What a week for Perry Farrell.
Just days after his beloved Lollapalooza summer concert tour got canned due to poor ticket sales comes news his three Jane’s Addiction bandmates have joined forces with another singer to form a new group.
The on-again, off-again Addiction had reunited last year to record the album Hypersonic, the band’s first since 1990’s Ritual de lo Habitual. But a statement from Jane’s Addiction guitarist (and Carmen Electra sidekick) Dave Navarro says that the band is officially off again and that he, bassist Chris Chaney and drummer Stephen Perkins have moved on with Skycycle vocalist Steve Isaacs.
“The deal is that [the reunion] simply didn’t work out,” Navarro wrote on his official Website this week. “Sometimes things just don’t work out. In all honesty, we have broken up and rejoined roughly four times over the years. Perhaps that should shed some light as to where we are now. We really don’t know. We do know that we really gave it everything we had this time and we actually made a really great record after so many years of silence.”
The members of the new group, which is still nameless, have written three songs and have started recording with Navarro’s Trust No One solo album producer Danny Saber.
Navarro and Isaacs swear there are no hard feelings and that they are not trying to replace Farrell or create a revamped Jane’s Addiction.
In a statement posted on his Web site Friday, Isaacs says that anyone who thinks he is Farrell’s replacement is “totally f–ing nuts. No one in the universe could replace Perry Farrell and for anyone to try would be ridiculous…Dave, Stephen, and Chris and I are just taking some time to do what is the most fun thing in the world to do-make music and write songs.”
“Sometimes people grow apart in the relationship, it is nobody’s fault really…just a fact of life…an inevitable creative dissolution,” Navarro added. “Sometimes the best creative relationships are the most combustible and they aren’t meant to last forever.”
Navarro also pointed out that the Jane’s Addiction breakup was precipitated by several things, “some of them over 15 years old, some of them new and none of them worth mentioning. Maybe we are just a volatile combination. Maybe that is why we were so great. The bottom line is that we are all extremely creative and motivated people and I know we will all continue to create and work on many different projects.”
Farrell could not immediately be reached for comment Friday, but suffice it to say, it has not been a fun few days.
The latest edition of his Lollapalooza fest was nixed this week due to poor ticket sales. The 31-date, 16-city festival was to kick off July 14 and feature an all-star lineup that included Morrissey, the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, the String Cheese Incident, Wilco and the Pixies.
While Farrell didn’t comment directly Friday, he did release a statement apologizing to the now-out-of-work bands and perhaps giving a nod to the Jane’s Addiction news.
“Please know that I value your talents and look forward to meeting you again-a little later on to rediscover ourselves as friends,” he said. “If it makes you feel any better, I am in the same boat as most of you; ‘Only loaded with talent.’ But with talent like ours, they can’t hold us down for long.”
