arbitrary technological number, it influenced the creativity and how people thought about records: “What are you going to start side B with?” That was a big consideration. And because we’ve had so much success with vinyl in the rebooted version of the band, it’s just something that’s on our minds.

Are you done reinterpreting the Golden b-sides à la “Petting the Carpet” and “Pennies”?

ANDREWS I don’t know if we’re done, but I feel like we’ve maybe picked some of the best ones. So we’re not revisiting the past on this record, although we are actually rehearsing some of those older songs right now and reinterpreting them for an acoustic set [at 6/26’s documentary premiere].

Lastly, Greg’s sister, Julie Edwards, commented in the doc about the one-two punch of “Heliotropic” and “Daylight” to conclude Fantastic Planet (1996). What’s your favorite run from the newer material?

EDWARDS “Long Division” into “Bad Translation” into “Half Moon,” those three [from Wild Type Droid] transition really nicely.

ANDREWS We really spend time on sequence. In fact, we’re still haggling over sequence on the new record. It’s like songwriting for us. We really listen to the transitions and feel the pacing. It’s very important to us.

SCOTT In the Future’s “Force Fed Rainbow” and “The Pineal Electorate” would be mine. “Force Fed Rainbow” is one of my favorite songs of all the new stuff, and I believed that even more when we played it live for the first time on our last tour. It just crushed me every night. I actually think the last four songs on In the Future … are equal to the last four songs on Fantastic Planet.

Besides those two, I also appreciate The Heart Is a Monster’s transition of “A.M. Amnesia” into “Snow Angel.”

ANDREWS Yeah, I love the intro to “A.M. Amnesia” and the beginning of that album. Dean from STP was just telling me that every time he gets into his car, it [alphabetically] programs “A.M. Amnesia” to play first [because it’s paired to his phone’s library]. And [the loud intro] kills him because he always has his stereo volume set loud from the previous drive. 

ANDREWS & EDWARDS & SCOTT (Laugh.)

EDWARDS The first thing that plays every time I get in the car is the soundtrack from Amélie. 

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Every Time You Lose Your Mind: A Documentary About Failure is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.