JPG: I do want to bring up the album and I want to bring up a couple sounds specifically in a second but I was going to say the album itself seems like an encapsulation of Perry Farrell, the musical artist from the past 38 years. Was it a happy accident or was it the influence of producer Tony Visconti or was that the vision for it?

PF: Well, as I say, today we’re living in a day, Bill and The Dead are, you know, they didn’t have software that I and Tony and all the other musicians that our contemporaries have today. I’ll give you a funny happenstance. So, these days, I’m getting into the origins of jazz. I’m studying 1930s and ‘40s period, so basically Kansas City Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Count Basie etc. etc.  Louis Armstrong, Billie Eckstine…the list goes on. I’m studying them and I love them because of their enthusiasm, their dedication, their sense of improvisation and creativity as a musician. Their dedication to their craft caused them to transcend what the world heard asmusic and moved the needle. It made the world happy. It brought people together that might not have liked black people, and it caused them to overlook their prejudices and open their arms and embrace them because the musical message that they had was so attractive and so needed, which basically, it’s causing them to dance and be in joy.

And so, I never want to forget or leave out in the analog, the soul of a musician.  However, I should say, in my 60 years, I’ve been introduced to this wonderful technology that can enhance the experience by…it was first mono.Everyone was into Louis [Armstrong] on mono and then it became stereo, and then we can do this really cool thing called panning. And did you notice that the voice, the backgrounds are on the left and then it was on the right and the guitars move to the left, and that was novel. Then, we picked up quadraphonics, and so there are certain things that you can put in the back, but now we have delays, basically, it’s dub. I’m picking up from the Lee Scratch Perry’s of the world and the King Tubby’s, all those great dub artists that taught me what you can do with delay and filtering and chorusing. But now, I wanted to apply all the things that I love in a most contemporary way that I could because it’s the most exciting.  

So, even though I love and I honor and respect and really hold up the artists and the music of the past, I know that we can make music that will be passionate for people, give them joy, give them wonder now, a wonder that they never experienced because of the technology if we use it properly.So, we use surround sound to whip the delays around you. We use the filter for the strings to show up just behind your left shoulder, and those things are what are going to excite people when they get to really fully listen to it or they can put on some binaural headphones. We also mixed the album in binaural. We mixed it in Atmosand we mixed it in stereo.

In the next two to five years, the full extent of what we did will be realized. First, when we go to Las Vegas and we hear the sound coming from out of the walls, coming from behind us, around us, maybe we’re wearing headphones and we get whispers. I can direct sound directly to an individual among thousands of people, I can whisper a message to one person as if an angel was speaking in their ear.

JPG: Hearing that brings up this. Sound, the collection of notes, and how they can directly influence a person’s thinking and it makes me think of a track I really, really love off the new album, “(red, white and blue) Cheerfulness.” because it has a peppy vibe. It’s almost like “H.R. Pufnstuf” in that it sounds like a children’s theme song.

PF: Want me to fill you in on the song?

JPG: Sure…  

PF: I’m looking right now at two American flags, an amazing architectural eagle very close to Ground Zero. The eagle is called the Oculus. I am basically looking at the World Trade Center. I was in New York City deejaying for Marc Jacobs, the great fashion designer, the night before 9/11 and, of course, I woke up in the morning, walking distance from the World Trade Center. I couldn’t understand what I was looking at because I was seeing things out the window and on the television that matched. Can you imagine that? I’m watching on TV and in front of me and it didn’t make sense. At first I thought, “I’ve never seen this footage before. What is this?” Isn’t that crazy? 

So anyway, “(red, white and blue) Cheerfulness.”  I have become a newshound because of what all has gone on in this country. I cannot ignore politics, although I wish I could. I am not a politician. I’m not interested in it at all. I am interested in art and the closest I get to it is there are good politicians out there that care about people and then there are those that are very, very selfish and will ruin the world and will ruin your time here on earth if you let them. So, I make it a point everyday to watch the news. I do not watch Fox News ever. I only watched it one time just to almost guarantee myself that it was full of shit and I was right. Then, I went back to MSNBC or CNN. I know that they’ve got their issues, too, however, they have some very, very smart and liberal men and women, gay and straight, black and white and brown, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Christian…I like their pool of idealists. So, I listen to them.

I am open-minded there. I watch specifically, I love Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell.  So, I wrote this song because Rachel is always telling us really, really important information that could be a bummer. But, if you watch her, she is always laughing and smiling. It’s a nervous laugh of, “Can you believe those guys?” Almost like she’s talking to a friend. And so, I wrote about her and Lawrence. If you notice, Lawrence is the same way. He’s got a glimmer in his eye and he’s like, “Yeah, this guy did that.” They get heavy but then they come out of it as they should because if it’s too heavy people are going to jump out of a building. Jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, you know?  And so they reel us back with a smile and a cheerfulness, and I think they’re true patriots and I love ‘em.

