"It was more of a struggle to stay alive than it was to continue to the band": How Failure found themselves at odds with everyone

Failure group shot, 2015.

In mid-90s Los Angeles, alt.rock trio Failure found themselves at odds with everyone: The Sunset Strip hair metallers that preceded them, the grunge movement that would jettison everything else out of water… Even with the support of fellow LA wildcards Tool, they never ‘made it’ and imploded in 1997 – in a haze of drugs and exasperation.

Nevertheless, they produced three albums of increasingly high, psychedelic quality – Comfort in 1992, Magnified in 1994 and Fantastic Planet in 1996. And in 2014 they returned with an excellent new record, The Heart Is A Monster, and spoke to Classic Rock. It was a story of carjackings, Lita Ford's house, and the death of Sunset Strip.