Jane’s Addiction Recovery- the Survival of Eric Avery by Malcolm Deveraux
(filter magazine, 2005)
He was the one sitting on the toilet, explicating the great surf novel Tapping the Source by Kem Nunn, looking into the camera, holding the book in his hands while folding a section of toilet paper to “finish up.” Later on, he can also be seen tongue-kissing both Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro. The film is called Soul Kiss, made at the height of the weirdness, when singer Farrell had green dreadlocks and a penchant for wearing girdles; when guitarist Dave Navarro was barely 20, less arrogant, more talented, had a woman’s haircut and no goatee; when drummer Stephen Perkins, was, well, exactly as he is now, smiling--then with a giant mop of a hairdo, now shorn down to a crew-cut. They were Jane’s Addiction. They were mighty. They could do no wrong. They guy on the toilet’s name was, and is, Eric Avery.
Ah, yes. I know what you’re thinking--when all else fails, at least you got to interview the bass player. No, no, you snide prick. Eric Avery was Jane’s Addiction. “I Would For you,” “Up the Beach,” “Mountain Song,” “Ted, Just Admit It…” “Summertime Rolls,” “Three Days”-- those are songs built from the bass up; they’re Avery’s tunes. And they’re the best ones. And he’s the only one with enough perspective and class and foresight (from his clear hindsight) to refuse the offers of reunion and keep the Jane’s Addiction legacy pure.
The rest of us had to endure the Relapse Tour in 1997 (Flea sitting in for the reluctant Avery), and then the mother of all flubs, Strays, an actual new “Jane’s Addiction” full-length studio recording in 2003, which Avery sat out too. Some got excited at the prospect of new tunes, people even went out and bought a few copies, but some of us in the know, with our eye firmly on the legacy, we folded our arms, stayed home like Avery and said, “Who the fuck is Chris Chaney?” Hell, that record even has a mock “Up the Beach” opener, trying to force our affection for Chaney, who must be a nice guy, but was an imposter nonetheless. He never had a chance.
So, we decided to meet up with Eric Avery, because anyone with enough sense to resist the temptation of a second act with one of art rock’s most revered bands, has to be able to shed some light on what seems to be a resurgence of a genre his old band twisted and gorged and elevated into their own beast, spawning imitators, legions of devotees and created Lollapalooza as a venue for their own swan song. This is Eric Avery as consultant, veteran, scholar and preservationist.
“You know, Flea was telling me that I should check out the Mars Volta live,” says Avery, as we settle down to a pair of espressos. “He told me, “There’s something about them that reminds me of when I saw the first shows Jane’s played.” Well, to paraphrase a lyric from “Up the Beach,” here we go now….
Once Jane’s Addiction got going- this strange artful thing that became much more popular than anyone could have imagined-was there some kind of obligation to live up to the demands of the monster you created?
There was definitely the sense that we had set something in motion and it became a monolith. It was its own beast. For me, it turned into just putting the hooks in the side and being dragged along with it. I think that the lifestyle and the drugs and all that stuff--I don’t think any of that changed with getting popular.
One of the things that I’ve found to be shockingly true is that even the most interesting guys started out with this desire to be an entertainer in a really traditional sense. Like, at age 5 there was no difference between Iggy Pop and Celine Dion. But I don’t have that and I never had that. I didn’t want any attention. So, for me, my participation in the band was totally part of being an artist--I’m supposed to do things, push the edge of my personal life so that it will inform me and then therefore inform my art, my work. Without Jane’s Addiction being there, my lifestyle--albeit less financially supported [laughs] -- would have been pretty similar.
When the band took off, though, it was definitely larger than we ever expected it to be. Perry and I talked about how--when we were first writing stuff-- it was like, “You know, Germany will really dig us. Maybe we could get a tape over there and maybe create a following.” Ironically, Germany absolutely never bought a record of ours, ever.