And so, I wanted to write a song that was starting out with simple basics like The Beatles or The Who or The Stones. The Beatles started out doing residencies in Germany, in Hamburg, and that’s where they honed their craft. And it was a simple mix. So, I wanted to start the record out just that way and my friend, Taylor Hawkins, who’s one of my best buddies, too…Brought him in because he’s a guy that’s all about analog. And so it was perfect for he and I to get together and write this simple song as Sly Stone said.

JPG: So, you sang a simple song, as Sly would say.

PF: Yes, but seeing the simplicity as sophistication. It’s like dressing up. Look how elegantly and simply they’re put together. They’re not overdressed and there’s beauty in that.

JPG: Someone once said that Beatles songs are like children’s tunes because at their core the melodies are so basic that children as well as the child in every adult can find it appealing.

PF: Yes, the simplicity in their melodies and then there’s a sophistication that comes into their harmonies when the resonancies to spread out. It’s all beautiful and digestible. And the basics of it, you can take into a very small room with an acoustic guitar.

JPG: Tony Visconti producing “Kind Heaven.” Love when he produces stuff. Even though he didn’t produce David Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane,” the final notes on your song “More Than I Could Bear” remind me of the final piano notes at the end of Bowie’s song “Time.” Also, “Let’s All Pray For This World,” that is you singing on that correct? 

PF: That’s right.                                               

JPG: It’s a very different voice.

PF: A little John Lennon there. I tried to sing it various ways at that speed. I didn’t initially, and I didn’t set out to sound like John Lennon but, of course, I’ve listened to John Lennon for my whole life. And so, I was trying to get articulation out in this speed.

Interesting note about the song, it was written with Joachim Garraud,whose a French house producer. He was writing everything at a speed of approximately 130 to 135 beats per minute. The piano, which was originally a synthetic piano because Joachim can play piano beautifully…As I say, he’s a French house producer, so the speed of (Perry mimics the speed of the backing track. Then, sings a line from the song.) So, it was an articulation thing that I had to navigate and it worked out.

It’s one of the songs, I warm up my voice to but I don’t sing it at that speed. I sing it acoustically with one acoustic guitar down almost a step. It becomes (he sings a line of the song) but that’s not how it was recorded. 

To answer your question about Tony, we should also speak about for a momentHarry Gregson-Williams, who was the composer of the 30-piece orchestra and the arranger. We brought Joachim’s tracks to Tony and we brought Harry Gregson-Williams tracks to Tony and my vocal tracks were done in part to Tony.

What I had done was, I’d begun writing that record, believe it or not, it took me seven years in completion, starting with the concept from a dream. Then, the concept became storyboard, as a PDF [file]. I conceptualized a story, a scenario, where we’d be living in a time where the return of the Messiah, the second Messianic era if you will, and we were on the threshold of it. We hadn’t passed it yet because we first have to go through the anti-Christ and Armageddon. That’s where I wanted to put the story; the present tense of the story was that. Then, I began to write poetry and then I reached out, originally to digital artists because it was a quick way of getting amazing beats and the latest technology. Then, I brought in the great Chris Chaney who is our bassist in Jane’s Addiction, had him as the first organic analog musician so that when I brought in Tony, he had voice and bass and a few drums. So, a rhythm section. We had Taylor Hawkins rhythm section.  We had Tommy Lee rhythm section. And then, my voice and Etty’s voice.  

So then, Tony took all that as I know he’s more than capable, he is a master. He’s like a Rembrandt.  He took all that and then we added the great Elliott Easton of The Cars and Peter DiStefano from Porno for Pyros. Also, there’s a secret sauce in the mix and his name isBrendan Hawkins. He has been one of my best friends also. My technician. He helped record the voice of Etty and myself.Brendan Hawkins knows the latest software that he applied to my voice and gives sweetening in addition…the way that the electronic producers work is they send files back and forth using Dropbox or whatever else they have going. I give them voice and song and lyric. They would give me beat and melody to start with. And then I could completely change the arrangement. I could say, “Well, you know what? I hear it this way” and give it back to them. We go back and forth in this beautiful – what would you call it? – badminton. We’re volleying back and forth ideas to each other.

Then, when it came time to bring in Tony, we had all these pieces that we put together, listened to and then we additionally took out things that were too processed that didn’t allow for the soul to thrive and play it again – again, we volley back and sweeten tweaks that are as modern and contemporary as we have available to us. So, if you listen to the voice, there’s crazy backwards masking on it that we worked with to try to bring a freshness and uniqueness to the production of a voice.  Things like that that will come in handy later when we mix in Atmos. That was what we were trying to achieve.

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