At this point in his career, Perry Farrell has become somewhat of a legend. While his time with Jane’s Addiction initially brought his unique sound to the world, it’s Farrell’s activity behind the scenes that has made him more than just a rock icon.
The frontman has supported the likes of organizations like Stop Global Warming and Greenpeace over the past few years, and now it seems his socials concerns and art have combined to form his latest project, Satellite Party. Despite some people’s fears that the message might overtake the music this time around, Farrell wants to make one thing very clear: The music will always come first.
In the making for about 3 years, Satellite Party has gone from a small-scale project intended for turntables and programming to a musical mission with the likes of Nuno Bettencourt (ex-Extreme guitarist) along for the ride. The debut album
Ultra Payloaded features an assortment of guest appearances (everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea to Fergie of The Black Eyed Peas), and it should likely attract a lot of attention with the never-before released Jim Morrison song that is also on the track list.
Farrell recently talked with UG writer
Amy Kelly to discuss the inspiration behind his latest musical revolution and his hope that more musicians won’t shy away from charity.
UG: Satellite Party has been described as everything from a straightforward rock group to a cultural movement. What was the initial inspiration behind putting the band together?
Perry: The music has to come first. If I were to try and spread a message with lousy music, I wouldn’t get very far, it wouldn’t be very fun, and no one would want to participate or come. So what the first thing that I must do is make sure that I’ve got a beautiful body of work. So even if you don’t understand English, you pick up on the inspiration. That is something that has to be accomplished first.
Once that is accomplished, the rest of it is, believe it or not, easy. To start a cultural revolution would be simple if you had the right music. So I never forget this. As a matter of fact, I use an equation when I considered putting together a cultural revolution. It’s got to be 90 percent excitement and entertainment, and 10 percent charity.
Did you formulate that equation when you began Satellite Party or has it always been in your head?
Well, I’ve had that equation in my head probably dating to the early 90’s when I started Lollapalooza. I used that same system. We have booths obviously on the ground and people are just there and they’re in love with the music. Coincidentally, if they care to walk through the art gallery and see new artists in their region or if they want to walk by the nonprofit section and see what’s going on and speak to people in Greenpeace or Stop Global Warming. So you always have to keep that balance because you don’t want to bore people. You don’t want to depress them. I don’t think that you have to necessarily do that to create a revolution, especially the way we plan it. It’s going to be inevitably that a utopic society is playful. So that’s how I like to plan it. So that revolution, we get there with playfulness.
In past interviews you’ve mentioned how your music evokes emotions much like tribal dancing. When you’re writing, do you have somewhat of a spontaneous, tribal process?
In this case, there was a combination of writing styles. Many of the beats were programmed alone in my garage initially. In some cases, they were donated by friends who wanted me to co-write tunes. They wanted me to sing on the records. They were programmers – they were like DJ/programmers. It was very much true then, as they say, first and foremost that it was really about the music. It was really about the beat. It was about keeping the house pumping, so to speak.
Then from there, I layer rock music with subsonic tones driving through underneath the drums. Any one drum you’ll hear is really layered with 3 drum tracks. Then I start to layer on top of it as well with unisex chorusing. On top of that, believe it or not, there’s a 30-piece orchestra.
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| "To start a cultural revolution would be simple if you had the right music." |
What is the process like when you have to adapt a 30-piece orchestra to a rock song?
Obviously, I had a lot of help. My main conspirator is Harry Gregson-Williams. He is a film composer who has done The Chronicles Of Narnia, Kingdom Of Heaven, Shrek, Domino, and all of the Tony Scott movies. So he’s used to leading 60-piece orchestras. I was working out of his studio. Harry is a good friend and he has a studio – a building, really – in Venice Beach. So while working out of his building, obviously he came down and listened to the music. I wouldn’t let him leave until he promised he’d work with me! Harry loves to work on a grand scale, and these film budgets are astronomical. They can run $150 million. So the budget for making music is just so blown out of proportion, it’s not funny.
He was composing and making his arrangements on piano. He starts with piano and synthesizer, and then we looked to replace that, his compositions, with the real orchestra. So he was giving me a budget, he put it on paper, and he sent it to me. He said, “Well, how many pieces do you want?” I looked at the difference. You can have a 60-piece orchestra. You can have a 30-piece. So I didn’t want to have any less than a 15 piece. I looked at it and the jump was just…I mean, I couldn’t afford it all! You just don’t get those kinds of budgets today in the music business.
So I said, “Well, Harry, what about a 13 piece?” He went, “Okay, let’s do 15 and I’ll get it for the same price.” So anyway, we were about to do this thing now and we got a very lucky break. There was a 30-piece orchestra that came to town and their gig was canceled. A lot of them are friends of Harry’s, and Harry caught wind of this great group of stringed instrumentalists. He told me that it was the greatest assembly of string instrumentalists today. They were all waiting around and he got them together. We got in the studio and set up in their sound studio and recorded all of those songs in one afternoon. We got 5 songs. It’s no simple task to conduct 30 people at a time with songs they’ve never heard before and make it come off right, but Harry did!
