Perry and Dave discuss The Great Escape Artist

[hydro]

Exclusive: Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro Discuss Making 'The Great Escape Artist'
Farrell on Duff McKagan: “We had probably 15 songs, and then he pulled out and we went into a little bit of a tailspin"
By Steve Appleford
March 18, 2011 8:20 AM ET

Jane's Addiction hasn't had it easy these last few years, as plans for the band's first new album since 2003 have been repeatedly sidelined by delays and the abrupt exits of bassists Eric Avery and Duff McKagan. Singer-ringmaster Perry Farrell describes the wait as excruciating. “It's definitely like, as Brian Wilson puts it: The dry hump,” he tells Rolling Stone. “We're waiting and waiting and waiting to release this record. It's like watching something that you really want. You become an animal. Your desire grows and grows.”

The years in limbo finally come to an end this summer, when Jane's Addiction releases The Great Escape Artist, drawing from about 20 potential songs now in progress at a Los Angeles studio. “While I'm recording, it's going through my head more and more: Really sing it, man, really sing it,” says Farrell, 51. “We're not just gliding through this.”

Photos: A Brief History of Jane's Addiction

Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins are reaching beyond the Zeppelin-sized swirl of 1988's Nothing's Shocking and 1990's Ritual de lo Habitual to a modern, forward-looking sound with the help of Dave Sitek from the Brooklyn art-rockers TV On the Radio. Sitek is collaborating as songwriter and fill-in bassist on the album. “He's like a scientist, and he's not afraid of making a monster,” says Farrell. “It just keeps getting gnarlier and gnarlier.”

Produced by Rich Costey (Muse, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol), the final album will be edited to a tight 45 minutes, but potential songs include the “twisted” ballad “Splash A Little Water On It” and the torrid rocker “The Irresistible Force Met the Immovable Object,” which imagines the Big Bang Theory as a “cosmic sexual exploit,” says Farrell. A track called “Broken People” examines the public spectacle of celebrity meltdowns.

Video: Jane's Addiction at Lollapalooza 2009

Navarro says The Great Escape Artist is “not a typical rock record,” and may not include the kind of epic guitar solos and power-chords of early Jane's Addiction records. “A lot of it is really hypnotic. We're getting back into using a lot of space and having a lot of air. The music that I listen to and love isn't necessarily rock-oriented anymore,” explains Navarro, 43, who is playing guitars, synths and occasional bass at the sessions. “There is a beauty in simplicity that I'm really embracing. To me, that's an evolution as an artist.”

The band's evolving sound comes after several false starts. In 2008, Jane's reunited with founding bassist Avery for the first time since the original band's 1991 breakup, but he quit again after a busy year of touring and some recording sessions produced by Trent Reznor. His replacement was McKagan (Guns N Roses, Velvet Revolver), which seemed like a masterstroke until he also quit after just six months of live gigs and songwriting work.

“He wasn't really comfortable hanging with us,” says Farrell. “We thought it was a good idea, but it ended up that we annoyed him.”

Video: Perry Farrell on SXSW Gig, Reznor Sessions, Lollapalooza

Songs written with McKagan might still make the final album, including the rocker “Soulmate,” though dramatically reworked with Sitek. “We had probably 15 songs, and then he pulled out and we went into a little bit of a tailspin. It was a drag, man,” Farrell recalls of McKagan's exit. “Some of the guys in the group said, screw it – they didn't want to use any of the material we had written with Duff because they were so pissed off. I said, 'Don't be mad at the material, because we have some good things there.'”

Sitek has declined the band's invitations to tour this year as live bassist with the Los Angeles alt-rock trailblazers, so when the album is finally done, Jane's Addiction will begin searching for a bass-player one more time. “My head's not in that place right now. There's no lack of great musicians out there,” insists Navarro. “The prospects are good. I am super-inspired and enthusiastic about what we're doing right now -- probably more so than I have been in a decade.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... um=twitter

[Hidefumi]

The article was very good.

[TrevorAyer]

"u live u learn" by alanis morisette came on the radio today and i really used to love that record .. and i guess i can talk about it cuz flea and dave played on it and unfortunately eric even played it live .. but thats beside the point .. the real point is that, as an older guy now .. i still like the tune but i am struck by how horrible the drum programming on that song is .. and that reminded me of that slab or crap called "hypersonic" that janes put out a few years ago. and so now dave and perry and steve if u read this site I want u to understand something ... if u loop stephens drums again then u officially suck .. dont do it, dont even think about it, if u already did, hit erase and start over .. do u understand what i am saying to you right now?!? .. i will embrace this new darkness that is in theory a new janes addiction record, even with shit like, another soul mate tentatively up for consideration i will give it a chance, with an open mind, but if u are so FUCKING STUPID as to loop stephen or put a fucking drum machine on any of this record, then u truly deserve the county fair circuit you will be destined for. just sayin

[Jasper]

There will be sampled/programmed drums on the record, as has already been revealed in interviews, so anybody who can't deal with that can be efficient and write off the record right now.

P.S. Did someone criticize Eric Avery for working as a hired gun for some tour, then turn around and actually like the shit-ass music?! Oh lawd, that's rich!

[TrevorAyer]

not really sure what is on the record yet and the interviews dont indicate the band knows either .. i'd like to think the future is not certain and therefore at anytime the band could drive in the right direction .. clearly they heed some advice at times .. as for eric .. know that i was criticizing his bullshit persona as somehow the keeper of street cred with regards to the janes camp .. not that the other members are any better, just not worse .. and it turns my stomach that eric would turn down janes over and over to play comparatively very very sub par material with sub par musicians and sub par writing. janes compared to alanis is a no brainer. so in my opinion eric has no brains. lets explore this further. perry may have acted like a child after the 97 rejection but that was no doubt erics STUPIDEST move ever. janes was hot off of pyros, the music during that era was fantastic. there was simply NO reason, in terms of perry singing, writing or otherwise for eric to drop that ball back then.

i really think this new record should be a double .. its time for perrys physical graffiti. with all the different sounds they are coming up with, i think it would work better as a double. kinda like revolution #9 isnt really a single album tune but works well on the white album .. it would be good to hear all the wierd stuff mixed with more straitforward tunes ..

[magma]

"u live u learn" by alanis morisette came on the radio today and i really used to love that record .. and i guess i can talk about it cuz flea and dave played on it

Navarro and Flea only played on one track on Morisette's Jagged Little Pill, and that was "You Oughta Know."

That's the only song.

And... there were real drums on "Hypersonic". Perkins is playing a fast, frenetic beat on an acoustic drum kit. Perhaps you're confused by the trebly DJ-type EQ tweak around 2:25, with is followed by a brief two-bar drum loop. Everything else is real drums.

[Jasper]

Eric and Perry don't get along and never will. It's just Myers-Briggs shit. Some personalities are not compatible. Deal with it.

P.S. Thanks magma, that's interesting stuff. I haven't spent enough time with that album to pick little things apart like that.

[TrevorAyer]

i believe hypersonic is a drum loop based upon perkins playing acoustic drums .. then its looped the whole song except the breakdown, giving it the stale repetitious unvaried and lifeless feel that the song has.

[nestos]

i really think this new record should be a double .. its time for perrys physical graffiti. with all the different sounds they are coming up with, i think it would work better as a double. kinda like revolution #9 isnt really a single album tune but works well on the white album .. it would be good to hear all the wierd stuff mixed with more straitforward tunes ..