Whores

by Brendan Mullen

  INGER LORRE: Heroin was everywhere.

  CASEY NICCOLI: Eric was probably a junkie before any of them.

  ERIC AVERY: I was so naïve about drugs. The first time I was dope-sick I didn’t even know I was dope-sick. I didn’t really get strung out until we got signed and things got rolling.

  JOHNNY NAVARRO: Dave would shoot all day and then kind of be sick all night and then kind of get well in the morning. That was the way it went for like months and months on end.

  PERRY FARRELL: Being a junkie can be a drag. Some people piss me off and they’re just potheads, they’re just lazy. I’ll take everything that’s happened to me and everything that didn’t work out . . . every trauma the band’s been through . . . and put it right on my shoulders because I know that it must have been a drag to sit there and watch a guy nodding off, not available.

  DAVE NAVARRO: Heroin ruined my dreams. It turned the thing I had worked my whole life for into the thing I wanted to get away from the most.47

  BOB FORREST: Pete Weiss had the best heroin connections in L.A., these really good China White and Persian connections, so everybody went through Pete, which obviously made him into a very popular guy with the L.A. music community, but Pete wasn’t dealing. He was just the guy who knew where to get it. They’d all go over to Pete’s house and then he’d call someone. . . .

  PETE WEISS: I never scored for those guys in my life! I just happened to share whatever I had because they were my friends. If someone’s sick you help ’em out; you didn’t charge them for it.

  FLEA: As a drug abuser at that time myself, I remember it being a total trend. [Jane’s] definitely nailed that aspect of the scene, during a time and era that I was into drugs. Isn’t that always a sort of pathetic concept in the drug addict world? Everyone’s always saying, “Oh well, I’ve been really good lately, and it’s just this one time,” and I remember always thinking, “Just shut up and get fucking high.” We’re all doing drugs and we all know it’s bad for us, but we want to do it because we like it and we’re going to do it because we’re going to have fun tonight. And we’re going to get high and we’re going to take off our clothes and we’re going to do whatever the fuck we’re going to do.

  DAVE NAVARRO: I admit I personally totally blew it with drugs back in those days. My intake was certainly a factor in the eventual demise of the band the first time around. What do you want me to say? There was always five pounds of heroin, all the booze and coke you wanted, all the strippers you wanted—all looking for nothing but guys in bands. And I wasn’t even old enough to legally drink yet?

  JOHNNY NAVARRO: I was just as bad as he was. He came out of rehab and he had that look and next think I knew we were both loaded again.

  CASEY NICCOLI: At first it was fun to get high and do art. When we first started dating, we did dope together a few times, long before it became a problem. It was just us getting high, to open up our creativity, sitting around doing art and making Christmas cards for our friends.

  DAVE NAVARRO: In Jane’s I felt very unsure, very uncomfortable. By the time we were successful I was so down in the depths of despair that I didn’t experience any of it. Perhaps the level of success we did reach enabled me to get through the destructive side of my [heroin] use quicker, because I was able to spend more money and go down faster. Whereas, who knows how many years it would have gone on had my habit been $50 a day?48

  MARC GEIGER: Three of the four members—not Stephen—were very into heroin, as well as many other things, and it was clearly a big influence on the band and their behavior. Perry definitely believed that drugs fueled creativity.

  STEVEN BAKER: Perry was always trying to experiment. He was advocating a lot of interesting stuff. Drugs were amongst them.

  CASEY NICCOLI: Perry was more of a crack addict, or coke addict, than he was a heroin addict. I became a heroin addict when he started touring because I didn’t like being alone. I didn’t plan on it.

  It just happened. It took me a long time to get past it. Perry would come back from touring while I was strung out. Then he would get high with me for a couple of weeks.

  JOHN FRUSCIANTE: Before I’d had any serious drug experiences I would hear stories and it just seemed like Perry was living on the edge. I was really proud of him for that. We were so used to Anthony having all his anti-drug raps in interviews and stuff. We were at a rehearsal and there was an issue of BAM and there was an interview with Perry in it and they asked him, “What are your experiences with heroin?” and he said, “It was great!”

  PERRY FARRELL: I didn’t get into this to make sermons or set up structures for others to live by. My intent has nothing to do with teaching. It’s to amuse myself on this completely boring planet. Listen, I’m very happy. Every day is different for me. At least I’m not in some box eight hours a day.49

  FLEA: [It was all about] sexual freedom, the freedom to say, “So what if I’m on drugs, this is great.” And then someone could say, “Well that’s really bad to say that because then it makes people who love you, kids, think they should do drugs and that could ruin their lives.” People have to make their own decisions with what to do, and I think if someone comes out and says, “I do heroin and I love it and I’m having the time of my life and ‘waa-hoo’,” they’re at least telling the truth. I’d way rather have that than some full-of-shit dickhead like Rush Limbaugh hiding it while preaching that everybody else should be locked up. . . .

