ERIC AVERY: Dave saw me off [from the Chelsea] in an ambulance and then hopped in a cab and got there [to the hospital] before the ambulance! The cab driver drove like a maniac and beat the ambulance there. Dave got irate at the emergency room insisting I was there and they kept saying, sorry, no one here of that name. It was embarrassing, so passé of me, especially being a bass player like Sid was!
CHARLEY BROWN: After we sprung Eric from the hospital everybody was buzzing about this unannounced show Perry had set up at the Lismar Lounge in Alphabet City, which was sort of a Hell’s Angels’ dive bar. Perry’s brother Farrell [Bernstein], like his father, was a jeweler. Farrell had strong ties to the Angels; he fulfilled their need for jewelry emphasizing skulls and Germanic iron crosses, but I don’t think he was ever actually initiated. Perry worshipped him. That’s why he took his name. We were in a club where absolutely nobody gave a shit about Jane’s Addiction. Afterward there was an altercation . . . with this Angel guy.
ERIC AVERY: The day I got out of the hospital, that night we played in a bar. Perry said something snide about how I was in the hospital this morning and here he is playing a show. He gave me a public “atta boy” kind of thing.
CHARLEY BROWN: Farrell Bernstein had the Hell’s Angel hook-up to look out for us, a little bit of security, which was another reason why we picked it down there, the Lismar Lounge . . . where G. G. Allin, the crazy, trainwreck guy would play when he’d get to New York. . . .
MIKE STEWART: I was in New York for the New Music Seminar, a couple of months later [after the debut of Scream East], hanging out at the Lismar Lounge, right around the corner from the local Hell’s Angels HQ. I knew a couple of people from there from doing Scream, so we’re hangin’ out at this grungy old grebo biker bar with these fucked-up hard-core glam bands playing, like the Lunachicks would be there. Lismar was the size of the Viper Room. It was disgusting, like CBGB-style gross disgusting. Dark, dank, dusty, dirty with fucked-up bathrooms. They had tattooed girl bartenders, or maybe they were drag queens—who knows—that looked like they’d beat the crap out of you. One of them was in the Cycle Sluts from Hell. Hell’s Angels and rastas hanging around everywhere. It was really intimidating if you didn’t know somebody who hung out there.
CHARLEY BROWN: Playing in the corner of some filthy Hell’s Angel toilet in some rat-infested New York cellar had a sleazy, dangerous edge, which Perry loved.
MIKE STEWART: Jane’s Addiction was hanging out with us and Rick Rubin is also there. So Rick tells me behind their backs, “I only like Jane’s Addiction because of that Dave Navarro guy. If you could get me Dave Navarro, I’d be forever in your debt, Mike.” I said, “Dude, what are you asking me to do? You want me to tell Dave Navarro you want to sign him out of Jane’s Addiction?” He just thought David was a rock god. He said, “Oh my god, I need that guy. I could make him a star.” I just remember telling Rick these guys were my friends. They’re such an amazing band I wouldn’t want to see them break up, but I’ll tell David because it’s his right to know, but I hope he doesn’t do it. I mentioned it to Dave. It wasn’t a good thing, thank goodness. I was personally so relieved that he didn’t.
ERIC AVERY: Rick Rubin had never been a fan of Jane’s Addiction. He just didn’t get it. He tried to get Stephen and Dave to leave. He wanted them to do something else because they’re such great players. Rubin’s like the big heavy metal guy of the day, and so, of course, he just wasn’t diggin’ on the likes of me, and especially Perry . . . and Perry really hated him for that. When Perry found out about Rick’s agenda to raid both Perkins and Navarro, he was super-pissed. . . .
MIKE STEWART: Rick probably wanted Dave for Danzig . . . or maybe it was the Four Horsemen, remember them? What was the other guy? Chris Goss? What was his band? [Masters of Reality] Maybe Rick thought Dave looked hotter to young girls, and would go good with Chris, who knows what the fuck he was thinking. . . .
