Perry Farrell’s wife has spoken out in defence of her husband, after the Jane’s Addiction frontman threw a punch at his bandmate Dave Navarro while on stage at a reunion gig in Boston.
The concert was brought to an abrupt end on Friday (13 September) after Farrell began shouting at Navarro while performing their 1988 song “Ocean Size”. The singer then walked over to the guitarist and began aggressively shoving him with his shoulder.
As Navarro spoke to him and put his hand on Perry’s chest to try and keep him away, the singer then appeared to take a swing at him with his fist before being tackled by crew members and pushed off the stage.
Etty Lau Farrell, the singer’s wife, shared a post on Instagram on Saturday (14 September) to put an end to “speculating” as she shared a “first person account of what happened on stage”.
“Clearly there had been a lot of tension and animosity between the members,” she explained. “The magic that made the band so dynamic. Well, the dynamite was lit. Perry got up in Dave’s face and body checked him.”
She admitted that there had been tension mounting throughout the tour due to issues with sound, as Perry felt he was being “drowned out” by his bandmates.
“Perry’s frustration had been mounting. Night after night, he felt that the stage volume had been extremely loud and his voice was being drowned out by the band,” Etty continued.
“Perry had been suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat every night. But when the audience in the first row, started complaining up to Perry cussing at him that the band was planning too loud and that they couldn’t hear him, Perry lost it.”
She revealed that bass guitarist Eric Avery then approached Perry in a bid to stop him and “put Perry in a headlock and punched him in the stomach three times”. A crewmember named Kevin then pulled Avery away from Perry and apologised to the crowd, before the lights were dimmed and the concert was stopped.
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Etty gave a candid account of Perry’s reaction to the blowout, explaining that he had a “breakdown” in the moments after the incident.
“Dave still looked handsome and cool in the middle of a fight,” she continued.
“Perry was a crazed beast for the next half an hour – he finally did not calm down, but did breakdown and cried and cried.
“Eric, well he either didn’t understand what descalation [sic] meant or took advantage of the situation” she continued claiming that Avery “got in a few cheap shots on Perry.”
The Independent has contacted representatives for Jane’s Addiction for comment.