Onstage Perry Farrell is best known as the frontman for Janes Addiction, the seminal alt-rock band responsible for hits like Been Caught Stealing, Jane Says and even the Entourage theme song. But the restless singers true legacy is likely his work off the stage, as the co-founder and mastermind behind the now veteran Lollapalooza festival. In 2005, after watching his baby die twice, Farrell helped re-brand Lollapalooza as a one of the countrys signature destination music festivals. On the eve of this years event, Farrell shared his thoughts on the future of the music industry, Janes Addictions recent reunion tour and the future of the music industry with Relix and Jambands.com.
MG: It’s been four years since Lollapalooza re-branded itself as a weekend event and, in that time, the festival has taken on its own identity completely separate from its touring predecessor. How do you feel the festival’s growth has paralleled other changes in the music industry?
PF: I’ll tell you what—in terms of the evolution in music, I would say this is where it is going. We watched, in the last 10 years, the recording industry kind of go through a severe recession, right? Let’s call it more of an attrition, right? So there are major changes that occurred from that. Changes in how we got our music, yes? That’s the first thing. How are we getting our music now? Well, we are not buying it in a store. We all know that. But what that did was it changed in general. The music industry has no money. So now they are not signing groups for half a million dollars or a million dollars or five million dollars. Now they are signing them for fifty thousand or a hundred thousand or a quarter of a million. As a result of that, the musicians are not going to run to a big name producer—they are not going to rent a studio for three thousand bucks a day. They are going to go out and get themselves Pro Tools, put it on their laptop and learn how to produce themselves. They are going to work with electronic sounds. They are going to find all these incredible drum machines and synths and this software that comes with it through people like Native Instruments. The musician of today, you are going to find mostly, is a self-produced musician who works with electronics more than ever before. And when he goes to play and perform live he takes those sounds and the way he made music, and he brings that with him out onto the stage. So now you have a hybrid of sound and a hybrid of performance.
MG: Also, festivals are almost like radios these days, introducing fans to a bunch of new bands in a single day.
PF: Without a doubt. It has become, again, extremely important to go out and visit the musical festivals and see groups and then you’ll know if you really like them or not. You know, people don’t get out as much as they used to when it comes to live entertainment, when it comes to music. Smaller clubs, I don’t think people, you know I’m being honest with you, this is a reflection, this is not my opinion, but my assessment is that people are less interested in going out and seeing a live group with one or two support acts.
MG: Right, they want an all inclusive experience.
PF: More than ever before—especially on the small club circuit. People don’t want to sit and listen to a new group that’s just trying to learn how to play their instruments. There is not really a scene for that. But, what is a scene that is just blowing up bigger and bigger and bigger is putting all these groups together for a day. Putting these groups together for a ticket where, listen, two hundred bucks, one hundred groups, six headliners, legends like Lou Reed and Snoop Dogg, newcomers like Santigold, and Animal Collective, and Deadmau 5, and MSTKRFT, and at the top you have Depeche Mode and Jane’s Addiction and the hottest groups in the country right now, Kings of Leon, the Killers and Tool.
MG: It’s interesting that you specifically mention a band like Kings of Leon because they are group that has really benefited from the festival circuit. I remember seeing them at Lollapalooza a couple years ago when they were just a support act and now they are a co-headliner.
PF: Yeah, well you know. They blew up this year. There is no doubt about that. They hit the perfect demographic: they are the perfect age, they are the perfect demographic. I see that when I look [online]. You know, we have this very interesting set up now with Facebook and iPhone where you can put together your own festival schedule. And when you put your schedule together and say, “I’m going to see Jane’s Addiction or whomever,” you can register with other people on Facebook that are going to see them. So I kind of get to see, in a very interesting way, what this demographic of computer users are listening to these days. And, you know, it’s an interesting read, for me anyway. More and more people want to go out, we have never had such good numbers, and we have been a festival for 18 years.
MG: I was actually surprised how well most festivals are selling this summer. With the economy in such bad shape, I thought this would be the summer festivals really struggled.
PF: And it wasn’t always so. It started out it was so. And what happened was, around 1997, people didn’t really give a hoot about festivals, especially the musicians. The musicians were all full of themselves by that time and the hot, fresh group would also want to go out as a headliner. And there was enough interest and action in the music industry at that time that you can book somebody on a hit. There was a point where we’d say, “these people called the Smashing Pumpkins from Chicago—it is their first big record and it is their first big festival, all these kids are listening to the newest groups.” But, as FM declines, and record sales and CD sales decline, you find that music listeners are people who are on the computer a lot are more. People that are computer savvy. People that have time to get on Facebook are now a certain demographic in the music industry. It’s interesting.
