Whores

by Brendan Mullen

  MIKE WATT: He was always looking at it like someone in the crowd who thinks, “Hey, I want to see something that I don’t see with the other bands.” Perr’s whole thing about ENIT was not to have them at regular same old, same old venues. Get out in the woods and stuff. Go anywhere but the norm. He ran into a lot of problems with that. A lot of promoters didn’t want to do it.

  DANIEL ASH: Originally there was going to be between twenty and thirty gigs but it eventually got condensed down to five or six, because of screwups with management and organization.

  ADAM SCHNEIDER: All of the money Perry made on Lollapalooza ’96 he poured into his own festival. [Love & Rockets, as well as Black Grape and Buju Banton later pulled out of ENIT; and due to poor ticket sales, many of the dates were canceled.]

  PAUL V.: ENIT crumbled pretty steadily where a lot of people who were supposed to be in it changed their mind and it fell apart and Perry had to foot the bill. ENIT was a great idea and Perry could have made it something better. He did what he could with the situation because he was still with Kim Leung at that point. As long as Kim was in the picture not a lot was going to get done.

  MIKE WATT: I did three tours [playing bass] with Porno: the ENIT tour, a U.S. tour, and an Australia/New Zealand tour. I had never played the sideman role before. Some of these guys were famous so there was a lot of hype associated with them that I never had to deal with before. In the music media world it turned into this huge hyped-up thing, an “alternative super group.” I hated the whole idea of that “alternative” shtick as a way of selling things in the early 90s.

  PAUL V.: Perry Farrell is an artist in every sense of the word. He’s a visual artist, he’s a musician, he’s a singer, but he doesn’t create hoping to line his pockets. He creates in the hopes of turning people on and bringing them in to his ideas. Very few people can say that and back it up for real.

  MIKE WATT: What hurt Perr real bad was the last ENIT tour. It cost him a lot of bones. He put his fucking heart and soul, even his own cash into it. We were in Miami. His dad was dying, and he tells his pop I’m putting up my own moolah into this. It was a heavy time. People try to disrespect him as superfluous, but the dude is pretty real. Coming from the Minutemen I see almost everything as a splurge. I don’t use hotels. I conk at peoples’ houses still. I was like, “Hey, I’m on the deck. You can put me on the fucking deck of the bus and save some bones.” It was a privilege to play the music. I didn’t need all that shit. I’m not used to it. That shit adds up real quick and then he’s bringing in the dancers because he wants a spectacle.

  PETER DI STEFANO: If I tanked my life’s savings, I would be devastated. I didn’t hear about that until after. Everything came out of his pocket. Perry’s very generous. I just showed up at the end and partied. That was all Perry’s doing.

  MIKE WATT: That was one of the big heartbreaks for me. I just didn’t dig the idea of everybody partying with Perr’s money. Perr took all the risk. But then you hear the bitching and the moaning. I’ll stand behind him 100 percent. There was a lot of expectation put on it. He was really going to have fun and really blow it up and maybe change the business of rock a little bit.

  JOSH RICHMAN: Perry would put his own cash into anything he believed in. Lollapalooza made him money, but Perry felt that Lollapalooza was no more important or valuable an idea than ENIT. He’s succeeded, he’s failed, but he’s always had the balls to put himself out there. . . .

  DANIEL ASH: Money wasn’t everything for Perry. That’s why he’s successful. He’s an optimist.

  PERRY FARRELL: I’m not interested in the money, I prefer to draw from the spirit world. . . .

  MIKE WATT: The ENIT show at Big Bear was great in every way, the production, the sounds, the lights. Flawless. Spot on. It was a ski lodge out in the woods, which was neat.

  DANIEL ASH: That was a crazy night, a hell of a good time. I got totally plastered on lots of different things. I remember seeing Perry and thinking, “Jesus, how skinny is this guy?” He looked like he was under a lot of stress. He was like skin and bone, but having a great time still.

