Excerpts: Liner Notes From Jane's Addiction's A Cabinet Of Curiosities

From the start Jane’s Addiction were an incomparable force.

Even in an L.A. club scene convulsing with the music of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, Thelonious Monster, and Dream Syndicate, the foursome of vocalist Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, bassist Eric Avery, and drummer Stephen Perkins became an almost immediate sensation. Farrell’s shaking dreadlocks and uninhibited dancing, the band’s raw energy, and their primordial, aggressive melding of alternative and furious hard-rock riffs made Jane’s one of the city’s most talked-about bands.

And then there was the attitude. Defiant and unyielding, Jane’s recorded their eponymous debut live in 1987 at the Sunset Strip’s famed Roxy Theatre and released it on indie label Triple X Records, serving notice of a group as unconventional as its music.

“Coming from our world, which was underground and punk rock, it was all about independence. I looked at the pop world and I tried not to pay any attention because it would be like dancing in a mirror. You just start to become affected and pretentious,” Farrell says today.

Between Farrell’s charisma, an instantly identifiable sound, and that independence, Jane’s were a band that couldn’t miss. Of course, that description has been misused countless times on those who ultimately failed for one reason or another, but this time the hype proved prophetic. In 1988 the band released their debut studio and major label album, Nothing’s Shocking. With its unforgettable Farrell-designed sleeve—nude Siamese twins with hair aflame (the image was later voted #19 on a Rolling Stone list of 100 greatest album covers and #1 on Metal Edge’s 25 wildest album covers)—the cover was controversial, thought provoking, and ultimately artistic.

In short, it was the perfect visual companion to the complexity of Jane’s music. From the psychedelic flavor of opening instrumental “Up The Beach” and the rocking “Ocean Size,” a song propelled by Navarro’s shredding guitar and a furious finale where all members explode as one, to the ferocious hard rock of “Mountain Song” and the mid-tempo “Jane Says,” a track that went to #6 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart, Nothing’s Shocking united all of the group’s influences into one mind-expanding, timeless soundscape.

Like the classic quartets that preceded them—Led Zeppelin, The Who, U2—much of Jane’s greatness came from the melding of four disparate personalities, a point driven home by their different musical tastes. “Perkins and I grew up listening to [Iron] Maiden, Van Halen, Black Sabbath—metal with musical skills and chops,” Navarro recalls. “We loved the punk rock scene. We were fans of X, Fear, Circle Jerks, Black Flag, but being musician nerds and the kind of guys that wanted to stay home and play an instrument, we felt we needed aggression with musicality, so that’s why Perkins and I veered to [the] metal scene. Then you took that background, the love of musicality and metal, and bands like Zeppelin, Floyd—Eric Avery was a hardcore punk rocker/classical music lover and Perry was coming out of Psi-Com, which, for lack of better terms, was somewhat of a goth band.”

“Me and Dave had the hyper, flashy playing, and Eric and Perry had the behind-the-curtain type approach to music and more of a darker, slower approach to music as opposed to me and Dave,” Perkins adds.

Together those influences bridged the gap between L.A.’s two worlds. With a completely alternative and underground sensibility, led by Farrell’s artistic bent, but with the ability to rock harder than any of the hair bands then enjoying success, Jane’s was the ultimate union of the avant-garde and metal.

—From Steve Baltin’s Liner Notes for the Rhino boxed set , A Cabinet Of Curiosities.

“I got to see them just as Nothing’s Shocking was coming out. They had two sold-out shows in Chicago, and the Pumpkins, in just our fourth gig, were opening. Because of a prior commitment we couldn’t stay and watch, so as we loaded out our gear to go to the other club, I could hear them light into ‘Trip Away,’ and I was so pissed I couldn’t stay. We were able to see the second show, and they opened with ‘Summertime Rolls,’ Perry in a big hat, just moving slow like a riverboat captain. They were unspeakably brilliant and on fire, and it blew my mind. It showed me that a concert could be everything I ever loved about music all in one experience, and that has stayed with me ever since.”

—Billy Corgan, From Steve Baltin’s Liner Notes for the Rhino boxed set, A Cabinet Of Curiosities.