Most bands see their audiences grow after their first album gets released, but for Jane’s Addiction, they decided to start their career with a live album, which is something you don’t often see in the music industry. In a new Live Nation joint interview teaser promoting the Jane’s Addiction-Smashing Pumpkins tour, Perry Farrell speaks to Billy Corgan about that live record, surprising the Pumpkins frontman by revealing that the live album coming first was a condition of their recording contract.
Within the chat, Corgan spoke to Farrell about seeing the Jane’s Addiction live before hearing their first studio album, which sparked the revelation from the Jane’s singer.
“The first record, I wanted people to ever hear from us was the live record,” said Farrell. “We were signed already to Warner Bros. And I told them that I would only sign if we first put out a live record.”
Further elaborating on the decision, the vocalist explained, “The idea [behind that] being I don’t know if they’ll ever get to hear us as raw and as energized as we are right now. I wanted them to hear us and know of us in our most honest, innocent and poorest [form], and I say that in the most beautiful sense, but we didn’t have anything. We had nothing to lose at the same time, and I wanted to capture that before wr ruined that.”
Jane’s Addiction issued their self-titled live set in 1987, just four months after they recorded their show at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles. Of the 10-song set, only two songs would carry over to Nothing’s Shocking, which arrived a year later in 1988. Those would be the fan-favorite hit “Jane Says” and the deeper album cut “Pigs in Zen.” Despite “Jane Says” eventual success, it was not issued as a single upon the live album’s initial release.
Jane’s Addiction have been touring with Smashing Pumpkins this fall on the “Spirits on Fire” tour, with still over a month and a half of dates left. See about picking up tickets for the run here.