Jane’s Addiction has cancelled its entire tour following an on-stage clash between guitarist Dave Navarro and Perry Farrell.
“Due to an ongoing pattern of behavior and the mental health difficulties of our lead singer Perry Farrell, we have come to the conclusion that we have no choice but to cut short the current U.S. tour,” Navarro said in a statement Monday.
“Our concern for his personal health and safety, as well as our own, has left us with no other choice. We hope he finds the help he needs,” he added.
“We deeply regret that we will not be able to serve all of our fans who have already purchased tickets. We do not see any solution that will ensure a safe environment on stage or allow us to put on a great show every night.”
Navarro, 57, signed the statement with a heartbreaking message: “Our hearts are broken. Dave, Eric and Stephen.”
Jane’s Addiction has cancelled its entire tour following an on-stage clash between guitarist Dave Navarro and Perry Farrell.
The post comes hours after Farrell’s wife, Etty Lau, broke her silence following her husband’s attack on his lead guitarist, claiming the frontman was upset that his bandmates were “drowning” him out by playing too loud.
Lau took to Instagram to share her husband’s side of the story after he came under fire for punching and hitting guitarist Dave Navarro on stage on Friday night.
“Rather than speculate, I thought I’d post a first-person account of what happened on stage,” he wrote.
Lau said Farrell has been struggling with “tinnitus and a sore throat every night” that has affected his voice, and “he felt like the stage volume had been extremely loud and his voice was being drowned out by the band.”
Lau said there had been “tension and animosity between the band members” but felt this wasn’t always a bad thing as it was also “the magic that made the band so dynamic.”
But on Friday night, Lau said her husband reached breaking point after fans booed him because they couldn’t hear him.
The statement was signed by the three remaining members of the band.
“When the audience in the front row started complaining and Perry even swore at him because the band was playing so loud they couldn’t hear him, Perry went crazy,” said Lau, a former original member of the Pussycat Dolls when it was a dance troupe.
“He didn’t sing, he shouted just to be heard.”
Attendees say Farrell appeared to be very drunk at Friday night’s show, while others claim it was not an unusual sight for the frontman, who is known for downing bottles of wine on stage.
Fans said tensions began to rise during the band’s performance of “Mountain Song,” and by the time they got to “Ocean Size,” three songs later, Farrell was furious.
“The band started the song Ocean before Perry was ready and counted in,” Lau said.
‘The stage volume was so loud at that point, Perry couldn’t hear over the din and vibration of the instruments and by the end of the song, he wasn’t singing, he was screaming just to be heard.’
Dave Navarro and Perry Farrell seen performing at Lollapalooza, Chicago, in 2016
Lau closed his Instagram post with a comment about “who won the fight,” stating that bassist Eric Avery emerged victorious by aggressively confronting Farrell.
“While Dave (Navarro) kept Perry at a distance to calm the situation, Dan (Cleary, a technician for the band) rushed in to calm her down as well, holding Perry back,” Lau wrote.
‘Dave walked away to take his guitar. Eric walked up to Perry, upstage in the dark behind Dan, put Perry in a headlock and punched him three times in the stomach.’
Lau said Avery had to be “pulled aside,” before the bassist “calmly walked to the front of the stage to apologize to the audience for the show ending early.”
She said that while Navarro “still looked handsome and calm in the middle of a fight,” her husband “was a crazed beast” after the altercation.
“He ultimately didn’t calm down, but instead started crying and crying,” she said, concluding that Avery “either didn’t understand what de-escalation meant or took advantage of the situation and took some cheap shots at Perry.”
The Los Angeles band formed in 1985 and did their first “farewell” tour in 1991, from which band member Eric Avery acrimoniously left in 2010.
Dayle Gloria, the Los Angeles club promoter who helped discover the band in 1986 and host of the podcast Nightclubbing with Dayle Gloria, told DailyMail.com: “Perry Farrell’s collapse is hard to watch for those of us like me who loved the band.”
‘We all hope Perry gets the help he needs so he and the band can one day recapture the magic that is Jane’s Addiction.’
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