Perry Farrell has always been a provocateur. As the flamboyant lead singer and frontman of Jane’s Addiction in the late 80s and early 90s, he combined an edgy, in-your-face sensibility with his band's high-energy hybrid of metal and punk. By the time Jane's Addiction disbanded in 1991, the group had paved the way for the grunge era and Farrell had earned a moniker as the Godfather of Alternative Music. He built on that résumé by leading the band Porno for Pyros and founding the music festival Lollapalooza.
Jane's Addiction reunited this year to release “Imminent Redemption,” the band’s first single featuring its original lineup in 34 years, and to hit the road for an extensive tour. Everything seemed to be going well, when Farrell, sixty-five, spoke to Esquire for this instalment of our long-running What I've Learned interview series, which is a conversation boiled down to its essence—only the subject’s wisdom appears. But on Friday, September 13, days after we went to press, Farrell had an onstage meltdown during a show in Boston. The singer started a physical altercation with lead guitarist Dave Navarro in the middle of the song "Ocean Size," and had to be restrained. On September 16, the band announced that it had canceled the rest of its tour, and Farrell apologized to his "bandmates, especially Dave Navarro, fans, family and friends" for his actions.
Part of what Jane’s Addiction had going for it was we were all very cocky because we’re all very good at our instruments. That can be amazing because you get to hear amazing virtuosity but you also lose something. You lose humility.
I've been simplifying my life over time. I don't like people that stick their head up too high. I like people that are selfless.
I have an older brother, 10 years older than me, and sister, eight years older. So you might wonder—it’s kind of odd to have children ten years apart.
My family was a broken family. My mother tried to save the family by having a child. It worked out horrendously. My father just went off with a woman and my mother ended up committing suicide. But there was something good. The one great thing is we all loved music. I got my love of music from my sister and my brother. At that time, it was the British Invasion.
On weekends, we'd sit on the porch in Flushing, Queens. People would come by, friends of my brother, friends of my sister and I got to hang out if I was the bartender.
When I first moved out to California, it was from Florida. Even though I was born in New York, in the seventies a lot of the New Yorkers migrated down to Florida. Wise Guys went down there. My dad moved his shop on West 47th Street to Hollywood, Florida.
When I first came to Los Angeles, I knew nobody. My life was basically—I washed dishes, I was a waiter, I was a busboy. I left home, and I had my own stories to tell.
I started as a singer around 1982. We were coming out of post-punk and goth was very popular, and we had not invented yet what they called alternative.
I’d comb my hair down in bangs. Go to a thrift store, get a psychedelic shirt, and show up for the audition. I didn’t even know how to plug in a mic. So sometimes I would get very embarrassed or dejected. They would say, “Have you ever done this before?” And I’d say, “Well, I know I could front a band, but I never have.”
I rented out a studio and I got a tape of Ziggy Stardust because I thought David Bowie was something I could pull off. There's a real skinny kid.
We would go out every night to hear what the sound was off the streets. I found a house in LA. It was very old. It was built for the movie stars. I just got a bunch of different bands to move in. You wrote your name up on the chalkboard if you wanted to rehearse that night. LA at that time was a hotbed of all the new bands.
"The style that I’m trying to fit is “shaman in the highlands of Peru.”
I learned that if you wanted to really have fun and really get radical, you couldn't go to the clubs. At that time, there was something called pay-to-play. Pay-to-play was this really grotesque deal where a lot of kids in the valley that were still living with their parents had to come up with, I think, USD500 to get booked, buy the tickets up front.
When people give me credit for being godfather of alternative, it was because I didn't have USD500.
I saw where I could do things differently. I noticed as a singer nobody was really using effects the same way the guitar players were. So to add to the party, I began to develop the art of dubbing vocals. I still think I’m ahead of the curve in that most singers don’t use effects onstage. They don’t have a pedalboard. I have a box that I keep up close because I use my hands a lot. I use my hands and my feet. It’s like I’m driving something.
Muscles don’t really work with rock ’n’ roll. I see a band with muscles, it looks funny to me. They should be fighting. Skinny kids, they should be making music or art. We don’t have to fight.
Part of writing a good song is that you have to give them a pinch of familiarity and then a pinch of “Wow, what was that? I never heard that before.” That way they can follow something they’ve never experienced and get there. And then at end of the song they'll feel smart because they're onto something few others know about yet.
I’m lucky in that I have Lollapalooza, because otherwise I would not keep my ears to the music at my age. I like to see where the music is going and then see how I fit in.
Everybody learns at such a quick pace now. Before you know it, everybody’s aware of your sound and they’re bored of you. I make a point to not put out too much product. Take my time.
These days I try to dress not ostentatiously. There was a moment in time when I liked to wear ostentatious things, had suits made in London, custom hats made by haberdashers. These days I like to dress so that I can be trusted amongst the people. I don’t want to be looked at and viewed as some flashy dresser.
The style that I’m trying to fit is “shaman in the highlands of Peru.” I like to wear ponchos. But all these things, they’re obtainable. If the simple man wanted to look at me and maybe bite some style, he could.
My dad was a jeweler. He dealt mostly in gold. I think there's a lot of power in beadery and there's a lot of history that goes with beadery in our country.
In my torrid past, I was a very bad drug addict. But what I would do—it really would save my life, each and every time—is I would take a trip and go surfing.
At my height I was surfing with professionals, some of the best in the world. We would go and live on boats for a few weeks, and I’d get my health back. It’s harder now, but I never want to stop surfing. I do believe that the ocean staying down by the ocean, swimming in the ocean, brings your health back. It almost brings you back to the womb. You’re weightless.
I like to study about Jah because I feel that’s a point of unity for the entire universe. It seems like a lot of the fights that start are over religion and if we can just simplify religion, that might be the key to peace.
Sex is the best feeling in the world, right? To be loved and then to be so closely bonded. I think that it is one of the important discussions of our lifetime, to know how to properly love and to know how to properly make love.
In my younger days, I had some great times in bed with people. But I would not advise having any love triangles or too many lovers, because every person deserves proper attention. And a broken heart will kill you just as much as anything.
How long do I want to be a touring musician? Until I die. But I can adjust it now at my age. I demand a day off to heal. The voice is a very fragile instrument. Once it swells, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Some of these musicians, they don't care. They'll play loud. And if they think that the crowd loves you, they'll play even louder.
People have had 30-some-odd years to learn to love us. They don’t get so freaked out by us. We sing along together, beautiful resonations in the room. I often get comments like “You changed my life.”
Maybe they hated themselves and now they love themselves. I’m glad I can still deliver to them.
