How an onstage fight led Jane's Addiction to cancel their tour

Last Friday, Jane's Addiction band members Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro got into a physical fight on stage during their reunion tour. 

After the video of the fight went viral, the alternative rock band announced that they're canceling the remaining 15 stops of their tour, including their one Canadian show in Toronto. 

Today on Commotion, music journalists Suzy Exposito and Maura Johnston join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss how this happened, and the fan reaction to these rock stars' behaviour. 

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Suzy, do you want to explain a little bit about the morning after the incident? Perry Farrell's wife posted this explanation. What was her take on how things went down?

Suzy: Yes. So his wife, Etty Lau, said on Instagram that her husband was distressed by the fact that his voice was getting drowned out by the band. As a former lead singer, I can tell you that happens a lot and it's not fun. But she also said that he's been suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat. And she said that the band started the song without Farrell and he got upset. No one could hear him — allegedly, fans were telling him they couldn't hear him. So he just had this outburst and has since apologized. 

But it's looking a little dicey when it comes to whether the band is going to continue at all. They've fully canceled their tour. They all made announcements on Instagram, and the remaining band members — Navarro, [Eric] Avery and the drummer, Stephen Perkins — they all issued a separate statement citing Perry's mental health difficulties. 

Elamin: That's quite a different story.

Suzy: It's a very different story. They're attributing it to mental health. 

Elamin: Yeah. And they've also taken the unusual step of making a statement together, separately from the band's official account. All the band members, aside from Perry, got together and they made that statement. They said, "There's been this continuing pattern of behaviour," and they're worried about these mental health difficulties. So it's quite insightful into this whole thing.

Maura, Jane's Addiction was one of the pioneers of alternative rock in the late '80s. But then they break up after three records in 1991. And then since 1991, they reunite and they disband so many times. How would you describe the interpersonal dynamics within this band over the years, and how did that lead us to what we saw on Friday? 

Maura: I would say that their whole thing has been very combustible since the beginning. They've always kind of dwelled on the edge. Certainly in the '80s and '90s, they were controversial for using very blatant imagery of sex, drugs and rock and roll. 

They were always very chaotic. It always felt like they were just about to drive off a cliff with some of their songs. And I feel like that kind of energy, there's a byproduct of tension no matter what. You know, Farrell and Navarro, they were probably the prime combustible frontman-guitarist duo of that era. And I feel like, you know, reunion tours in general, I mean, obviously they're more prevalent now because as one of the Gallaghers [from Oasis] said recently, "Nobody's making any money from recorded music." So, you know, reunion tours are a lot more of a reliable source of income. But they do have the tendency to open wounds and to remind people of maybe the good times, the great songs, but also the fights, the bad times. 

Elamin: I want to talk about the reception to this moment, Maura, because I think something has been kind of surprising about it. Watching this whole thing go down, this feels a little bit related to unrelated news, about Dave Grohl fathering a child out of wedlock, which went viral last week. And it's been this week where people are having big reactions to news stories that I would have thought would be sort of part and parcel of what we imagine rock 'n' roll to be. To me, the idea that this is big news and people are really disappointed in Perry Farrell, I'm like, "He's just acting like a rock star." The Dave Grohl story feels like what we normally expect out of rock stars. So I can't help but think about behaviour that is now not tolerated, maybe 30 years ago, he would have been mythologized. We would have been like, "That is just what rock stars do." Has something shifted in our perception of rock stars?

Maura: I would absolutely say yes. I teach at Boston College and we were talking last week about controversies in pop. And the students were really angry about Grohl…cheating on his wife and that he had damaged his rock 'n' roll dad image. But I feel like the standards are different. Look at the Diddy arrest last night. These behaviors were lionized by a culture that just doesn't exist anymore and that has moved on past deifying these men who behave badly and really thinking about the people who are affected by this.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Stuart Berman.