MG: No, most definitely. Did you find that when you guys were booking the festival this year that you kind of, were spending more time seeing who had more Facebook and MySpace friends than who had big album sales this year?
PF: Well, you know, I can’t necessarily say that it had a lot to do with MySpace but, I will tell you this, when we, we have, there’s a triad of partners. We have C3 out in Austin, Texas. They have live venues out in Austin, Texas and they do SXSW too—and they have Stubbs, which is like their premier stage. Then we have William Morris who booked the whole world and they are reading things from Pollstar, etc. And then there’s me and I’m a musician and help program from that angle. I love to cruise music blogs. So I’m kind of a computer guy. So I’m getting my reads off of the music blogs. The music blogs are passing around remixes and stuff. That’s how I’m bringing my list of artists who I want that year. So it’s kind of a well rounded thing, but the Internet plays a big part of it for my estimations and my decisions, you know? I’m cruising the Internet all year.
MG: Lollapalooza has made a point of booking at least one marquee jamband like Widespread Panic, moe., the Disco Biscuits, Umphrey’s McGee and The Duo since re-launching as a single-weekend event. This year STS9 is playing one of the festival’s main performance spaces. I know you first collaborated with STS9 while on a snowboarding trip a few years ago. What initially drew you to that group in particular?
PF: It was just one of those things where I just admired that they were a group, you know that they performed. It’s wonderful to know electronics. But I’ll tell you, in the early ‘90’s, you know, electronic music and house music, people were calling themselves DJ superstars and it was a big deal, right? But, then the rave acts hit, and Disco Donny got arrested for selling ecstasy out of his club. Even though it wasn’t him, it was some guy who had ecstasy and the Rave Act, what it said was that anyone caught with drugs in your club qualifies you, the promoter as a drug dealer, and it wiped out the scene for a long time. It wiped out the scene in New York. But, it never died in Europe, and it kept on developing here but just underground. And, with the festival starting to include electronic music more and more, and I think it reached an apex with Goth Punk because of what they did. But they were very smart, they said, “We are going to put a great live show together” and they might still be just doing the same thing that the guy in the club does but with a robot mask and a pyramid full of lights, but its effective. And it makes people feel like they are still getting a show when they go out. With STS9, I appreciated their performance. I appreciated their working with electronic music and they were performing with it. You know they had live strings, instrumentalists. It was just the kind of thing where I just admire what they do.
MG: Now this summer you were out on the amphitheatre circuit with Jane’s Addiction and NIN. How have you felt that that circuit has changed in the past few years since you were doing major amphitheatre tours? Do you feel like that’s the same as the festival or maybe it has kind of evolved with the festival a little bit?
PF: Well, for sure it has evolved with it because people like NIN and myself, we make it a point, it’s kind of like, it’s a bit of a pilgrimage for musicians these days—people who are out there working and want to continue working and love to do it live. You know, you kind of pinpoint where you want to go that year. You are always welcome…I mean we have, as I said, it’s up to 100 acts over the course of 3 days so they can always use a great, classic act. You know what I mean?
No one will ever turn their back on a great classic act because a lot of these guys are developing still and there is always an audience for it and its class. It’s good but how its changed over the tour that we just did with NIN, it was kind of funny because, you know, the audience, we came up with NIN so a lot of the people that were there were people that knew us 18 years ago and were coming out because we actually toured with NIN about 18 years ago. So you have those people, they come out, and they are, the demographic is older than it was 18 years ago because, let’s face it, those guys aged 18 years. So you have them but you also had a young audience and the young audience kind of came in with the same attitude that we had 18 years ago. They are kind of pissed off and serious, that was the NIN people, wearing black T-shirts and, you know. Then there was our crowd that had gotten used to life and had gotten the irony out of it, gotten sarcasm out of and they were in a good mood. So it was kind of a trippy little audience there.
Speaking of booking bands, unfortunately the Beastie Boys weren’t able to perform after MCA was diagnosed with cancer. You booked the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who are a great band. Was there a reason that you selected them in particular? Were they a favorite of yours or one of the promoters?
PF: Well, I’ll just tell you how it really happened. When I got a hold of Charles Attal who is one of the triad of booking agents. He is the main guy out of Austin for booking. He told me that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were in the lead to get the part, as we might as well call it, and I love those guys, they are like family to me. For many, many years, their daily manager was mine and she went on to do the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and so when I’m together with them we can laugh for days. So I’m really overjoyed. You know recently, there is a band called Gomez. They are really good, they are not from America, but they were one of the original jambands coming out of Europe and they really like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They were just playing their music and they got to do an hour on radio. You know, artists, and people that really have a refined ear, seem to love the Yeah Yeah Yeahs so I’m really happy that they are doing it.
