Perry Farrell on Lollapalooza at 20 | Lollapalooza 2011

Perry Farrell

Photo: Kristin Burns

Though he denies it, Perry Farrell is worried about his lethargic L.A. Lakers. As he ushers me into his Ritz-Carlton suite, the Jane’s Addiction frontman asks if he can turn on SportsCenter. The previous night, as Farrell was partying until 3am at Debonair Social Club, where he announced the lineup of his 20th anniversary Lollapalooza festival, Kobe and co. dropped a second game to a scrappy, Kardashian-husband-free New Orleans Hornets.

We sit at a small breakfast table overlooking a fog-shrouded Oak Street Beach. Farrell faces the bedroom’s flat-screen, where Chris Paul breezes through Lakers defenders as if he were a teenager hopping the fence and sprinting past fat security guards at Lollapalooza. “The Lakers always do this. They are saving their energy,” Farrell reassures. He looks as if he follows an unfathomable regimen of yoga and vitamins, but he’s more of a push-ups guy, he tells me. Over the course of our hour-long chat, I try to wrap my brain around how this lithe, perfectly manicured, ridiculously youthful guy is a 52-year-old former junkie. But more on the drugs later.

In 1991, you were not the most likely candidate to start and run a large festival. How did you pull it off?
Part of it was that I had a sense of fearlessness. I was loaded [on drugs]. I wasn’t grounded enough to be afraid. And I was truly living in the counterculture. I knew the audience was there.

Jane’s Addiction was suddenly all over MTV.
Jane’s was probably the hottest group at the time. So my agent said, “You do whatever the hell you want with the tour.” I told him, “This is going to be my last tour. Don’t book me again with Jane’s. I want to get away from these guys. But I want to go out with a bang.”

Was Lolla modeled after big English festivals?
The word was that I took everything from Reading and Glastonbury. It really is not true. Here’s the honest story. [Jane’s Addiction was] supposed to play Reading [in 1990] and I got dope sick. I partied really hard and lost my voice. I didn’t even go. I was so embarrassed.

What inspired you?
I had a dream many years ago. I went to this building, an important building with a big black statue of a bull. Anyway, I walked into this room where important people were sitting at a table. I stood. There was a seat waiting. It was the best seat, but I didn’t sit down. Finally, they said, “Please, sit.”

How did you interpret that?
I said to myself, Now that’s the way you do it, man. You don’t rush to sit at the table. You wait to be invited. And if it takes being the last person to sit, at least you know you’re welcome at the table.

Lollapalooza died off in 1998. Why?
SFX [Entertainment] started rolling up [other companies], sold themselves to Clear Channel. Clear Channel rolled and rolled and sold themselves to Live Nation. That wasn’t the atmosphere I started Lollapalooza within. My atmosphere was that of individual promoters, people that had their own style, their own ins within the city, interesting locations where they could take us. By 1998, there were no options, so we went dark.