Jane’s Addiction’s long-serving guitar tech Dan Cleary has lifted the lid on the mounting tensions in the band that led to the onstage fight between frontman Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro, with Cleary believing that this is the end of the line for the alt-rock institution.
Those tensions came to a head on 13 September, when Jane’s Addiction had to cut short their set at Boston’s Leader Bank Pavilion after Farrell blew up at his bandmates and took a swing at Navarro.
Cleary had to intervene and hold Farrell back. Jane’s Addiction subsequently cancelled all remaining dates on their US tour, with Navarro, bassist Eric Avery, and drummer Stephen Perkins issuing a statement on Instagram that they could no longer continue owing to the “continuing pattern of behaviour and mental health difficulties of our singer Perry Farrell”.
The statements continued. Farrell issued an apology to his bandmates – “especially Dave Navarro” – and described his behaviour as “inexcusable”. Farrell’s wife, Etty Lau Farrell, blamed high stage volumes as a root cause of the fracas.
Cleary disputes this, and on his podcast/YouTube show, Rare Form Radio, he shared his side of the story with the filmmaker Todd Newman, who is a close friend of Navarro’s. Cleary says the idea that stage volume caused the altercation is “bullshit”.
“I have to push back on that in a big way,” says Cleary, citing shows in Tampa and New York City in the run up to the Boston blow-up in which Farrell was unfit to perform.
“We did two shows in New York, back to back nights,” he says. “The first show was the worst show I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m not saying just for Jane’s – it was the worst show I’ve ever seen.
“I need to make this very, very clear, and, again, I don’t want to talk about people’s personal shit, but when Etty Farrell goes on social media and says this has to do with sound issues onstage, I have to say that’s fucking bullshit. Because the Tampa show, the New York show, and the Boston show, I’m sorry, but Perry was fucked up. Okay?”
Newman responds by saying he had friends who had witnessed the New York show and sent him messages complaining that Farrell was incoherent.
“This is not supposed to be a pick-on-Perry thing but, the three worst shows, this man clearly was fucked up and we knew it from the moment we saw him earlier in the day,” continues Cleary.
On those nights, Cleary says Farrell didn’t know where he was during the songs, forgetting lyrics and singing lyrics from the wrong song. “These are not sound issues,” he says. “And if they were he would have looked towards monitor world and said, ‘Hey! I don’t know what the fuck is happening. Help me!’ That never happened.”
Cleary says disagreements over stage production had been a persistent source of unease between Farrell and his bandmates, and it was an issue that had been building for months.
Farrell wanted dancers – his wife among them – to accompany the band onstage, while the band wanted the stage show to be just the four of them with a video in the background. Farrell was outvoted.
“I do know that there was immediate pushback from Perry on that issue,” says Cleary. “I understand his pushback. I also understand, like, pleading your case and fighting for something that you really, really want. But the main thing is, when there is a collective decision to do things as a democracy, as a group, you have to, at a certain point, let go of those things.”
Ahead of their first US date in Las Vegas, Farrell took a film crew to the desert and shot footage for the stage video featuring the dancers. In the argument that followed, Farrell quit the band.
The Farrells couldn’t let go of this thing, to the point where, before the first show, Perry quit the band
“Nobody knows any of this stuff, but it got pretty heated, and it was again about this video content and dancers whether they were on the stage or off stage,” says Cleary. “The Farrells couldn’t let go of this thing, to the point where, before the first show, Perry quit the band. I need to make this very, very clear because it matters later on: Perry quit the band, told the band he is going back to the hotel and he’s done. Which left everyone else thinking, ‘What the fuck is happening?’”
Having worked for Jane’s Addiction for 17 years, Cleary is devastated that it has finished like this – and he believes it is finished for good.
Even for a band whose break ups and reconciliations have been the recurring theme in their history, Cleary cannot see a way forward.
“It is safe to say the band, it is no more,” he says. “I know the fanbase and people want this to be worked out – I personally do not see that being a reality, my personal opinion. No one has said, ‘We are done.’ [But ] we gotta be real here.”
