URB interview w/Perry By DJ Danideahl

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Perry Farrell Talks Dance, DJing, and Gaga
By danideahl

Chicago’s Grant Park is idyllic – expanses of open field with sunbathers, families partaking in a weekend picnic, the occasional dog chasing an airborne Frisbee. The entire scene belies what was there a mere three weeks ago – Lollapalooza. Its fifth year stationed in Chicago, 2010’s Lollapalooza received as much scrutiny as it did praise, featuring artists like pop queen Lady Gaga alongside Australian nu-grunge group Violent Soho and dubstep mastermind Rusko. Fact is, Lollapalooza’s been changing for a while, and according to founder Perry Farrell, it’s all completely intentional.

URB spoke with Farrell in 2009 about the shift and his increasing interest in electronic music, and we were lucky enough to speak with him again this year. Touching on his future projects and revisiting topics like the modern face of Lollapalooza, Farrell tells us what collaborations are on his horizon, which artists he currently sees coming to the forefront and why Gaga is good for dance music.


I was going over our interview from last year – you were really excited about the emergence of the hybrid musician – but the lineup this year on Perry’s stage focuses on a lot of mainstay ‘traditional’ DJ acts.

The only one that’s probably going to pull [a hybrid performance] off this year is Empire of the Sun. On that DJ stage I agree with you 100% – it’s all about the classic DJ. Out on the grounds though, you’ve got Cut Copy, Chromeo, Dragonette, even MGMT and Phoenix.


A lot of those groups have been adopted by the DJ community and vice versa. They’re also DJing at after hours, separate from their Lollapalooza performance. Do you think there’s a resurgence with DJing as an art form?

I would say this – with myself, I was looking to do more of a full band, and I had a good time with it but since last year I’ve started to appreciate so much the ‘classic DJ/producer’. Having worked with some of the great ones this year, I started looking at these kinds of events, going to these events and seeing that these guys rocked the house so hard. I was performing with a band setup and found that a lot of the time people were looking at me a little too much, as opposed to listening, the way they do with DJs when they just drop a beat. So for Lollapalooza, I’m going back to the idea of DJing and booking these classic people. But on the other stages it’s people like Hot Chip and Phoenix, and people really love them. There’s a lot of adulation for these musicians.


There absolutely is. Are you still continuing on the path of having Lollapalooza be half electronic musicians and half more traditional acts?

Looking at the lineup, there are electronic artists not only as headliners, but towards the middle – people like Jaime Lidell and Fuck Buttons. It keeps on growing and growing, not just throughout the roster, but with Perry’s too. Last year [Perry’s] was able to hold 10,000 people and this year it’s double. It’s an open stage and under these beautiful tree lines. It should be really fun.


The popularity of the stage is definitely indicative of dance music’s rising popularity. When I interviewed David Guetta, he told me “If you say…that Kanye West is pop music, then yes, I want to be pop, too.” What do you think about dance becoming mainstream and other genres, like hip-hop, now looking to dance for inspiration?

I think it’s fantastic it’s legitimized because, well, I like dance music. That’s one of the main reasons we wanted Lady Gaga to headline, because she’s pop and she’s dance. If your first introduction to dance is Lady Gaga then hopefully you want to go deeper, and then you can hear producers that aren’t quite so pop. The fact that so many people want to come to a festival to hear dance music, it’s really good. Honestly, there’s just not that many sources for rock music, especially ones that are doing it interestingly these days. Most of the interesting sounds right now are being generated by electronic musicians, like Animal Collective…and there are people that are doing electronic music that I find really interesting. Mark Knight is an interesting, more progressive house guy that I’ve gotten to meet recently.


Well, most people don’t have a guitar, but they have a laptop, right?

Yes. I think that to keep music healthy, people are now looking to get into dance, and they’re looking to bring dance to pop. To me, I don’t mind it. Nine times out of ten the producer’s really good and then they’re just working with a vocalist. I just get off on listening to the background music. Some of the pop is god-awful, it’s embarrassingly horrific and they’re not going to play the festival. But some of it’s good, and I like the fact that hip-hop artists are looking to collaborate. I got a call from Q-Tip and he wants to do something. What we talked about is working together on electronic dance music.


You’ve also collaborated with several other artists for electronic projects like Kaskade and Swedish House Mafia – what have you learned about yourself as a musician by interacting with all these different people?

Music is evolving constantly, especially in the dance realm. A sound that becomes popular could be out in a year – it’s crazy. Electro was everywhere a year or two ago and ten years ago progressive house was really happening, and now it’s coming back. And the technology is always changing too. I’m constantly getting updates for the software I use – it’s completely evolving, six months at a time. Updates for the new software could change an artist’s sound and change the way people are making music. I’m constantly listening and learning from what’s going on. I mean, last year, who would have thought dubstep would have been so popular?


And that Rusko would be producing for Britney Spears.

Yeah! He’s performing this year and as a matter of fact, today I was with Jane’s Addiction and one of the guys said about a song, ‘man, we need to write something faster because this is in half time’ and I thought, well we could do something like dubstep. I played him some Rusko and some Caspa to show him that there can be a lot of tension in a half-time song. So I’m learning all the time from electronic music, even how to do Jane’s Addiction.


Do you ever envision truly incorporating electronic elements with Jane’s Addiction or will they always be completely separate?

When it comes to Jane’s Addiction I keep them separate because there are instruments and the lead instrument is a guitar…as much as you try to push it towards dance, they don’t really like each other that much. We can do a little bit of electronic drumming, that works, but other than that I try to keep it more on the Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin tip where it’s being generated by the players themselves. When it comes to Jane’s Addiction, it will remain what it is.


With all the stuff you’re listening to and learning from, who’s the one artist or what’s the one song you can’t get out of your head right now?

Gosh, let me think about that. Well, I can’t pinpoint a song, but the artists I think are doing amazing things right now include Rusko, Kaskade, David Guetta, Joachim Garraud – he’s someone I’m really looking to break big. I think next year is gonna be his year.


Speaking of breaking electronic artists, tell me about your Precision Guided Musicians project.

It is the child spin-off of Lollapalooza. I was hanging out with a very smart guy and he was talking about precision-guided munitions, which is a military term for a smart bomb. I wasn’t that interested in the conversation about bombs, but then I said, you know I always had this feeling that one day, when there’s peace on earth, the military could actually be used for enjoyment and pleasure. You could have a big music event and then have target practice on a hillside, for example, and the project could be called Precision Guided Musicians, which would take the stinger out of the title. I held onto that thought and now we’re developing it into a worldwide event and it’s all about musicians that use precision guided tools, like computers and synthesizers. The first one is in Chicago, a Lollapalooza afterparty. You know, one of the ideas we had for years was going into a town where we not only had control over the main event, but the afterhours as well. They’re just as important and bring commerce into the local clubs. We can’t go until 2 in the morning in the fields of Chicago because of the proximity to the hotels and condos, but we can go into the clubs, where electronic music thrives, where DJ culture thrives. In the coming years Precision Guided Musicians will go around the country and the world.
http://www.urb.com/2010/08/30/perry-far ... -and-gaga/