CHARLEY BROWN: . . . if it wasn’t Danzig, it was some other male cretin act from back East I can’t remember. So, like . . . everything’s going pretty cool that night [at the Lismar]. Dave and Steve met a couple of girls. Suddenly this well-dressed black dude comes in the bar. The Big Hush falls over the joint. Guy’s a little drunk, tries to order a drink, but the bartender won’t serve him, right? So this major rip breaks out, and they booted his ass out, and everything gets back to normal for a minute or two, but now he comes runnin’ back in wavin’ a fuckin’ Glock! Oh, shit! I pushed Dave and Steve and the girls underneath the table.
ERIC AVERY: I was still out of it. . . . I don’t remember anybody menacing us, but there were a lot of mean-looking biker dudes hanging out, but they just seemed cool for the most part. . . .
CHARLEY BROWN: The Angels had these hidden mechanical knives up the inside of their wrists, always ready to go; they could snap out blades from under their sleeves in any major standoff and literally hack their adversaries to pieces! If the other guy had a gun, as in this instance, he might be able to smoke one or two of the Angels before the rest of ’em got to him and opened up his throat, right? The dude obviously knew it . . . and so the guy slowly backs out of the bar, cussing . . . and he hops in a cab. Everybody runs out and jumps on their bikes and speeds after the taxi. They’re gone for like an hour or whatever, and when they get back I try to talk to one of the Angels. I says, “You know that crazy black dude with the gun about an hour ago, what happened?” He was like, “Listen, smart guy, nothing happened, OK!??” Then he starts shouting real loud, “Nobody was here! He doesn’t exist! He never existed! Get the hell away from me!” I was like, “OK. OK. OK.”
MR. MOJO RISIN’: Dark Vibe in the Tradition of The Doors and the Velvets
JIM MORRISON: Wanna see my rig? Is that any way to behave at a rock ’n’ roll concert?
PERRY FARRELL: Summertime, and a young man’s cock gets hard. Blow jobs on stage? Those are good. Not every night, though.
DAVE NAVARRO: We can’t help but capture some of what L.A. is.
PERRY FARRELL: How many of you like [being] pressed up against other men? Does it turn you on?
PERRY FARRELL: Have you ever once thought about sucking a man’s cock? A kid says, “Yeah.” “He has? Now we’re getting somewhere! We’ve all been lifted.”
PERRY FARRELL (between songs at the Universal Amphitheater, Studio City, Los Angeles): The next orgasm I have, I’m going to lift everyone to a higher place, I’m going to a place that’s free. Who wants to come with me? I want to know true freedom.
JIM MORRISON: When sex involves all the senses intensely, it becomes a mystical experience.
FLEA: For Los Angeles, the list of bands who capture and help define the times in their music goes something like this: Love, The Doors, the Germs, X, Jane’s. You can even draw some comparisons between Jim Morrison and Perry.
PETE WEISS: Sometimes they’d encore with this awesome medley of “L.A. Woman” (Doors) going into “Nausea” (by X) and “Lexicon Devil” (Germs).
DAVE NAVARRO: We’re from here, I was born in L.A. Eric and Stephen were born here. We make music based on our environments.
MARC GEIGER: It was a different age. People were a little more easily spooked [then] . . . the vibe surrounding Jane’s seemed to come from a really dark, drug-intense place. It was really just Perry’s way of expressing art.
FLEA: Those Jane’s guys have a major darkness to them. They’re very polite, they’re nice, cool, caring people, but they definitely have a part of them that’s dark, a part of them that’s mysterious and afraid; a part that is angry and all of those things that make up what we call dark. It’s also an aesthetic that they really embraced because they were good at it. And they actually played that way. It was beautiful.
DAVE NAVARRO: When I listen to music that’s really dark, I get this overwhelming sensation that I’m not alone, that I’m not crazy. It’s a little comforting.55
ERIC AVERY: We were certainly concerned with things dark, all of us. With the exception of Stephen, we were all dark
people. The drugs and the lifestyle and . . . the twisted gallows humor.
CASEY NICCOLI: I don’t think Perry meant to study the darker end of the occult. I think you find that out when you study it.
