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Jane's Addiction

A Los Angeles band whose two studio albums of 1988 and 1990 helped carry alternative rock toward the mainstream, then split after the first Lollapalooza.

Origin
Los Angeles, California, United States
Years active
1985-2025
Genres
alternative rock, alternative metal, art rock, funk-punk
Labels
Triple X, Warner Bros., Capitol

Los Angeles

Jane's Addiction formed in Los Angeles in 1985 from the remains of Perry Farrell's previous band Psi Com. Farrell found the bassist Eric Avery through a mutual friend, and the two bonded over Joy Division and the Velvet Underground. The name honored Farrell's housemate Jane Bainter. After a string of guitarists and drummers, Avery's sister suggested her boyfriend Stephen Perkins on drums, and Perkins brought in his friend Dave Navarro on guitar.

The band became a sensation on the Los Angeles club scene, headlining at a club called Scream, and several labels showed interest. They chose Warner Bros. but insisted on releasing a first record on the independent Triple X. The result was Jane's Addiction, a live album recorded at the Roxy Theatre on 26 January 1987 for a cost of $4,000. It held early versions of Jane Says and Pigs in Zen.

Nothing's Shocking

In January 1988 the band began its major-label debut with Dave Jerden. Jerden said he picked nine songs from an eighteen-song demo tape and had the band rehearse and record them in a set order. Nothing's Shocking came out on 23 August 1988. It held a re-recorded Jane Says, now with steel drums, and Mountain Song, one of the first songs the band wrote.

MTV refused to air the Mountain Song video because of nudity, so Farrell released it commercially as the Soul Kiss home video. With little airplay on MTV or modern rock radio, the album sold 200,000 to 250,000 copies in its first year. The band toured as support to Iggy Pop and the Ramones. The album peaked at 103 on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by 1998. Steve Pond of Rolling Stone called the band the true heir to Led Zeppelin, and in 2022 Pitchfork's Ian Cohen called the record the sound of the 90s arriving two years ahead of schedule.

Ritual de lo Habitual

Work on the follow-up began in mid-1989, again with Jerden, and with Farrell credited as co-producer. Ritual de lo Habitual arrived in August 1990. Its first five tracks are separate hard rock songs, among them Stop! and Been Caught Stealing. The second half runs through Three Days, which lasts 10:48, and Then She Did..., both with a progressive rock influence, and Of Course, with a klezmer influence and a prominent violin. Avery declined to play bass on Of Course, so the engineer Ronnie S. Champagne played it.

The album reached 19 on the Billboard 200, sold half a million copies within a month and went on to certification as 2x Platinum. Been Caught Stealing, the third single, spent four weeks at number one on the Modern Rock chart, and its shoplifting video won Best Alternative Video at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. Peter Kane of Q called Three Days epic.

Lollapalooza and the split

A thirteen-month tour followed. Part of it was the first Lollapalooza, the traveling festival created by Farrell and Marc Geiger, which Jane's Addiction headlined across North America in mid-1991 as a farewell. Nine Inch Nails and Siouxsie and the Banshees shared the bill. The band played its last shows in Australia and Hawaii and broke up. Navarro joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1993.

Mark Richardson of Pitchfork wrote in 2006 that you could say Jane's Addiction invented the 90s in the time between Nothing's Shocking and that first Lollapalooza. Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers called them the most important rock band of the 80s, according to the Guardian.

Returns

A 1997 reunion tour used Flea in place of Avery and produced the compilation Kettle Whistle. A second reunion in 2001 led to Strays (2003), with Chris Chaney on bass. It debuted at four on the Billboard 200, but the band broke up again before the year was out. The original four reunited in 2008 and toured with Nine Inch Nails in 2009. After Avery left in 2010, the band made The Great Escape Artist (2011) with the producer Rich Costey and Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio on bass. It debuted at 12.

Avery returned in 2022. In May 2024 the original line-up played London, and the Guardian's reviewer wrote that they had not sounded so vivid and alive in decades. The US leg of the 2024 tour ended early in September, and in December 2025 the band announced in a statement that it was parting ways.

Members

Records

Songs

Porno for Pyros, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins

Where to go next

Reference

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Sources

  1. Jane's Addiction, Wikipedia
  2. Nothing's Shocking, Pitchfork (2022-09-11)
  3. Up from the Catacombs: The Best of Jane's Addiction, Pitchfork (2006-09-22)
  4. Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction: I consider myself a late bloomer, The Guardian (2020-08-07)
  5. Jane's Addiction call it quits, The Guardian (2025-12-18)
  6. Eric Avery, Wikipedia