  PETE WEISS: I think Perry coming out and saying heroin is [great for creativity] . . . for him it probably was, but how could he know whether it was the events and influences around him, or if it was the heroin? It was all happening simultaneously so maybe he just thought the great stuff was the dope, and thought, “Maybe that’s what’s making me so creative.” Maybe the lesson is that he can now say, “This is what drugs did to me and my band, I thought it was a good idea at the time, but now I know it wasn’t. I realize I made a mistake and said the wrong thing. I can’t take it back, but I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone now, especially young kids and teens.”

  PERRY FARRELL: People who do drugs want me to hail it. And the people who don’t want me to hang myself. They want to argue, “Yeah, but what about kids out there?” My opinion is [that] drugs can be beneficial and are necessary, [but] if they’re used improperly; just like a ski, you’re gonna break your leg or even worse. So if you don’t wanna ski, don’t ski. I wouldn’t advocate being a drug addict to anybody; it’s a waste of time. Life is short. Get carried away. Be smart so you live to see another day.50

  CASEY NICCOLI: With heroin, I just couldn’t stop.

  PERRY FARRELL: The whole point about drugs is to wake up and tell the story. It’s just like surfing—the whole point is to get out of the tube. Nature put ’em here and, as many claim, God is in control of Nature. If he wants them here, who am I to argue?51

  BOB FORREST: [The scene] was very pro-heroin. I personally thought everybody should be on it. I wound up losing my teeth and pooing in my pants for the trouble! But Perry never got to that level. He’s very controlled, very kind of moral . . . extremely disciplined.

  CARLA BOZULICH: I was so impressed that Perry seemed able to control his drug use.

  CASEY NICCOLI: He could go on a little dope binge and then go out and run ten miles. Perry was able to walk away. Just bounce right back and start touring again. He didn’t stay strung out when he toured, whereas Dave was always strung out on the road. Perry did a lot of coke on the road, because promoters supply a lot of coke, but as far as being a junkie, he really wasn’t a junkie like most junkies are. He was like a part-timer. But with coke, he had a harder time [quitting].

  JOHN FRUSCIANTE: Even though Perry talked about drugs and gave the impression he was some kind of drug addict, and he obviously smoked a lot of weed, I don’t think he was ever a heroin addict. He would just go on drug binges and then not do them for a while.

  PERRY FARRELL: I am narcissistic, extremely, and I love feeling gorgeous, and when drugs get to the point whe
re I feel I’ve lost the edge and I’m a piece of shit, my better senses tell me I’ll never get laid again; no one else will ever adore or love me, so take a break.52

  JANE BAINTER: I don’t know if he was shooting hard narcotics like meth or coke or smack during his time at the Wilton House, but when he did it was all done in a very exploratory way. He was pro-drugs . . . pro-exploration, pro-experience, pro-experimentation . . . pro any drug. . . .

  PERRY FARRELL: I will not try to impress you as a functioning drug addict—many people are, they think it’s really cool. And it is kinda cool if you can take those kinda drugs and put them to good use.

  JOHN FRUSCIANTE: Perry once offered to do a debate with Henry Rollins. He said, “Hey Henry, how about we do a debate on television where I’m pro-drugs and you’re anti-drugs?” And Henry freaked out. He’s like: “I’ll kill you! If we did that I would murder you!” We were all surprised about what an unfriendly reaction Henry was having. I think Perry thought it would be like a friendly heated debate . . . because they have differences of opinion, but Henry did not have a friendly response.

  JOHNNY NAVARRO: Dave and I got even closer when we were loaded. In modern psych terminology it was called enablement, back then it was called a running mate. He always had a girlfriend as his primary running mate but I was his secondary running mate, if you will, and sometimes I slipped into the primary position because a girl isn’t always what you want when you need to fix. Dave and I would always help each other out. We would score downtown Los Angeles, not St. Andrews. That comes from when Perry was living in the Wilton House and all that.

  CHARLEY BROWN: After they got the advance that’s when it really started. Biggest all-time rock cliché. First thing they do with the money is stop writing and buy the heroin indenti-kits; they’d already become rock stars before they’d earned out a penny.

  JOHNNY NAVARRO: We used to score our shit on the street. You would think that the guitar player in Jane’s Addiction would have a dealer set, a reliable steady connect, right? We didn’t have a dealer. We would score our shit on the street every day.

  JOHN FRUSCIANTE: Forgive me for saying something that is maybe not true, but I think heroin might have been their main muse . . . it seems to me that heroin must have coaxed the writing of some of these Jane’s Addiction songs, especially with Dave.

  JOHNNY NAVARRO: Dave OD’d on the road a couple of times, he OD’d during the recording of Ritual a couple of times. Our street connects pretty much dried up when the sun went down because the cops get busy in the dark. If you can’t score you have to make sure you have enough to last you through the night.

  PERRY FARRELL: I’m simply writing the way Bob Dylan did when he said he married Isis, man. I’m just dreaming it all up. I mean, did Dylan really go riding in on a horse on the fifth day of May in the drizzle and the rain? I don’t think it’s anybody’s business if I choose to sit there and bang myself on the head with a board . . . if you don’t get anything extra for being healthy, why should you be penalized for being a little sick?53

  FROM AN INTERVIEW BY BRUCE DUFF IN MUSIC CONNECTION MAGAZINE

  Circa May 1987

  MUSIC CONNECTION: Are you really signing with Warner Bros.?