JOSH RICHMAN: When they [Perry and Casey] would get dark they would get real dark together, too.
PERRY FARRELL: Just playing with darkness, that’s like half an idea. I need to know more. I want to know about lightness.56
DAVE NAVARRO: Sure, I enjoy dark music, but I don’t think of the band as “dark,” it’s too multidimensional. “Then She Did” is a very dark song about death, but then that same album has “Been Caught Stealing,” which is very poppy and upbeat and tongue-in-cheek about an experience Perry had as a kid and now he’s laughing about it; but nobody wants to say we’re a goofy, carefree band, they gravitate toward the darkness. There’s also happiness and joy. Listen to “Summertime Rolls,” it’s an amazing, beautiful song . . . and “Jane Says” is a true story. . . .
ERIC AVERY: We were concerned with passion, expression, and experience. There are certainly sweet aspects to what we did. “Summertime Rolls” comes to mind.
PERRY FARRELL: I enjoy going to the end of the pier and looking to see what’s over the railings. We had a lot of adventure, dark adventure you might say, but it doesn’t mean that we’re not good people, and it doesn’t mean that we don’t know where to stand. You’ve got to experiment with this life.
MARC GEIGER: Stephen was the odd man out. He was the good kid from the Valley who was an unbelievable drummer and a happy, peacekeeping influence.
STEPHEN PERKINS: I’m a very positive person, I’m not at all dark. I’m the blue sky in Jane’s Addiction. I’m happy to be that role. That’s how my drum parts sound. Percolating, bubbly, bouncy, ’cause that’s who and what I am. That’s my expression. Some people might think that I play a lot. I’m just being myself. I talk a lot. I feel a lot. That’s me.
PERRY FARRELL: Stephen wasn’t a drug addict. He’s a great, great spirit and it comes across in his playing. Stephen is one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet, and, remember, this poor guy had three horrible junkies in his band forever and the guy always put up with it. He’d hear bad news about us, the kid would just fall apart. The look in his eyes was like telling a kid he couldn’t go to sleepaway camp.
STEPHEN PERKINS: The dark and the light. I think the movement of Jane’s Addiction is generally positive; it’s a movement of children, future, sunshine, fresh air.
STEVEN BAKER: Perry was constantly advocating sex.
PERRY FARRELL: Ask around. I’m not a prude.57
STEVEN BAKER: His dick was frequently hanging out of his pants after one song.
DAVE NAVARRO: It happened quite often where something naughty popped out from his clothing. . . .
PERRY FARRELL: I used to whip my cock out all the time. I did it because it was just something to do. And then it became a thing. As long as I could whip out my dick, I knew I was alive.
CHARLEY BROWN: I made him promise he wouldn’t do it anymore. I mean I loved it, the outrage of it, the showmanship of it, it’s just I didn’t want it to get in the way of what was happening musically. I thought the music was really magical . . . and, remember, the same thing helped kill off Jim Morrison’s stage career twenty years earlier. Now we’re slap in the middle of this puritanical revival.
It’s PRMC time and the Tipper Gore Show [mid- to late 80s]. This flashing shtick of Perry’s was flirting with danger. . . .
DAVE JERDEN: The Doors were never able to come back after Morrison’s arrest for onstage flashing. . . .58
MAKING THE MARK ON SEATTLE
October 24, 1987
Jane’s Addiction, Green River at Scream.
JEFF AMENT (musician, songwriter, Green River, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam): Green River was Stone Gossard and I with Mark Arm and Steve Turner who went on to form Mudhoney and our very last gig was at the Scream at the Embassy Hotel in Los Angeles, sometime during fall of ’87. We opened up, Junkyard from Austin played second and Jane’s headlined. Stone and I were on the side of the stage when Jane’s was playing, totally mesmerized by the interaction between the band and the crowd. There was just something about the way Perry connected with them. The audience was singing along to everything. They knew every word to every song. It was the first time I had seen an alternative music show where it was like the most reverential hard-rock crowd. That night Jane’s Addiction showed us that you could do something totally different and make it work, which basically caused Green River to break up since the other guys didn’t dig it as much as Stone and I did. Our drummer hated them. When we got back to Seattle we just knew we wanted to do something else, something with less limitations, something that had endless possibilities and that’s what Jane’s seemed like to us. It really inspired us. It seemed like they could go in any direction. They could have been The Cure or they could have been Led Zeppelin, or anything else they wanted to be; that was exactly the sort of open-ended band we wanted to be in, and so Stone and I formed a new band, Mother Love Bone.