  PERRY FARRELL: That was the longest I’ve ever French-kissed a guy. Daniel holds the record.

  DANIEL ASH: I was in a good mood. I was high and I went to the front of the stage and started acting like a fan and waving my arms and everything just as a joke. Then somebody pulled me up on stage—I can’t remember who—and we were dancing around. I sort of jumped on Perry, wrestled him to the floor, we were both laughing and joking and that’s all I remember. . . .

  PETER DI STEFANO: Daniel Ash just came out at the end, drunk as a skunk and had some fun. It was just a joke. He came out and sang with us and slapped Perry on the ears. It was all great fun. He got caught up in the moment. He wanted to jump on stage. I was on ecstasy and heroin. That show was the best, and the one in New York.

  MIKE WATT: Perry hears everything. He’s like a conductor with a baton except with his hands. I’d watch his hands. I could always tell when I was too loud or too bassy. He ran us tight. [Some thought] the guy was out of his fucking mind and oblivious. Bullshit, I was on stage with him. He had that shit down. He could hear the smallest clam, when one single note was sour ass. He told me one time about knocking Dave Navarro out [after he wouldn’t stop playing in between songs]. He was like, “Dude, the song finished already!” BAM!

  JOHN FRUSCIANTE: Martyn had been out of the public eye for about six months when Perry called him up about playing in Porno again.

  MARTYN LE NOBLE: I had already been out of the band for nine months, or something, and Mike Watt had been touring with them in my place. I was still living with John [Frusciante] and we were both still in horrible shape, just the worst shape. I got a phone call from Perry. They were playing at the American Legion Hall. He asked me if I wanted to play a show with them and join Porno for Pyros again. I said sure. Perry sent over these food baskets in preparation for the show to get us healthy.

  JOHN FRUSCIANTE: It seemed like this big offer was coming out of heaven or something. Martyn was going to play a song or two at the end. . . .

  MARTYN LE NOBLE: Mike was going to do the first part of the show and halfway through I was going to finish it or play a couple of songs. Showtime I’m standing on the side of the stage with John, Christina Applegate—she was kind of watching me at the time, trying to save my life—and then it’s my turn to go on. I walked out and Mike unplugs his bass and hands me the cable and suddenly Perry goes, “No, no, no . . . get off, get him off, get him outta here!” he shoo’d me off like an animal, like a dog, like in front of all these people. I was like, “Oh my god. What’s happening to me?”

  JOHN FRUSCIANTE: That fucking hurt Martyn’s feelings. Watt was crying afterwards because he felt so bad about being put in the middle of this weird dispute. I’m not judging the situation, I’m not saying Perry was right or wrong, but I never heard an actual concrete explanation. When Perry called it off at the last second it was such a bummer that messed Martyn’s head up even more. . . .

  MARTYN LE NOBLE: I walked back off the stage and sat there and said what the fuck? What just happened? Mike comes off the stage and he’s crying and he goes, “I’m so sorry, that’s so fucked up.” I left. Although I was really fucked up when I got there, I would still have been able to play. He could have dismissed me from off the stage. He could have walked over to me at the side, but it was in front of everyone.

  “RELAPSE” (1997) THREE-MONTH TOUR

  DAVE NAVARRO (to Alan di Perna in ’96): Personally, I don’t want to be out on tour past the age of thirty.

  BRYAN RABIN: When Jane’s re-formed in ’97, Flea was standing in for Eric. I had really emotional feelings. I didn’t want to see something once great that I’d come of age watching . . . now old, tired, and stupid. I needn’t have worried for a second. Perry still was able to stir a cauldron and whip up this incredible frenzy. When you go see this band, you never feel like, oh, I’m in the Park Plaza or I’m in the Forum. You completely get transport
ed, time stands till, and you don’t want it to end.

