Actor and musician Corey Feldman exposes the underbelly of Hollywood and how he finds salvation in his music.
Mr. Feldman, the star of iconic films such as “The Goonies,” “Stand By Me,” and “Gremlins,” never wanted to be an actor. Music, he reveals, was always his first love. Mr. Feldman draws musical inspiration from a wide variety of genres, resulting in what he describes as eclectic albums.
“It’s usually a good potpourri of different sounds,” he said.
“The classic rockers, that’s my real heart and soul,” Mr. Feldman continued, citing The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Lenny Kravitz as his heroes. “As we go through the years, we continue to get inspired by different sounds.”
Mr. Feldman explained that song ideas often come to him spontaneously, and he then fits them into familiar styles. While he writes all his music, he sometimes collaborates with others. “If you look back at my history, there’s a pretty wide swath of styles that have broken through,” he noted, discussing his success in top 40 radio with pop, EDM, classic rock, and ballads. “Everything we have put out and everything that has charted has been very different from the last thing we put out.” His song “U R Free” broke into the Top 20 Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, and his song “Without You” debuted at number 26 on Billboard’s Top 40 Adult Contemporary chart.
Currently, Mr. Feldman is preparing to embark on his first arena tour as the opening act for “Limp Bizkit.” The musician expressed his admiration for “Limp Bizkit” frontman Fred Durst, with whom he has a professional connection. “I have a lot of respect for Fred and what he’s achieved,” Mr. Feldman said. In addition to the upcoming tour, Mr. Durst directed Mr. Feldman’s latest music video for his new song titled “The Joke.”
In the music video for “Ascension Millennium,” Mr. Feldman’s “Goonies” co-star Sean Astin makes a cameo, paying homage to their film. Additionally, Mr. Feldman appeared with his “Stand By Me” co-star Jerry O’Connell singing the theme song for the film. Growing up on movie sets, Feldman formed strong bonds with fellow child actors. “When I went to the movie sets with a kid and they seem to be on the same journey as you, there’s a lot to relate to. There is a bond that you gain through that,” he says. “Jerry and I have still remained friends throughout the years. Ke Huy Quan has come up and joined me on stage, Kerry Green has come up and joined me on stage.”
Discussing his dedicated following online, Mr. Feldman said, “At the end of the day, your fans don’t know the difference.” Whether performing in a small nightclub or a large festival, he believes he owes his fans the same level of performance. “Why should they be cheated out of an experience because some club promoter lied to you about the size of the room?” He claims promoters have misled him in the past to boost ticket sales.
“There are so many situations where we have been tricked, where I’ve been very unhappy when I walked on the stage or didn’t want to do the show at all,” Mr. Feldman shared. He learned early on to be a “consummate professional.” “Sometimes you’re very tired, you’re very stressed out, you’re doing six shows a week, seven shows a week, and you have no days off,” he recalled, mentioning a tour where he performed for 13 consecutive days without a break. “There’s nothing you can do other than be professional and do your best to grin and bear it.” Mr. Feldman strives to give his best performance, whether it’s for 100 or 1,000 people.
Child Stardom and Abuse
Reflecting on his status as a child star, Mr. Feldman said: “I don’t see it that way. I was three years old. My parents made the choice to put me into acting.” He mentioned enjoying acting but added: “If anyone would have asked me ‘Hey, here’s what’s going to happen, for the rest of your life you’re going to have to deal with being in the public eye, you’re never going to have a moment of privacy, everybody is going to know you on the planet, and that’s how it’s going to be,’ I might have had second thoughts.”
From a young age, Mr. Feldman was directed on film sets. “I was a puppet; I was told what to do.” He realized later in life that he did not want to act forever.
Mr. Feldman has been open about the abuse he suffered as a child in Hollywood and his struggles with addiction as a coping mechanism. “Instead of everybody going ‘I’m sorry that happened to you,’ it was like ‘Ugh, disgusting.’” He became an outcast in Hollywood. “Even though I was being given the drugs by some of the very people that were turning around and saying I was a bad kid because of it, it didn’t matter. Because all that mattered was the perception in the public, and the way they saw it, and in the eyes of the media, and at the time the media was frowning upon me.”
Discussing the documentary “Quiet On Set,” Mr. Feldman said: “It’s the very, very, very tip of the iceberg. Anything that you’ve heard so far is literally just the tip of the iceberg.” When asked to elaborate, he says, “I don’t know the intricate details. I just know that growing up there were a lot of kids who would tell people their stories. Growing up there were a lot of people who would say ‘Don’t hang out with that guy, he’s bad news.’ Why is he on the set if he’s bad news?”
“Although it’s sad that I’ll never get to see justice, I’m grateful that I was a part of helping somebody else get theirs.”
He harbors no hard feelings toward the media or his doubters when he first began speaking out about child abuse. “When they started gaslighting me, like with SAG. These people created this cult. They came out against me when I made my revelations.” He was hurt by criticism from people he considered friends and family. “It’s like I was the bad guy because I was trying to reveal this information. That was the most painful part of it all. I grew up with these people; I thought we were friends and I thought we were all on the same page.” He was shocked when friends didn’t corroborate his stories and confirm he was telling the truth.
A New Release
Mr. Feldman’s film “The Birthday” premiered at the Sitges Film Festival in 2004, and was released theatrically in Spain in 2006. Now the movie is getting a second chance.
“I believe this is my finest work as an actor,” he said. The project has been shelved for two decades.
“At that time, 20 years ago, nobody wanted to hear about a Corey Feldman theatrical film,” Mr. Feldman recalls. He suggests that his outspoken allegations against Hollywood played a role in the film’s suppression. “I think there were powers that be that were working overtime to make sure it was squashed and that I was going to go away. I think the reason why is that I would have been considered for all types of awards and that would have gone against the narrative they were trying to push, which is that my career is over.”
Despite its 20-year hiatus, “The Birthday” found an unexpected champion in Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jordan Peele. Mr. Feldman received a clip from an interview where Mr. Peele mentioned Mr. Feldman’s body of work as a source of inspiration for his own work. This recognition led to an invitation to the premiere of Mr. Peele’s film “Nope,” where the two exchanged phone numbers and began discussing “The Birthday.”
Mr. Peele and his producing partner eventually visited Mr. Feldman’s home to view the only U.S. copy of the film. According to Mr. Feldman, Mr. Peele expressed interest in featuring “The Birthday” at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 2023. The master copy of the film was retrieved from a shelf in Spain and flown in for the event. “We got a copy flown down and we were able to show the film at the film,” Mr. Feldman says. The screening, which featured two sold-out showings, attracted several distributors.
“As a result, a bunch of distributors happened to be there,” Mr. Feldman notes, leading to a distribution deal for the long-shelved film.