Jane’s Addiction: The Volatile History of The Band Behind ’Jane Says, Mountain Song & Stop!’

The volatile history of Jane’s Addiction SIGN UP for 10 of the Craziest Stories in Rock N’ Roll [Secret Playlist]: Check out our Top 25 Favourite Albums Here Have a video request or a topic you’d like to see us cover? Fill out our google form! -----CONNECT ON SOCIAL----- Instagram: Facebook: Twitter: Blog: #janesaddition #perryfarrell #davenavarro I cite my sources and they may differ than other people’s accounts, so I don’t guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos. Navarro would summarize the four styles the members brought to the group telling Spin us. Perry had a whole freakish look of his own, like some skinny, bugged-out goth surfer in whore makeup with flailing dreadlocks. Eric was more traditional punk rock, and Stephen had this crazy Afro hair thing. I was kind of a hippie kid, a little ’60s-influenced Deadhead gone heavy metal. But you throw us together and it was a patchwork quilt—it doesn’t look like it makes sense, but it keeps you warm. The band for their part didn’t really have a formula to writing songs with Navarro telling billboard Eric would sometimes have a bass line, and we’d write off that. Perry would sometimes have a weird guitar part, and we’d write off that. Sometimes Perry would just have lyrics and we’d have to come up with something based on that. There were times when Stephen was setting up his drums and would be playing something and we’d go, “Wow, what is that?” And he’s like, “I don’t know,” and they’re like, “Keep playing it.” And there were times when I was tuning up and just kind of playing random chords and somebody in the room would say, “What are those chords?” And I would say, “I don’t really know,” and I’d have to spend a half an hour trying to remember what they were. That’s how we wrote songs. Monday through Friday the band continued to rehearse at the infamous Wilton House in the garage out back. They’d share the rehearsal space with another band named Lions and Ghost Navarro would recall to Billbaord I would liken it to a miniature musical Warhol Factory kind of environment. Any time you’d walk in the front door, you had no idea who you were going to run into, who you were gonna see. There were a lot of drugs happening. There was a lot of darkness. There was a lot of laughter. I’ve spent some of my best nights in that house — and some of my worst nights in that house. The band would gig around what Perry refers to as and i quote “the underground Los Angeles” – a mixture of of junkies, artists, bohemian types and. The later of which the band counted themselves part of as well. Drugs aside Farrell made it his mission to change the rock landscape which he deemed boring by the time Jane’s Addiciton sprouted up telling Loudersound “Rock’n’roll had been around for thirty years,” s. “It was almost impossible to come up with a new sound, a new way. But I had to have it. We had to do it. And what happened was, I saw what I didn’t like.” One of those early songs written by the band that would get them record label attention was an acoustic number called Jane Says, which was inspired by the same Jane who inspired the group’s name.. Eric Avery would tell Spin Sometimes we’d do acoustic jams on the porch at the Wilton House. I’ll never forget when Jane asked us if we’d play a sad song for her, and I had to shake my head and say, “Jane, we just got through playing ‘Jane Says,’ one of the saddest songs in the world.” References to drugs were littered throughout the song. In 1985 a local record label and management company named Triple X had sprouted up and soon had Jane’s Addiction on their radars. Initially wanting to sign the group to a three record deal, Farrell was a little antsy wanting to only do a one record deal before pursuing the majors who were already courting the band Triple X would release the group’s first album a live concert at the Roxy that was self titled and featured several songs that would show up on their first studio record... The owners of the band’s indie label not having a lot of money went as far as selling their cars to finance the album which cost about 4-5 thousand dollars.. In the audience that night at the Roxy were Bob Forrest and Anthony Keidis who were stunned at what they had witnessed. By 1986 Jane’s Addiction had gotten ex-communicated from pretty much every club in LA with their destructive and unpredictable shows, but they would form a kinship with the club Scream who didn’t care about their antics. The scene at Scream was a lot different than the clubs you’d typically associate with LA