  PERRY FARRELL: I only did it because I thought it would be fun. Before this is not viable anymore, I wanted to do it one more time, have a good time with some friends and let it be that, but I’m already drained. I’m already starting to feel worn down, my words are not coming as quickly as I wish they would.133

  STEPHEN PERKINS: Dave and Flea started hanging out with us and helping out with Porno after Pete was diagnosed with testicular cancer shortly after Good God’s Urge was finished. Knock on wood, he survived and he’s doing great. It all started when we did a song together (“Hard Charger”) for the Howard Stern movie Private Parts.

  JANE BAINTER: Eric and Perry tried to reconcile. They went to lunch to talk about it, but they just weren’t able to work it out. I think it’s a total mutual lack of toleration, like: “I already understand what you’re all about and I’m not going to deal with it anymore. Can’t. Won’t.”

  ERIC AVERY: I just didn’t want to drag the old whore out and dress her up again.

  PERRY FARRELL: We weren’t friends. I felt I was working very hard, not being appreciated, and uh . . . I wanna go and do my thing and I wanna be able to express myself and I don’t want to have to play games with people to do that.134 I wish he would have just said let’s play some more. That would have made me so happy. If I was wrong, then that’s a drag and I should be ashamed of myself. But then again, if he was wrong, he should be ashamed of himself. We could have been playing these songs together, and I don’t know if he’s going to have a situation like that again in his lifetime, but I’ve sized it up and surmised that this could be the great blessing that I’ve been given in my life so I should not throw it out the window. He should have hung in there.

  (The worst part was that it showed that I was part of a group of people that couldn’t get along. In the Jewish religion, all debts are forgiven. I thought it would be great to say, “Whatever happened in the past, let’s just forget about it. Let’s start over. We had a past together. We had a success together. Let’s go off and, for the people, have a great time, and have them have a great time.”)135

  ERIC AVERY: Perry called [to ask me to rejoin] and I said I’d think about it. So we got together for lunch. I was looking at it more as an opportunity to heal the rift on a personal level. I wanted to say, “Let’s each agree to just go our separate way as friends.” It was going that way until he asked me if I wanted to come back and when I said no he just flipped out. He was just so angry. And I said, “I’m really sorry it’s going this way, Perry. I’d hoped that we could part as friends today.” And he said, “We were never friends!”

  PERRY FARRELL: He knew very well why I was asking him to lunch—to invite him back to play and tour with us again. He could have said politely, you know, it’s not going to happen. He could have saved me the heartache of winding my hopes up and then embarrassing me at the end of the meal by saying no. He could have just been upfront and said no, and I would have accepted it, but it was Eric’s mind game to see me squirm. That’s kind of the wrong time to say to a guy, “Hey, I know I just crushed you, but let’s be friends.” Ever see a cop beat the crap out of a guy and when he’s putting him in the car he says, “Watch your head?” Fuck you.

  CASEY NICCOLI: Perry never even apologized, which might have gone a long way. . . .

  MARTYN LE NOBLE: I was doing a reunion show with Porno for Pyros for the Tibetan Freedom Concert right before the Relapse Tour. They were already working on the Jane’s reunion from behind the scenes. A few people in Perry’s organization came up to me and said, “Congratulations, you’re going to be in Jane’s Addiction.” I was like, “Really? I am?” But I never heard about it again so I went back to Atlanta where I was living at that time and Flea ended up doing that tour, which in retrospect was probably a good thing because I was newly clean.

  STEPHEN PERKINS: We just decided, “Let’s do Jane’s Addiction with Flea.”

  FLEA: Stephen called to ask me to play. I said, “Hold on, let me check my schedule.” About two milliseconds later I came back and said, “Okay.”136

  PERRY FARRELL: We’d been old, old friends with Flea. I remember running into him at parties, seeing him and always admiring him. I went through Stephen to make the connection, cause I figured to get to a bass player’s heart, you go through a drummer. Just like the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

  FLEA: They asked me [to play bass on the Relapse Tour]. I tried to be as faithful as possible to what Eric did. I really wanted to honor that. I didn’t want to interject my own personality into it at all. It was like being asked to play in some great epic band [like] the Jimi Hendrix Experience . . . or Led Zeppelin or Joy Division. . . .

