COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
The angry, pumped-up sound of Jane’s Addiction began less than two years ago, when singer Perry Farrell walked away from PSI-COM, the dissonant gloom ’n’ doom combo he was fronting at the time. Although PSI-COM had an independent record that was slowly climbing the college radio charts, the atmosphere surrounding the band had grown much too weird for Farrell.
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COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
The angry, pumped-up sound of Jane’s Addiction began less than two years ago, when singer Perry Farrell walked away from PSI-COM, the dissonant gloom ’n’ doom combo he was fronting at the time. Although PSI-COM had an independent record that was slowly climbing the college radio charts, the atmosphere surrounding the band had grown much too weird for Farrell. With friend and bassist Eric Avery, he put together a new band, searching for a louder, tougher groove. Backed by Avery’s tense bass throbs, Steve Perkin’s relentless drums and the alternately hard and delicate guitar work of David Navarro, Farrell now sings passionately about the simple anguish of human relationships with a lot less gloom.
Although Warner Brothers has just signed them—in essence an acknowledgement of Jane’s solid and growing underground popularity in Los Angeles—the band’s power has so far been best displayed onstage. Typically, Perkins grimaces over his beat-up drum kit, pounding out an overpowering musical backbone, while Farrell sings in brain-curdling screams, frantically shaking his dreadlocks like some spastic Medusa.
“I used to go see Jane’s Addiction before I was in it,” Perkins says, smiling and looking towards the singer. “And I was scared to meet this guy, because the only time I ever saw him he was wiggin’ out onstage— his veins pumpin’ and doin’ spins.”
Some of that energy is captured on their first record, a self-titled live LP (on Triple-X Records) recorded in their hometown’s cozy Roxy Theater. The disc features highpowered cuts like "Pigs In Zen” and the pained ballad “I Would For You,” as well as their own versions of Lou Reed’s "Rock ’N’ Roll” and a less-than-faithful “Sympathy For The Devil.”
Nothing seems to annoy Farrell as much as the comparisons L.A. writers keep making between his band and Led Zeppelin. The Zep’s sharp, unearthly vocals, not to mention the distinctly aggressive guitar, could be viewed as the obvious forerunners of Jane’s sound.
Farrell insists otherwise. "There is no thought about Led Zeppelin in this band at all. None whatsoever. It’s nice that people pay that compliment, but there are so many things about them that bore me. I like what they did, I like blues. But I would never think of playing blues because it’s been done and it’s kind of boring to me. It’s not my generation.”
While he does freely admit to idolizing Iggy Pop and Patti Smith, Farrell adds that the punk and new wave musical revolution has also passed. "I loved that era. I thought it was one of the coolest. There was so much energy. But you’ve got to get new energy going.
“I think it’s coming,” he says confidently. "I’d just like to instigate it.”
Steve Appleford