  PERRY: We think we are. If we don’t sign with them, you’re gonna see three dead bodies. . . .

  STEPHEN: . . . with X’s on them.

  PERRY: The papers are all like there and everything

  STEPHEN: It’s an 80-page contract.

  DAVE: We’ve seen the contract.

  STEPHEN: It’s like a book.

  PERRY: And we know everything about that contract, too, by the way. Oh, yeah, you think anything’s gonna get by us? Man, I’ll watch your spit fly!

  DAVE: We discussed producers and stuff like that.

  PERRY: Actually, we prefer a pushover.

  MUSIC CONNECTION: Someone you can boss around?

  PERRY: Oh, fuck yea!

  STEPHEN: We have the best ideas.

  PERRY: Actually, I shouldn’t say that, ’cuz hopefully we’ll get somebody who’s a great person to work with us. It’s just that if a producer thinks they’re gonna go in there and tell us at all what’s the final say they got the wrong band. They’ll find that out.54

  MARC GEIGER: Ultimately, Perry always got everything he wanted.

  CASEY NICCOLI: When he put his mind to something, Perry always got things done. He was a leader. He stuck his nose into everybody’s business and sometimes he pissed people off, but he always got what he wanted.

  NEW MUSIC SEMINAR (NMS)

  July 1987

  CHARLEY BROWN: We were in New York for the New Music Seminar where there are massive showcases and hundreds of bands in all the clubs every night for a week. It was their first year before the record came out, and it was a big deal, big showcase, and we had gotten a real cool slot. It was like a one o’clock showing at the Ritz, and we were really stoked.

  KEITH MORRIS (former vocalist, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, West Coast punk rock icon): Jane’s was playing a showcase at the Ritz with Flesh for Lulu, New Model Army, and That Petrol Emotion. The guys from Flesh for Lulu were assholes who made it a point to push the entire show back, causing Jane’s Addiction to go on way after two A.M.

  CHARLEY BROWN: Flesh for Lulu apparently had an early ten o’clock slot, and pulled the petulant rock star thing because nobody was there to see them, and so they did a no show, but then their agent begged me to let them play before us. Just for fifteen minutes he promised. For “the cause.” Like a fool, I let them do it due to those stipulations, but then Flesh for Lulu took total advantage. . . .

  ERIC AVERY: Stephen even lent them cymbals, or something, in good faith. . . .

  JON SIDEL: Jane’s got bumped to the end and everyone left and we were in this big empty hall. There were like twenty people there, fifteen of them friends of the band, but they still went out and played their asses off anyway. There were punch-ups backstage. Tension was everywhere. It just set the music even more on fire.

  KEITH MORRIS: Flesh for Lulu wouldn’t quit and they played a full-length show. There’s like six people left to see Jane’s. Rick Rubin was one of them, Jon Sidel was another. And they played probably one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen them play. It was just unbelievable.

  CHARLEY BROWN: Flesh for Lulu played for nearly an hour by the time I got the sound guy to shut them off and drop the curtain in the middle of the song.

  ERIC AVERY: We were sitting at the side of the stage just steaming.

  CHARLEY BROWN: Perry is by nature a very excitable guy—especially when someone is stealing his thunder. As soon as the curtain went down, he just tore across the stage and slugged the singer hard on the nose and, he had like this huge honker, and the shit just hit the fan, just everything broke loose.

  ERIC AVERY: When they were finally done, Perry just went after their lead singer. BOOM!

  CHARLEY BROWN: Nasal blood gushing everywhere. Bloody cymbals flyin’ around. Rock ’n’ roll carny, a guaranteed freakshow, presented by your compere for the evening, ladies and gentlemen . . . Perry Farrell, that demented dizzy droog in diva drag [starring in] Jane’s Addiction versus Flesh for Lulu! Lulu’s road manager was the classic obese Limey gorilla stereotype in a Hawaiian shirt with jeans fallin’ down his ass complete with hairy butt crack showin’ . . . and he’s got Dean by the throat pushed up against the wall with his feet dangling. It was fuckin’ g-r-reat! A knock-’em-down, all-out hillbilly brawl; bare-knuckles, teeth, spit ’n’ blood! We called them Flush for Lulu for the rest of the tour. It was total rock ’n’ roll to the bone. Bands just don’t do crazy shit like that anymore.

  ERIC OD’S AT THE CHELSEA

  CHARLEY BROWN: After the Flesh for Lulu dust-up we went back to the Chelsea Hotel. We were staying there because we had this thing about Sid [Vicious]. We just left the guys to do their thing, and sometime before dawn, Peter [Heur] and I went out for a bite, and that’s when we saw this ambulance pulling away from the Chelsea. I said t
o Peter, “What asshole chump was possessed by the spirit of Sid?” Soon Dave called me kinda teary that Eric had OD’d. We all charged down to see Eric in this medical center. He came “this close” to dying. Perry was super-pissed. It cost a lot of money to get him out of there.