What was the atmosphere like when the band played “Three Days” [from Ritual de lo Habitual] for the first time? Songs aren’t really made that way anymore, so it’s become like a holy grail for some people…
That’s great. Well, the beginning riff had been with me for a really long time. Then, Perry sort of did the piecing together of the parts after that. That was a song that grew as it sounds on record. It took a long time to come together. When we recorded it, we all had that feeling. I just remember people from the record company being there, listening while we were tracking that song, and it was literally the third time we had run through it and that was the final piece. That was back in the day, in the Stone Age, when you actually played for 11 minutes at a time in a studio. I remember being aware of the fact that something really great just happened.
There seems to be a resurgence of a particular kind of music that you guys spearheaded the last time around, now it’s with bands like the Mars Volta and Queens of the Stone Age. Do you think people care about hearing LPs anymore-- record with a beginning, middle and end, conceived as a whole piece?
It’s tough. If Jane’s Addiction made a record today, if we were 20 again and we were making a record now, it wouldn’t sound like heavy metal. It would probably sound more electronic. We were just-- at least Perry and I-- we were really just interested in whatever the most interesting creative thing that was going on at the time…
And you just pulled from that…
Yeah. I don’t think we had a specific desire to make a rock record. Nowadays, I think there’s much more innovation going on in electronic music and hip-hop and, well, not as much hip-hop these days, but certainly over the last 10 years or so, there’s been much more innovation in areas that are not rock music. So, if we made a Jane’s Addiction record today, I don’t think it would be a rock record.
It’s been done already.
Exactly.
Speaking of making a Jane’s record today, it seemed like Perry actually knew the reunion wouldn’t be as good without you.
Yeah, he was really pissed at me. I thought he was going to hit me in the restaurant we were in.
What was your reason?
There were a lot of different reasons. I think of that time with Jane’s Addiction as being really special. It’s become sacred to me. [Long Pause] David Bowie was hugely influential to me when I was a kid. To hear his catalog selling cars and shit now-- it’s really disappointing. We’re human animals and if you repeat something in our ear and you put a product with it, when I hear the music, I will think of the product and I won’t remember when I was getting laid the first time anymore. If I have to paint houses, I’ll do that before being a 50-year-old version of me trying to recapture something from my youth. I just didn’t want to do a worse job of being my 20-year-old self. There was no way we could make a great record. So, what are we doing it for? A paycheck? Glory? Those aren’t great reasons. I have other jobs that I do for a paycheck.
Jane’s Addiction was such an ambitious band; it was almost designed not to last. Did it ever feel that way?
I think most great bands obviously have a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. That was happening with Jane’s, but we were all sort of in our own world. We had this place where we came together and we sort of overlapped and that was the chemistry that created Jane’s Addiction. I think that Perry was definitely somebody who was more aware of the fact that this was a career; that this was somewhere he was going. Whereas, for me, in my arrogance, in my youth, I believed that this was like the first thing I was doing along my way to winning the first Nobel Prize in pop music, or whatever. It felt like the model was the Velvet Underground in the Factory and this was a time and we would do that thing, throw stuff against the wall and see what we had and then move on to whatever. There was always that sense there was a built-in end to our time together.
A Selected Discography With Commentary by Eric Avery
Jane’s Addiction (Triple X, 1987; live)
The audience on that record is a Los Lobos audience. I don’t remember exactly, but I think maybe the snare drum track is the only really, totally live track. I just remember having to over tons of stuff on that one. It sounds so live actually, it sounds really scruffy. It was the beginning.
Nothing’s Shocking (Warner Brothers, 1988)
That was a time when everything was shocking. “I don’t have to work? I’m getting paid to do this?” I never thought that would happen. I didn’t have to ship shoes anymore; no more shipping new wave shoes to Macy’s.
Ritual de lo Habitual (Warner Brothers, 1990)
Epic struggle.
Epic record.
Kettle Whistle (Warner Brothers, 1997; live, demos,outtakes, plus tour “new” tracks)
I was like, “Those guys are doing my songs and not giving me credit! Where’s my publishing royalties?” [laughs]
Strays (Capitol, 2003; “reunion” made without the participation of Avery)
I heard it on KROQ a couple of times. To me, that sort of sums it up. It’s just a rock record that you hear on KROQ every once in a while. They’re not going to be defining any generations by that record-let’s put it that way.
(big thanks to Tanya for typing this up!)