Jane's Addiction emerges re-energized

[Mike]

Jane's Addiction emerges re-energized

2:32 PM, Feb. 21, 2012

Written by
JEFF SPEVAK
Staff music critic

Jane’s Addiction is generally considered a very important band in the history of modern rock. Many people have called it the first alternative rock band. Perry Farrell is among those people. It’s certainly no hindrance to a rock band’s career that its front man is part promotional wizard, part mystical sleaze maestro.

But last year’s The Great Escape Artist was only the fifth Jane’s Addiction album released by the band in the quarter century of its existence. Five albums in 25 years. Maybe that’s not so bad; it took about the same amount of time to carve Mount Rushmore into four heads.

It’s not that the band’s three principles all these years — Farrel, guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins — have been slugs. Farrell created the summer rock sideshow Lollapalooza and formed Porno For Pyros with Perkins. Navarro was in the Red Hot Chili Peppers for a spell, Farrell and Navarro both released solo albums, and different combinations of players were in brief bands such as Satellite Party and Panic Channel.

Navarro even played host to a music-reality show, Rock Star: Supernova, in which contestants sang and created annoying drama in the hope that they would be named the lead singer of a supergroup featuring Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee.

So all of that, and Jane’s Addiction’s propensity for breaking up, has left us with a slim legacy for this legendary band playing Wednesday (Feb. 29) at the Auditorium Theatre.

“As far as actual studio time, we haven’t spent that much time in the studio as Jane’s Addiction,” Perkins concedes. “And when I hear the music we make with other people, it doesn’t sound like Jane’s Addiction. To create a piece of art, to reach its potential, it takes a long time for us to just get in the right head space to commit to a project. We’re all into different things. All that comes into play in the making of a band like Jane’s Addiction, and that sound, that eclectic sound.”

What is that eclectic sound? It’s hard and dark and artsy. And often creepy, as in “Ted, Just Admit It...,” an epic portrait of Ted Bundy, with detailed lyrics that suggest more than just a passing familiarity with the serial killer.

These guys project an artistic, cutting-edge sensibility. Perkins’ restless nature not only pours out in unrestrained torrents of conversation, but emerges in his artwork: modern, neon splashes of color, photographs of his illuminated drumsticks flashing in the dark, loops of light capturing the rhythm of the pieces he’s playing.

“Like anything, technology is changing the way you make music,” Perkins says. “You don’t even have to be in the same city anymore for a recording session. You stream on line and listen right there and make comments: ‘I love the bridge in this take, make a note on that.’ It’s a more efficient way of making Jane’s Addiction records.”

That’s probably true, when they get around to making them. Jane’s Addiction went eight years without albums before The Great Escape Artist, although the band did take a few stabs at it in the interim. Sometimes it’s been a personnel issue. Jane’s Addiction bassists have been as disposable as Spinal Tap drummers. A few years back, original bassist Eric Avery did return. “When Eric joined, there were hints of new music,” Perkins says. “But the commitment, we weren’t ready for that, and Eric kinda bowed out. I was surprised he stayed the whole time. We didn’t really have time to see it through and make it the next Jane’s Addiction experience. But at least we tried it, there was something there.”

Former Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan gave it a whack for a while, then left. But, “When Duff pulled out,” Perkins says, “that’s when the new record started to form.”

To Perkins’ ear, much of the sound comes from the guy they brought in after McKagan’s departure. Dave Sitek, the multi-instrumentalist from the indie-rock darlings TV on the Radio.

“Me, the two Daves, we took a month or two, without Perry, trying to find a new voice,” Perkins says. “Perry, he doesn’t need to commit and chew that meat and swallow it like me and Dave did. Perry was very patient and understanding: ‘Let the three guys make some high volume.’ Then we can start working on tunes, have some friendship, a musical commitment with each other.”

And Sitek was a new face that could warm friendships and commitments that had grown frayed. Perkins and Navarro have known each other since they were 13 years old. “We have old habits,” Perkins concedes. He calls what Sitek had to offer, “Rubbing elbows with these new ideas.” A new face was what Jane’s Addiction needed.

Sitek had plenty of new ideas for this old band. He brought in turntables, keyboards, drums and new rhythms. He played bass on many of the cuts. But when Jane’s Addiction is here Wednesday, it’ll have another former bassist with the band, Chris Chaney. Sitek’s work is done, he’s moved on to the next project. He left behind a band that not only uses Sufi trance musicians on one cut from The Great Escape Artist, but perhaps a reinvigorated Jane’s Addiction of “dangerousness, rawness and muscle,” Perkins says.

“I’m not really into progressive music,” he says. “But I’m like those guys, more of a jazz player in a rock setting. My best playing is spontaneous, it’s really not mathematical. I need to be saying to myself: ‘Am I drumming dangerous on this record? Don’t forget what got you into this.’ I’ve got to think of something dangerous while I’m doing it.

“It’s like the greatest Iggy Pop music. Some days it’s ugly, some days beautiful.”

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