walking upstream…
Jane's Addiction
photo: metruka · cc by-sa 3.0 ↗Jane's Addiction
sourcesWikipedia
Jane's Addiction formed in Los Angeles in 1985 when singer Perry Farrell, fresh off the collapse of his goth outfit Psi Com, paired with bassist Eric Avery, then completed the classic lineup with drummer Stephen Perkins and guitarist Dave Navarro. Named for Farrell's roommate Jane Bainter, the band fused Led Zeppelin-scaled riffing and tribal drums with goth atmosphere, funk swagger, and Farrell's shape-shifting, half-mythical stage persona, arriving heavy and strange enough on 'Nothing's Shocking' (1988) and 'Ritual de lo Habitual' (1990) to help invent alternative metal ahead of grunge. The band imploded acrimoniously in 1991, but not before its farewell tour became the first-ever Lollapalooza — a traveling festival built in the band's own contrarian image. Reunions, new records, and further lineup shuffles have followed on and off ever since.
the sound in question
1988
Jane SaysJane's Addiction
walk the tributaries ↓
Led Zeppelin1970s · Hard rock / Blues rock
Accounts of the band's formation place Led Zeppelin among the touchstones all four members shared, and it reads as the most direct debt in Jane's Addiction's sound: colossal, sludgy riffs paired with drumming built for scale rather than speed, chasing the tribal thunder John Bonham brought to Zeppelin's most sprawling tracks.
listen: upstream & here
1975
KashmirLed Zeppelin
1988
Mountain SongJane's Addiction
listen forSet 'Kashmir' against 'Mountain Song' — both lock a single heavy riff to a pounding, tom-driven beat and just let it grind, trading verse-chorus lift for hypnotic weight.
David Bowie1970s · Art rock / Glam rock
Before Jane's Addiction, and before his first band Psi Com, Perry Farrell impersonated David Bowie in a Newport Beach nightclub revue — 'Ziggy Stardust was the first song I ever performed in front of people,' he's recalled. That apprenticeship in artifice became Farrell's whole stage persona: a shape-shifting, half-mythical frontman character laid over songs that dramatize real, uncomfortable events as theater.
listen: upstream & heresource: Louder ↗
1972
Ziggy StardustDavid Bowie
1988
Ted, Just Admit It...Jane's Addiction
listen forCompare 'Ziggy Stardust' with 'Ted, Just Admit It...' — both build a theatrical, half-fictionalized narrator around a real anxiety (rock stardom's self-destruction; Ted Bundy's confession tapes), letting performance and dread blur together.
Pink Floyd1970s · Progressive rock / Psychedelic rock / Art rock
Guitarist Dave Navarro has singled out Pink Floyd among his formative influences, saying he's drawn to 'songs that seem to have no rhyme or reason to them, like the ones on early Pink Floyd records' — an appetite for drifting, exploratory passages that refuse to resolve on schedule. That shows up in Jane's Addiction's willingness to let a song wander into an extended, dreamlike passage instead of wrapping up on the beat.
listen: upstream & heresource: Yamaha All Access ↗
1967
Interstellar OverdrivePink Floyd
1990
Classic GirlJane's Addiction
listen forSit with the meandering, formless jam of 'Interstellar Overdrive' next to the long, tumbling outro of 'Classic Girl' — both drift past where a pop song would normally cut to black, more interested in atmosphere than resolution.