  JOHNNY NAVARRO: Dave was straight when he entered the Peppers and straight at the end of the Peppers, although there was a relapse toward the end. He stepped out of the Peppers and relapsed again during the first Jane’s reunion tour in ’97.

  ADAM SCHNEIDER: Relapse was an aptly named tour.

  DAN NAVARRO: The first reunion with Flea was a very, very tough time for me. Dave was not in great shape. I was extremely angry that he’d thrown away six years of sobriety. I was absolutely petrified for him and he wasn’t very communicative and I didn’t see him for a year after that. It was heartbreaking. I was afraid of losing him. None of his family knew where he was headed.

  BRYAN RABIN: During the reform in ’97, Nancy Berry was having these incredible, unbelievable parties. Ken Berry’s wife from Virgin Records. What I read about Led Zeppelin and Keith Moon at The “Riot Hyatt” [iconic Sunset Strip hotel] in the 70s, that’s what these parties were like. Nancy was at a fever pitch. They lived in this huge house in Bel-Air and they would send all their neighbors to this hotel so’s they could rock all night full blast.

  FLEA: There was some severe, crazy decadence going on.

  PERRY FARRELL: The problem that a lot of people have with me is that I’m having a good time. It’s not even that they disapprove of what I do, it’s just that I’m doing it, and they’re not.137

  BRYAN RABIN: It was the after-party for some event I can’t remember and every rock star on the planet of every generation was there. Jagger, Janet Jackson, Courtney Love, Marilyn Manson, the Pumpkins, Dave Navarro, Trent Reznor. Every star of the mid- to late 90s was there. I was thinking, this is insanity, there’s so many drugs up here, so much booze, somebody’s going to die. These parties would start late and they were just so reckless. I’d be astounded—and I’m in the business of throwing extravagant parties myself—my mouth would be hanging open watching obscene amounts of money pissed away on these things. . . .

  DAVE NAVARRO: I had an amazing time. I have very little memory of it.

  TWIGGY RAMIREZ: One time Dave and I went to the Playboy Mansion. It was my first time there. We literally walked straight through the party, went into the bathroom and I did a couple of lines of coke. Dave tied off his arm with one of my dreadlocks and began to shoot up his drugs. We looked at each other—our skin was crawling—and we just ran out of the place because we were too paranoid, too creeped out by the people there, and this awful reptilian girl somehow slithered into the limo with us before we knew what was happening. When we got home she took a big crap in Dave’s toilet, but the stool wouldn’t flush down and she wouldn’t fess up to pooping in the bowl no matter how much Dave tortured her about it . . . he made her feel this deep excremental shame, he was calling her The Pooper for the rest of the night.

  BRYAN RABIN: We were sitting in some hut around the pool and these little makeout areas. The starlet Monet Mazur at the time was with Dave. Marilyn Manson. Maybe Rose McGowan was there, too, but definitely the Manson crew, Twiggy and Manson. About seven of us sitting around partying. It was late, around 3:30, 4 A.M. Dave is wearing ladies intimates with this draggy, Maribou feather kind of shock walker situation and there’s Marilyn in full Alice Cooper drag. Two straight spooks facing each other off at four in the morning—the one straight guy is we
aring a cape and fangs and the other straight guy is in a Maribou feather nightie. Dave was so loaded I just couldn’t resist it. I convinced him to blow Manson so he got down on his knees.

  TWIGGY RAMIREZ: That story has been told so many times that I don’t know what’s real and what’s fake anymore. I think it was probably something that was just said as kidding around and the story and the mythology of the whole thing just took over. It was really nothing more than a friendly thing.