Perry Farrell Is Blending Dance Music With Theater
This past Wednesday, Jane’s Addiction were presented with the 2,509 star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, fittingly being placed right in front of Playmates of Hollywood, a lingerie store.
The thirty-minute ceremony featured speeches from Foo Fighters‘ drummer Taylor Hawkins, X’s John Doe and Doors drummer John Densmore, as well as Navarro, Jane’s bassist Chris Chaney, drummer Stephen Perkins and frontman Perry Farrell. After the ceremony several people headed over to new Hollywood hotspot Dirty Laundry for a private reception to commemorate the day. While there Rolling Stone caught up with Farrell about the difficulty of keeping a band together, his new project Kind Heaven and why he’s serious about the dance world.
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How do you feel about having Jane’s on the Walk of Fame?
I think it’s awesome, but at the same time you have to remember it’s only a sidewalk. At the end of the day we’re talking about a sidewalk. [Laughs.] But I’m really happy to be a part of Hollywood’s sidewalk.This is the truth: I try to ignore accolades and trophies. It’s really not why I do it at all, however, to be left out of accolades and trophies is crushing, it’s killing of the spirit. To be included is all I can ask for. I want to be included in the great musicians that have ever lived in Los Angeles.
It was interesting to hear all of you talk about Jane’s Addiction as a unit.
We’re fresh off a tour where we were fucking killing each other, it was just terrible. [But] along the way I was hanging out with Steven [Tyler] and Joe [Perry], we were down in South America together, and then I ran into Richie Sambora and I’m thinking to myself, “There’s an art to being able to keep this shit together.” A lot of people cannot do it, under the best of all circumstances and still they can’t fucking do it. So, it’s crazy, people they devolve back into grade school if you’re around them too long.
What are you currently working on?
Kind Heaven is my project and it’s a dance project. I worked with Joachim Garraud, myself and Etty [Lau Farrell, his wife] and Zeds Dead did a track, this young kid. I’ve got tracks from a couple of other producers, but most of it’s been done by Jochaim and it’s going to be in Las Vegas, immersive theater, a musical. It’s something you’ve never seen.
Is there a timeframe for taking it to Vegas?
Hopefully it will take me eight months to get it going. But it’s pure dance mixed with theater. We’re looking to do it in Vegas and then Etty and I will take it out on the road.
So will this be a full-time project? Because I know you’ve also been working on Porno for Pyros’ tracks?
I did a couple of Porno tracks and I love those guys but I have to weigh out my workload. I’m getting into dance right now, I already have like 12 finished tracks. For the next year it’s gonna be Kind Heaven.
Who do you want to work with in the dance world?
I want to work with Deadmau5, I admire him, I want to work with Guy Gerber, Sasha, Richie Hawtin, I want to get fucking serious in that world.