The band’s tour was cancelled last fall after an onstage scuffle between lead singer Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro.Amy Harris/The Canadian Press
The members of alternative rock band Jane’s Addiction filed duelling lawsuits Wednesday over singer Perry Farrell’s onstage scuffle with guitarist Dave Navarro at a Boston concert last year, prompting the cancellation of the rest of their reunion tour and a planned album.
Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Avery sued Farrell in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking at least US$10-million, alleging that Farrell’s behaviour on the tour had ranged from erratic to out-of-control, culminating in the assault, where Perry punched Navarro both on stage and backstage.
“With a series of swift blows, he single-handedly destroyed the name, reputation, trademark, and viability of the Band and those who built it,” their lawsuit says.
Farrell and his wife, Etty Lau Farrell, sued the three bandmates in the same court Wednesday, blaming them for the conflict and the violence.
“Navarro, Avery and Perkins apparently decided,” the lawsuit says, “that Jane’s Addiction’s decades of success should be jettisoned in pursuit of a yearslong bullying campaign against Farrell involving harassing him onstage during performances, including, among other tactics, trying to undermine him by playing their instruments at a high volume so that he could not hear himself sing.”
The Farrells said that Navarro and Avery actually assaulted them.
Perry Farrell said he was “blindsided” when the other members cancelled the remaining 15 shows of the tour and broke up the band without consulting him, costing all of them a great deal of money.
And he said his bandmates defamed him by publicly saying after the fight that he had mental health problems.
Jane’s Addiction was an essential part of the Los Angeles music scene in the late 1980s with their combination of elements of punk, goth and psychedelic sounds and culture. They became a national phenomenon with hits including “Jane Says” and “Been Caught Stealing,” and through their founding of the Lollapalooza tour, whose first incarnations they headlined in 1991.
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The group broke up soon after but returned several times in various incarnations. The 2024 tour was the first time the original members had played together since 2010.
Farrell missed all seven of the group’s rehearsals in the run-up to the tour, his bandmate’s lawsuit alleges, and his behaviour during the early shows ranged from erratic to out of control.
“He struggled night to night amid public concern for his well-being and apparent intoxication,” their lawsuit says. “Perry forgot lyrics, lost his place in songs he had sung since the 1980s, and mumbled rants as he drank from a wine bottle onstage.”
The lawsuit says Farrell was given many solutions to the volume problem, none of which he followed.
Then on Sept. 13 at Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston in front of about 4,000 fans, videos partially captured Farrell lunging at Navarro and bumping Navarro with his shoulder before taking a swing at the guitarist with his right arm. Navarro is seen holding his right arm out to keep Farrell away before Farrell is dragged away.
But Farrell’s lawsuit says the “video evidence is clear that the first altercation onstage during the Boston show was hardly one-sided.” It says Navarro was deliberately playing loud to drown out the singer, and “what followed was an inappropriate violent escalation by Navarro and Avery that was disproportionate to Farrell’s minor body check of Navarro.”
Farrell alleges that when he was being restrained by a crew member, Avery punched him in the kidneys, and that both Avery and Navarro assaulted him and his wife backstage.
Shortly after the fight, Farrell in a statement apologized to his bandmates, especially Navarro, for “inexcusable behaviour.”
Both lawsuits allege assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract, among other claims.
“Now,” Navarro, Perkins and Avery’s lawsuit says, “the Band will never have their revival Tour, to celebrate a new album and 40+ years of deep, complex, chart-topping recordings. Instead, history will remember the Band as suffering a swift and painful death at the hands of Farrell’s unprovoked anger and complete lack of self-control.”
