RTUAL DE LA ROCK STAR

Rip It Up, Issue 167, 1 June 1991, Page 16

RTUAL DE LA ROCK STAR

Jane’s Addiction means demented thythms and deranged riffs and lyrics about sex and craziness passionately squawked by a thirty-three year old male in a rubber corset with a ring in his nose (Perry Farrell), flanked by a guitarist (Dave Navarro) and bass player (Eric Avery) who display a penchant for op shop skirts and on stage necking. All this wild behaviour incongrously topped off by the fact that here is one LA rock band who more likely to ask their tour manager to “take me to the nearest art museum” than strip bar.

Right now Jane's Addiction have their feet planted firmly on a concert stage but their heads aresomewhere altogether loftier,

dreaming of all the art they're gonna achieve as soon as they get off this mortal rock and roll coil in about one years time. Perry Farrell has already coaxed

$200,000 out of Warners to make a movie called The Gift (featuring footage of his exotic Mexican voodoo wedding ceremony). He also made the infamous nude sculptures of his girlfriend Casey on the cover of their first LP, as well as masterminding the naked papier mache figurines on the cover of

their latest release, Rifual De Lo Habitual. A cover which so outraged the keepers of middle American morality that some record chains refused to stock it. So Perry. whipped up an alternative white cover whose sole decorative motif was a quote from the fifth amendement about freedom of expression. Now bassist Eric Avery is on the line on tour in Maine. He's telling me that he paints and sculpts in his spare time but his real love is writing. Something he'll have all the time and money in the world to pursue if the rumours about Jane’s Addiction calling it quits are true. Are they true?? “Yeah, that’s really true,” replies Eric, laconic, laid back, and prone to violent coughing fits from too many Malboros. ' But why? “Because we figured it's really run its course, and it's no longer what it started out to be. If's just time for us all to do something else. | mean,

none of us had aspirations to be the next dinosaur of rock like Jagger or something, and we all have other interests. This is just one phase in our lives, | don't see this as being a life-long commitment.” The art-rock fraternity — ever ready to emphasise how their

abilities don't stop with the creation of mere rock music. This is doubly important in LA where a good looking young man with neon in his dreads could easily be mistaken for just another male bimbo with stars in his eyes. In LA, bohemian coffee bar culture a la Beat generation is newly hip, espresso/poetry bars with art on the walls are frequented by teenage millionaires like Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp dressed way down in threadbare jeans and spectacles to camouflage their natural perfection. In this setfting it’s easy to see why —if you're the sort of guy who hosts Sunday afternoon writing sessions at your apartment (as Eric does — saying you're “just a rock star” starts to rankle. So what sort of stuff does Eric write?

“Mostly something called Sudden Fiction, if's like a pretentious name for a really short story. | like not limiting myself o something that is immediately dramatic. | like details, | like paying attention to details and | like writing a lot about the myths that we all carry around with us. Um,

thats like @ main theme if there s

anything. Just the negative and repressive myths that we all carry around with us and the skeletons in our closet and such that noone else has. So many of those kind of things are universal but just everyone’s afraid fo say it and we continue to perpetuate this repressive aftitude.” You're lucky you've made all this money so you can afford to write. “True, Well, its actually just this month that we've got out of the red and we're starting to make money outof it. It is nice, I've made more money now than | ever thought |

would have. Its a lot, especially for my lifestyle, which isn't expensive.” Do you hope people will still be playing Jane’s Addiction records in twenty years time2 Or do you really

not care? “I really don't care. The only way | think | would care is if in twenty years time | feel like | failed miserably at life and | have to be reminded of all this.”

Which is an astonishing statement for someone from one of the bands of the moment, a band which has managed to win both rock stadium adulation and left-field creative

weirdo credibility. Talk about having your cake and starting to eat it and then deciding to chuck it all away. Is is true that you and Perry Farrell haven't spoken to each otherfor a couple of years? “The problem question. | think that was a misunderstanding because Perry and | started off as best friends when we started this band and we just have grown apart. If's not that we don't speak to each other but he doesn’t come over to my house for slumber parties and stuff.” I've read that you and Dave Navarro, like, really tongue kiss

during ‘Pigs In Zen' in your live shows. Why do you do that? “Its not like a planned thing during the show, it's something that just happens whenever. What | like

about it is that it fucks with that whole male macho — | don't know if it's particularly American, | suspect it might be . ... but we did that as well atthe end of our showcase video. All the band took turns kissing and then took turns kissing their girlfriend. Its just all edited together really quickly. It strikes at all that

male homophobia.” Is the cencorship debate still a big issue in America? “It looks like it will really be around for along time, it's really getting a trench-hold. When | was in New York | was speaking to someone about this organisation DIA and they're funding rejections from the NEA and putting them out. There’s talk now of using some artists that were rejected by the National Endowment for the Arts on our Lollapallooza tour, hopefully we'll be able to get it togther. But that whole climate in America is just worsened by the fact that we have our fight lipped right wing president

as popular as JFK was. After the Iraqi war he has the highest popularity poll rating since JFK.” The Lollapallooza tour (which means “huge and great” in Spanish) could be the last collective Jane's Addiction enterprise. They're planning on putting together a bunch of bands including Living Colour, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth and Red Hot Chili Peppers to travel the country for twenty-eight dates, sort of like a Monsters of Alternative Rock caravan, with maybe some of the aforementioned too-hot-to-handle artists thrown into the mix. The atmosphere, promises Eric, will be circus, complete with carnivals and sideshows. Still, we down here in New Zealand are grateful for smalll mercies like just being able to see Jane’s Addiction for ourselves — neither on the way up nor down but glaringly, brazenly in their prime.

The Face called them the new Guns'n'Roses, which just goes to show how much thatbunchof house-addled trend victims know about guitar music. Jane’s Addiction are smart enough to quit while they’re ahead, even if their record company doesn't like it. Jane’s Addiction will not have trouble entertaining themselves at home under the gold discs in twenty years time.

DONNA YUZWALK

FORTHCOMING RECORDINGS N.W.A. Efilrofsreggin’ (“Niggers for Life” backwards.) WONDERSTUEFF Never Loved Elvis CROWDED HOUSE Woodface. ARETHA FRANKLIN What You See Is What You Sweat. ANTHRAX Attack of the Killer Bs. AARON NEVILLE Warm Your Heart. PERE ÜBU Worlds in Collision. 3RD BASS Derelicts of Dialect. BADLANDS Voodoo Highway. SKID ROW Slave to the Grind. L.A. GUNS Hollywood Vampires. VAN HALEN For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. . RIC OCASEK Fireball Zone. NGAIRE Ngaire.