ENTER MARC GEIGER
MARC GEIGER (agent, co-founder Lollapalooza): We [Triad Artists/ William Morris] were interested in Perry. It started with Psi Com. I had gotten a tape. Thought it was quite good—very goth. Went and saw them play at Club Lingerie. And then they just broke up and Perry formed Jane’s Addiction. Don Muller, a co-worker at Triad, had gotten an early tape and thought it was fantastic.
CHARLEY BROWN: Geiger hated us at first, but when the bidding war started, he miraculously fell in love with us overnight.
DAVE NAVARRO: We went to see Marc Geiger at his office, this huge booking guy. I didn’t really know what that was, but Perry thought he was going to do everything for us.
MARC GEIGER: Dave and Perry came by our offices to drop off this tape and package. And then Don went and saw one of their first gigs and said you gotta go see ’em. . . .
DAVE NAVARRO: We all got decked out and created this long impressive band bio with pics, reviews, and artwork and stuffed it all into this manila envelope with our five-song demo cassette. Finally we get the call “Mr. Geiger will see you.” So we walk in and hand him the envelope, and he takes the cassette out, throws it on a pile of others on his desk, and takes the envelope with the rest of the shit inside and just drops it in the trash can. We were so fuckin’ mortified. We painstakingly put care and time into creating stuff specially for this guy and we felt like we just got pissed on. He was the hotshot behind the desk who was like “I’m all about the music, I don’t need your little package. . . .”
MARC GEIGER: We signed them pre-Warners before they even recorded the live record for Triple X. We were their booking agents for all live shows and touring, from the beginning all the way to the end of the first breakup.
STEVEN BAKER: Don and Marc from Triad Artists, being the consistent agents for Jane’s Addiction, were a huge part of the fact that we [Warner Bros.] could eventually be successful with that band.
JANE’S RECORDS LIVE AT THE ROXY
January 26, 1987
DEAN NALEWAY: We invited everybody down for a show at the Roxy. We put up everything we had to make that live record [1987’s Jane’s Addiction ]. We even sold our cars.
MATT PALADINO: The Roxy was fucking packed. I never really got into Perry, but I went to see Navarro, as did all my friends. I probably knew half of the people there from the Shroomsville parties. Mike Ozair was like, “We’re all going to see Dave and then, hey, it’s party afterwards at Shroomsville!” The big draw of kids in the pit—not the record industry people who were crawling everywhere—was primarily for Dave and probably secondary from Perkins. Perkins was a popular guy at Notre Dame. I had some friends who were a couple of grades under him . . . and they were all there rooting for him, too.
CHARLEY BROWN: Perry was outside the Roxy hanging out at the Rainbow parking lot when this big old limo pulls up, and out steps Jack Nicholson, so Perry runs up to him going, “Jack, Jack! We’re playing here, we’re playing here! Can you come in and introduce us? It would be so-o-o great!” Jack just took two steps back and was like, “Whoa, back off, buddy, back off.” Who wouldn’t be scared shitless of some freak in a corset and a silver jacket with dreadlocks flying, running up to you. . . . Perry was just too much! The bodyguard got all puffed up and Nicholson scuttled away as fast as his pins could carry him. . . .
Live at the Roxy. (Karyn Cantor)
BOB FORREST: When they played the Roxy everyone I knew that played music in L.A. was there. Fishbone . . . the Denney brothers from the Weirdos . . . all kind of feeling the same thing. Like this is rad. Anthony [Kiedis] and I were watching and it was just so mesmerizing and powerful. It was everything that everybody who had bands hoped to accomplish. It gives me chills still—how great they were. We walked out to the car and Anthony was all quiet and I was all quiet and then he said, “What are you thinking?” And I said, “I’m thinking why I even [bother to] play music.” And he said, “Yeah, me too.” And he just started the car and drove away. They were that far ahead of everybody else.
CHARLEY BROWN: We made the live record for $4,000 and we went $1,500 over budget which almost killed us. Everybody was calling us. There were several hundred people on the guest list.
DEAN NALEWAY: There was just major label ridiculousness—fighting over seats, and “Why aren’t I sitting over where so-and-so’s sitting?”
CHARLEY BROWN: I was intentionally cruel to industry slime, the more I abused them the more they kissed my ass, and it was a total bluff. They had no idea it had been set up to record live. Jane’s did two sets. They opened the night all-acoustic, followed by a couple of bands, then they came back on and totally rocked out full-on electric.
PERRY FARRELL: I behaved like a prick and cussed out the entire record industry in the audience. I was telling everybody they needed to lose weight. I was like, “Fuck you all, you can all kiss our ass.” It was typical overwrought histrionics from a pissed-off band that’s got the world in the palm of its hand. But we made sure to put on a great show because it was being recorded.
CHARLEY BROWN: I was trying to shop the deal so I was horrified. I was thrilled and horrified at the same time! Notoriety was much better than being ignored, but was there a limit to the abuse these industry cretins would take?