Which tracks did you use the orchestra on?
You’ve got the main track (“Ultra Payloaded Satellite Party”). If you really want to hear where it really comes out, it’s in “Awesome.” So it’s “Awesome,” in “The Solutionists,” “Mr. Sunshine,” the Jim Morrison song.
You have a lot of big names, not to mention friends, that are helping out on the record. How important was it for you to bring people like Flea and Fergie into the project?
Like the best real marriages are friendships, it was very natural, casual, getting to know each other. I say today, even though you may think that it’s the Internet that connects us most, I still say it’s word of mouth. Through word of mouth did I meet Fergie. A friend who had been listening to the music, a mutual friend, kind of said, “Listen, I can introduce you to Fergie.” And so she did, and Fergie came over to my home and hung out with me in my garage along with my wife and Nuno Bettencourt. We just had a little party, put up the tracks, and had a laugh and a drink and sang our hearts out. It was that simple. You can hear it in the sound. It sounds like it’s just an enjoyable, relaxed, happy atmosphere. It’s not overly processed or overly thought-out. That’s conducive to good parties, right?
Flea I’ve known forever. Flea and I were running around in L.A. before all of us were really signed. He and I, just before he began to work on and produce Stadium Arcadium, he had time on his hands. It was the summertime, so we would go surfing in the morning, have breakfast, and go to each other’s houses, just playing songs. I said to him, “Look, I’m working on this project. I would really love to see what the bass lines would be like and if I got a hold of them and started to produce them using electronic programs." So he did. He was very giving and generous with his time and music. He was the first person that I wrote a song with. “Milky Ave” was the first song.
Did he also collaborate with you on “Hard Life Easy”?
Yes, exactly.
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| "Many, many people that you'll hear today are very one-dimensional players." |
Is John Frusciante on that track as well?
Yes. John heard that we were hanging out and having fun, so I guess John wanted to jump in! We went over to his house one afternoon and recorded that track live. I took it away and I begged, “Please, let me just produce this track. Let me just have this track.” And so he did. He gave the track to me and I ended up obviously producing it and added my voice. Nuno jumped in on the track as well. I brought in my female cohorts, my female vocalists, a drummer, and added programs to it and orchestra to it. So there it is today, this beautiful hybrid of sound again. It sounds like a cross between Jane’s Addiction and Chili Peppers.
Did Nuno come up with a lot of the riffs on his own and then bring them to you?
I don’t know how we’ll work in the future, but in this case I met Nuno a year into writing the songs and having the songs. They didn’t have live musicians on them. So I brought them to the point where I was ready for live musicians. I was going to leave it as house music, but my wife kept on coaxing me to go forward and bring live musicians to the project. I think really what she was trying to do was she was trying to get me to perform live on the stage again and sing in front, as opposed to being behind the turntables. So she would say, “No, you need live players on this song. Keep working on it.”
So through a pair of mutual friends and through word of mouth, I was at Tom Morello’s house. Our dear friend, Joshua, who is a club promoter in town, pointed at Nuno. Nuno was there kind of almost in the darkness, hanging out in this backyard party. He said, “That fellow right there is one of the greatest guitar players. You should go over and talk to him.” He knew that Jane’s had split and he said, “You should try to get this guy to work with you.” So I went up and introduced myself and told him, “Listen, I have some songs. If you’re not busy tomorrow, why don’t you come over and hang out at my house?” The first song we worked on was “Milky Ave” and so we had no guitar on it.
Not all guitar players know how to respond to music. Many, many people that you’ll hear today are very one-dimensional players. They’re very green and the music industry is churning out these people really fast. They’re not giving them a chance to develop, so a lot of the music that you hear today on radio is very immature in its approach. Nuno, when he began to play, responded to the music. And so, as a result, he added a dimension. Rather than playing, “Okay, these are the chords. Now I’m going to play right on top of it, the very same chords,” which you’ll hear often today. A great player will say, “I’m going to respond to those chords.” As a result, they create a dimension and a melody. It adds dimension, perspective, and everything else. That is magic. That’s the magic of musicianship.
Do you think that more musicians need to speak out about cultural concerns?
Well, I think that you don’t have to. The first role of a musician is a really good entertainer who makes people feel loose and free and let their steam out. I say that that’s fine. But if you want to do more, just as a human being, I don’t think anybody would be complete without turning back and saying, “Now that I’ve accomplished this, I’ve accomplished making people happy. People are now giving me the things that I need in life, whether it be a career or anything.” It is a good thing for everyone to consider and think about ways that they can further help contribute to the world. Musicians have that power in the palm of their hands because they’re a catalyst for change. So they create events and parties and festivals where hundreds of thousands of people converge to go and listen to them. So their ears are perked up and they are vulnerable to suggestion. So, yes, we’d always like musicians to get more involved because, number one, all the musicians that I know – the good ones anyway – already are concerned. This is part of just developing as a human being.
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