BOB FORREST: It was obvious that Mother Love Bone liked Jane’s Addiction. Somehow those two bands seemed to have the same kind of concept: mixing the metal we grew up with and punk rock . . . they also both hooked up with the indie DIY punk attitude at about the same time.
JEFF AMENT: We soon hooked up with Andy Wood [from this band Malfunction] to be Mother Love Bone’s lead singer. I first saw Malfunction probably around ’83 in Seattle. It’s amazing how similar what Andy was doing then to what Perry was doing in terms of the campiness. Andy strutted in pancake makeup and was throwing out a T. Rex, Freddie Mercury vibe. Like Perry, Andy was also super funny, yet at the same time sexually ambiguous. Half the crowd didn’t know if Andy was for real or if it was a joke. Jane’s had a lot to do with what Mother Love Bone became; they helped define what Stone and I wanted to do musically, to be a heavy groove hard-rock band with some arty leanings.
PERRY FARRELL: The first time we went up to Seattle, we were hanging out and partying with the Mother Love Bone guys that eventually became Pearl Jam. That was the pre-Nirvana era. There was one brewing, but it wasn’t like a fully blown band scene yet. We had a great time up there, we really revved up the kids in Seattle.
ERIC AVERY: I always really liked Seattle as a place on tour because it had a different energy.
Postcard to Dayle Gloria from Mother Love Bone, the proto-Pearl Jam band Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard were inspired to form immediately after seeing Jane’s Addiction live. (Courtesy Dayle Gloria)
PERRY FARRELL: There was a really great community that was responsive to what we were doing. The crowd felt like it was lit up and electrified. You could feel its warmth. They were aware of the feeling that was happening in the country, with the music, with us—they were so onto it.
BOB FORREST: Jane’s Addiction and the bands out of the Seattle scene and . . . even Guns N’ Roses . . . were among this new breed of rock bands who said, “We’re going to mix it all together and it’s going to be this new hybrid gumbo of metal, hard rock and punk. . . .”
JEFF AMENT: There were many other different things going on, but if there was any direct influence [on our scene] by Jane’s Addiction it was that; whether you were a punk rocker not afraid to play a big heavy riff or if you were a heavy guy not afraid to pick up an acoustic guitar.
ERIC AVERY: It just seemed like everybody was in a band, a carryover from the early punk rock days which I never experienced first hand, but the idea of it had carried on in Seattle just like it had in L.A.
PERRY FARRELL: One of the great shows we did during that era was in Seattle. We have footage of it in our short film—go to Soul Kiss and you see where I’m wearing a big green hat and a pair of white glasses. Those glasses were stolen from the kid in Mother Love Bone, who eventually overdosed [Andrew Wood]. May he rest in peace.
ERIC AVERY: Seattle always had cool clubs, there was always live music going on there all the way back to the 50s an
d 60s. Now there was an explosion of rock clubs and people playing in each other’s bands. Such an incredibly interconnected web of creativity and out of it pops all these new bands like Soundgarden. I just loved their grooves, they were super heavy and cool.
CHRIS CORNELL (lead vocalist, songwriter-lyricist, Soundgarden): Seattle was a very autonomous scene. [Jane’s Addiction] were liked, but the bands that were really heroes of the Seattle scene tended to be really aggressive, post-punk indie bands like the Butthole Surfers. So for any L.A. band to make any kind of impact at that time was huge because if you were a band from L.A. and weren’t Black Flag, nobody wanted to know. When the [Jane’s Addiction] Triple X record came out everybody knew about it, everyone knew what was going on, everybody had the record.
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