DEAN NALEWAY: Most everything was live, but there were a few mistakes, and a few things we had to fix up like somebody screaming in the background that we had to get rid of, and that was about it. Light on overdubs. Almost 100 percent live. Mixed by Ethan James at Radio Tokyo Studios. I think the audience applause dub is from a Los Lobos show, or maybe it was Ricki Lee Jones show ’cos of some miking error in the room.
DAVE NAVARRO: On our first album there’s a cover of “Sympathy for the Devil.” And personally—people get surprised and shocked when they hear this, sometimes angry—I hate the Rolling Stones. Always have, always will. I like what they’ve contributed to the industry, but I would never put on a Rolling Stones record. We ended up singing “Sympathy for the Devil” as a joke, and we played it live and it ended up on the record. I can’t believe that one of my least favorite bands is on my first record.38
ALBUM COVER
PERRY FARRELL: The album covers are just dreams. In some cases they are beautiful memories.
Outtake from the cover photo shoot for Jane’s Live at the Roxy record. Perry Farrell: “The first cover was the corset and the nose-piercing. A painting.” (Karyn Cantor)
KARYN CANTOR: I shot the cover for the first album, which is a picture of Perry’s chest that he had painted after the black and white photograph. I took many of the live shots on the outside of the album, and then I shot the pictures of Jane on the inside, and I think there’s just a picture of the corset he was wearing on the inside of the album as well. . . .
DEAN NALEWAY: For weeks he was painting this thing until he finally ran out of paint, and didn’t have money to get any more, so he touched it up with Wite-Out because we were pushing and pushing him to finish this cover. We did one pressing that was clear vinyl. This was before UPC codes. That first cover with no UPC code and clear vinyl is the big collector trophy.
JANE’S ADDICTION AT U.S.C. JANE’S ADDICTION FLIPSIDE INTERVIEW FLIPSIDE FANZINE ≠52, SPRING 198739
Jane’s Addiction were interviewed at USC in January 1987 by Al and Lawrence Livermore shortly after a rowdy on-campus gig with Bulimia Banquet.
PERRY: I like when things kind of go to hell. . . .
STEPHEN: When the light went out I thought people were taking my drum set into the audience.
ERIC: It didn’t go enough for my liking.
PERRY: I myself like to see violence sometimes, and then other times I just want things to turn into a great show. I think every man wants to see some violence.
STEPHEN: But not when people start trashing. . . .
PERRY: But at the same time I want to see people into it. I want a reaction of appreciation and letting us do our music. When it gets like that [trashing], the music goes to hell, and that’s my fir
st concern. I can’t speak for everyone, he likes riots [Stephen]. I like the tribal, ritualistic thing where people don’t hurt each other, but they are moving up and down with each other. I’d rather see that than people turning on each other. A spiritual thing, where people are out of themselves, not inhibited physically—but aren’t violating each other . . . ’cause that’s not productive, the world’s already fucked. . . .
STEPHEN: I like to see people let go this much, especially at the University of Spoiled Children. [Ha ha]. When people go ape shit that’s the biggest compliment we could get. . . .
PERRY: I have [been attacked on stage], at Fenders some girls were pulling my pants off!
ERIC: You must have hated that!!
PERRY: We could play those [hardcore punk] shows if we did all of our fast stuff, but that’s not all that we do. We’d be cutting ourselves short.
STEPHEN: Punk rock isn’t fast or slow, it’s. . .
DAVID: Just bad!
STEPHEN: No, it’s an attitude, it’s not a speed.
PERRY: Well it wasn’t, but I think it is now. “Hardcore” . . .
STEPHEN: But “hardcore” isn’t anything like punk rock, hardcore is . . . what’s the word . . .
PERRY: Predictable . . . regimented . . .
STEPHEN: There’s a certain code that you have to dress by, and listen to, and that is the opposite of what punk rock is—a state of mind where you can do your own thing, and it doesn’t matter what society or any authority figure thinks about it.
PERRY: I myself am ready for something else. Not different than what I’m doing, but I’m ready for a change in the attitude of the youth. I would like to attempt to start a new attitude slightly. More of getting together, and easing up on each other. It’s all got to be torn down again and started over. Everybody is looking at each other with such scrutiny—it’s gotten so regimented. I think there is something happening now.
STEPHEN: The 60s were a real good learning period for us. We all thought life was beautiful, we had JFK, and things were looking up—we looked at the future optimistically. We are at a time now where we can see that didn’t work—it wasn’t reality that we all love each other. . . . Now it’s a good time for something new to come out because there is a good balance between optimism and what’s happening now. . . .
PERRY: I’m looking for more of a forceful optimism in the decade to come. Like the reaction I want from a crowd is as a community, it’s aggressive, but not upon each other. Now they hit each other, what are you going to accomplish when you go to a show and people are hitting you? The reaction I wanted was not to have people turning on each other—but it seems to be a hard habit to break. Especially if they go to a show and hear fast music, they immediately think “I know what to do here.”
