Another article from Addicted to Noise.
July, 1997
Jane's Addiction Ex-Bassist Happy To Be A Polar Bear

Addicted To Noise Staff Writer Chris Nelson reports: The three former members of Jane's Addiction may be working on an album, and considering a reunion, but former JA bassist Eric Avery doesn't want any part of it.

Word of a possible reunion first began to spread earlier this year, when Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro joined former bandmates Perry Farrell and Stephen Perkins (now in Porno For Pyros) for a cut on radio shock jock Howard Stern's Private Parts movie soundtrack; then the three got together in February to perform old Jane's material at a New York concert. It all happened sans Avery.

Avery, now fronting the band Polar Bear with one Biff Sanders (ex-Ethyl Meatplow), told ATN recently that he was a shell shocked when he first heard about the pseudo-reunion gig, but wasn't necessarily longing to join his old group.

"It definitely left me feeling awed and not certain how I felt about it," he said. "It's like if you heard about a group of old friends of yours getting together. You'd be kind of curious how they were doing, and what it was like. So I had a really great, long conversation with David about how it was for him to play all that stuff again."

While he wouldn't elaborate on the details of his talk with Navarro, Avery did say that he counted his time with Jane's Addiction as a thing of the past. "I didn't feel left out, because I don't ever regret leaving Jane's Addiction. That's not to say that I don't appreciate Jane's Addiction. I think we were great and it was a great time of my life, but it was that time. It's not now."

Polar Bear, however, is now, and the band has released an eponymous, five-song EP on the Dry Hump label. Despite the multi-textured, psychedelic nature of Polar Bear's sound, Avery describes his new work as a laissez faire exercise in simplicity. "I've tried to allow myself to be more naive about the process of making music. Working toward allowing the creative process to just happen without monitoring it so much. Just seeing what would happen if I opened the flood gates."

According to Avery, Polar Bear's creative process is a total band experience involving himself, drummer and sampler Sanders, and guitarist Thomas Von Wendt. "Often I'll bring the seed," said the bass player. "And I'll say, 'I have this Éuh, Stanley Kubrick, Shining, old hotel, '40s kind of feel about this one.' So we'll try using saxophone elements or something like that in a general direction. After that it's a laying on of elements and we'll see where we want to go."

"It varies song to song," Sanders said. "Sometimes you have a really good rhythmic bass that you like, or drum and bass, or drum and some riff. And then you start throwing stuff at it and see what sticks. Sometimes we get really carried away. We end up throwing everything and the kitchen sink at it."

Sanders' description jibes with the free-flowing nature of the songs on Polar Bear. "We end up with four songs out of one" sometimes, he said. "We have to nail it down to one, but we could break this song up into two or three."

The band's 23-minute EP serves as a false indicator of their prolific songwriting. Aside from this disc, they wrote one album's worth of material, discarded that, and have since recorded another. That's in addition to the instrumental 12-inch single the group released earlier this year on artist Frank Kozik's Man's Ruin label.

But while so far Polar Bear has stuck with indie imprints, Avery says the group has no aversion to signing with a major label sometime in the not too distant future. "People have been there for a while now," he said. "I've just been reticent about jumping in. The response has been really great. I'm starting to chomp at the bit to do a full record."

From MTV.com..
Eric A's Polar Bear Freezes Out Total Jane's Addiction Reunion
07.22.1997

July 22 [7:55 EDT] -- Original Jane's Addiction bassist Eric Avery passed on Perry Farrell's invitation to partake in a band reunion, but only because he wanted to concentrate on his new band, Polar Bear, says a spokesperson for Avery. He's said to have no animosity towards Farrell or anyone else in the band. But he fears that joining the Jane's Addiction "relapse" might distract him from Polar Bear. He says the baggage from being in Jane's Addiction has already complicated his new work. (Polar Bear drummer/sequencer Harold "Biff" Barefoot Sanders III cut his teeth as a member of Ethyl Meatplow, which presumably causes less complication.)

Polar Bear made a low-key debut last November with an independent 12-inch vinyl instrumental single. Last May, they issued an EP called "Chewing Gum" containing the material on the single with lyrics added, plus two new songs. Avery, Sanders and guitarist Thomas Von Wendt are only now shopping their material, described as the perfect meeting of computers and rock, in search of a record deal.

The band has played roughly 20 live dates in its short life, mostly in the L.A. area, many of them in odd time slots at off-the-wall venues and even under assumed names, further suggesting that Avery's stated desire to shake the Jane's association is sincere.

Jane's Addiction was born when a friend named Jane introduced Avery to Perry Farrell. After adding drummer Stephen Perkins (now Farrell's bandmate in Porno for Pyros) and guitarist Dave Navarro (now in the Red Hot Chili Peppers), the project became Jane's Addiction. They released three albums and begat Lollapallooza, (a venture Farrell continues to nurture) in their years together.

Following Jane's demise in the early '90s, Avery and Navarro recorded a solo album together under the name Deconstruction. Navarro later joined the Chili Peppers (possibly because Avery was unwilling to tour in support of the Deconstruction project), while Avery continued to 'detoxify,' as he puts it, from the whole Jane's experience.

Avery tends to downplay his old band's internal differences, more often citing his own reluctance to tour and the ever-present 'business interfering with art' as reasons for the band's demise. Farrell, however, said in an interview last week with MTV News that Jane's broke up because the members weren't getting along, and it was that dissention that interfered with the art.

"We would have lots of fights, but I held it together so that we got a great body of work together, and then I called it quits because of course it's not good to make music with people that don't like each other, because they're not gonna encourage or help each other," Farrell said, "the song doesn't flourish and isn't nourished. So then when I asked Eric and he said no of course I threw a fit. But then all of a sudden Flea says 'I'll do it...'"

Avery won't be playing on any new Jane's music. "He's chosen to concentrate on the future, not the past," says his spokesperson, but he has, however, happily given Farrell the power to choose old tracks for the new album.

As reported by MTV News last week, the disc (due on October 18) will include live tracks from Jane's 1989-90 tour as well as their stint on the 1991 Lollapalooza tour, and previously unreleased studio tracks and demos plus a new version of the track "Kettle Whistle."

Jane's is also expected to do some live dates, but don't count on a lengthy road trip. Polar Bear, meanwhile, will be playing a show at the Dragonfly in Los Angeles, Saturday, July 26 at 10:15 pm.