ERIC: Plus, when they’re slamming they’re not paying attention anyway....
PERRY: Yeah, and neither are anybody else because people are concentrating more on the crowd than the music. The first thing I want to maintain is artistic integrity with the music—but sometimes it falls short in situations like that. We never played standard punk-rock beats or standard speed metal beats, we try to go past it.
STEPHEN: The bands you play with have a lot to do with the crowd.
PERRY: I’ve seen so many bands that just aren’t that good, but people are just smashing all over the place. If you’ve ever seen Fela or gone to a reggae festival, the feeling that they leave with is so much better than that reaction, because people are in such a good mood and they just want to groove. Women are there, guys are there, the feeling is much higher. I couldn’t classify it. I have thought out my life—and I have thought about the stars and the moon. . . .
ERIC: I wouldn’t say I like metal, I’d say rock. Four years ago I was in a metal band.
PERRY: I’m more into black music and African music, so the contrast and variety is there. That’s what I think keeps this band from falling into the category of bands that can only do one thing good. It’s easy to make people slam, but it’s harder to make them literally enjoy slow, beautiful music. That is a higher art. And to be able to do both is very rare. It’s kind of like life—you don’t always walk around wanting to fight. You fall in love. What are you going to do, deny your feelings? So if a band can touch every single feeling that you have, then they are for me. I’m in love, you know? Then I feel like I want to kill somebody. Sometimes I want to be serious, sometimes an idiot. All the great bands have touched on all of these and done them well.
I was in Psi Com for a long time (that basically fell apart because of religious beliefs), and I was underground, I put my own record out. But this band is way more popular, and I don’t want people to think we are not street credible because something might happen in a big way with money. I’ve basically been a street kid all my life. But wait till you see what we do with our money, it’s gonna be really creative as far as helping people. The rock star shit is fucked. I hate that shit. People come up and think “rock star” because we’re getting popular, fuck that shit.
This is on the record. If you EVER see me do anything different, you can come and fuck me up the ass, man! My artistic integrity and the whole band’s artistic integrity comes first. And as far as popularity it can become contrary because . . . I get nervous sometimes because of the popularity, but I’m not going to slow down. I’ve never gone to be a commercial guy, and never have gone out to try to get the record companies to fall in love with us.
“JANE SAYS”
PERRY FARRELL: “Jane Says,” we never put that out as a single or a video. That’s the one, of course, that gets played still today, but just to screw with them we wouldn’t put a video out on it and we wouldn’t play it live. We figured that’s the one thing we don’t want these guys to have. You can’t have the same mentality these days. You wouldn’t get anywhere. I’m amazed we got anywhere at all.
JANE BAINTER: The Sergio [in the lyrics to “Jane Says”] was a drug dealer who lived near the Wilton House. He was an El Salvadorean who was like seventeen or eighteen who came to Los Angeles with his younger brother who’s only thirteen. They were alone in the big city. Most of the local Salvadoreans were refugees who sold drugs to send money home to their families during the war.
BOB MOSS: Sergio was just a drug boyfriend. He wasn’t any real damn boyfriend. The TV was stolen and they blamed Jane and Sergio for taking it to hock for drugs. That was the assumption of the anti-Jane contingent. They didn’t like Sergio at all. He wasn’t welcome at the front door so he’d sneak around the back and holler up to her bedroom window.
ANGELO MOORE: I have no recall of jamming in the living room, but I remember this crazy party after some gig . . . at Perry’s house on Wilton. That’s the first time I took mushrooms. I saw a blue electric mask over my face and just started trippin’ outside my body. Me, Chris, Norwood were there, some of the other guys from Fishbone. Jump with Joey was there, and . . . Gaz Mayall. (Karyn Cantor)
PETE WEISS: I copped on St. Andrews many times, and that’s what the neighborhood kinda felt like. It’s like the guy with the bell on his cart or whatever, but you know east off of Beverly and stuff, that’s what that neighborhood sounds like. But yeah, that song really uh . . . nails it. . . .
JANE BAINTER: I was strung out by now, and Sergio was using that to manipulate me. One of the strongest incentives for me to finally get off of drugs was that other people can have control over you so easily, and it’s just so stupid. When I think of Sergio, it was manipulative but it was really survivalist. We were all very poor and we were all in survival mode. So if you’re hiding the TV, that’s money and that’s power. Not like anybody cared. I don’t even remember watching TV over there. It’s the idea, that this was something that somebody owned.
BOB MOSS: You know the lyric “Have you seen my wig around?” That was another thing for real, man. Jane had her wig phase. Underneath she had super-short bleached blond hair, but she used to wear this long, dark wig a lot. She just had this weird personality quirk w
here she needed to change costume and be a different person. It was just something she did without really explaining it. She wasn’t an actress so she wasn’t a natural performer. It was more personal. Jane was naturally very sweet. It all seemed pretty benign, though I never asked her upfront what was up with the wig.
CASEY NICCOLI: Jane was bizarre. . . .
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