Jane’s Addiction Song Sage Eric Avery Goes Forth With Garbage
Coming Down the Mountain
As any cosmology textbook will tell you, the massive stars that burn brightest self-destruct most intensely. Somehow, Eric Avery survived the rock & roll supernova of Jane’s Addiction. The band—which Eric formed in 1985 alongside singer Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, and drummer Stephen Perkins—mixed deeply melodic bass with soaring, sing-songy vocals and thrashy guitars and drums to concoct the sonic soup that nourished the nascent alternative rock revolution. With Eric’s earthy bass hooks driving hits like “Been Caught Stealing,” and stellar album tracks such as “Three Days” and “Mountain Song,” Jane’s Addiction had a wildly successful run before internal tension tore it apart in 1991.
Avery turned down the offer to re-form Jane’s (the band toured and recorded with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea in 1997 and drafted Chris Chaney for 2002’s Strays), but he’s been busy following his own path. He formed two bands of his own, Deconstruction and Polar Bear, and he spent the last few years as touring bassist for singer/songwriter superstar Alanis Morissette. (Eric also appeared on Morissette’s Maverick albums Under Rug Swept and So-Called Chaos.) Earlier this year, Alanis restructured her band for her Jagged Little Pill Acoustic album and tour, leaving Eric a free agent. But it wasn’t long before he was snatched up by Garbage, which was preparing to embark on an international tour to support its latest, Bleed Like Me [Geffen]. “Out of the blue, I got a call to meet with them,” says Eric, who got the gig without having to play a single note. “They got a good personal vibe from me, and when Butch [Vig, Garbage’s drummer/producer] called me the next day, he said, ‘We’re not going to try to make an audition day happen. Chances are pretty good you know how to play bass notes.’”
You had to learn a lot of new music for this Garbage tour. How did you go about mastering the parts?
The old-fashioned way—they sent me their records, plus a bunch of live tracks, and I just sat on my living room floor, chewing on my tongue and playing along. I started with roots to get a sense of the chord structures.
When you’re learning bass parts like this, do you write them out or memorize them as you go?
I write out the roots so I have a quick reference if I’m spacing out, but generally I try to learn the parts “muscularly,” rather than cerebrally. I find it difficult to make a song instinctual if I think about it initially. And if I learn it off a page, it takes a whole separate step to wean myself from the paper.
Did the band want you to learn the lines verbatim?
They’re open to anything I want to try, but they’re also very specific about what they like and don’t like—which I find refreshing. This has been the first time I’ve seen truly egalitarian creative decision-making where everybody has equal input. We have to legitimately buttress our arguments for why something works or doesn’t work, so it’s ultimately about ideas, and not ego. It’s nice to not worry about stepping on somebody else’s toes. Creativity seems to flow better without all the drama.
So you feel free to offer whatever creative ideas you have, too?
Yeah, totally, and it’s not met with weirdness—it’s just voted up or down.
What’s an example of an idea of yours that the band really liked?
I recently came up with a simple high bass intro for “Only Happy When It Rains” that we’ve started using.
What’s your approach to playing with Garbage?
Butch and I were just talking about this, and we agree: If I do my job correctly, there’s an aspect of it that’s really boring. We both have an appreciation for economy—a “less is more” approach. The bass is supposed to be foundational and not necessarily heard. I’ve never been much for playing fills or runs, and I think that fits well with Garbage’s sensibility. They’re very spare about improvisation. It’s more about the part.
You were a prolific writer with Jane’s Addiction. Do you continue to write music?
Yes I do, and I’ve been threatening to do a solo record for a long time.
How would you describe it?
It’s a lot like my former band Polar Bear, which was my “true love” band that would play around L.A. It’s borne from my love of bands like Velvet Underground and Joy Division—stuff that’s dark and mid-tempo, and scruffy rather than polished or hi-fidelity. It surprises some people, because it’s less bass-focused than you might expect from a bassist’s solo project.
How do you go about writing?
Sometimes it starts out as a folk song on acoustic guitar, though I don’t wind up recording it that way—that’s not very interesting to me. Right now I’m traveling with an M-Audio Oxygen 8 keyboard controller and a Digidesign Mbox audio interface, so I tinker around with loops and samples in my hotel room. Other songs start that way—finding a cool groove and building a loop or sample out of it. Then I record bass and guitar when I get home.
Before this stint with Garbage, you did some work with former Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy.
That started as a live gig, and it was going to turn into studio work, but I told him I wasn’t really interested in being the bass player in his backup band. I said if he wanted to create a band, I’d be interested in making a record, but I don’t want to be Peter Murphy’s bass player.
Because you want to be able to do other things?
No, it’s not that. Generally I’m interested in being either a hired gun—where I’m playing bass the way I would build a chair—or a creative element in the band, where I’m involved in a substantial way. I’m not interested in the middle ground, which was what Peter was offering. I told him, if he wanted to write and be creative with me as a peer, then sure, I’m in. If he just wanted a bass player, then he could find someone else. More power to him—that’s fine, but I’m not in.
You developed a strong style with Jane’s Addiction, playing double-stops and chords on songs like “Summertime Rolls” and “Three Days” [see Lesson, page 36].
Yeah, I was fond of doing that. A lot of what I did in Jane’s Addiction had to do with the fact that I was serving a particular purpose. In a sense, we were like a power trio. I was always aware of how spare it sounded when Dave started to solo and the chords dropped out.
How did you come up with the riff for “Mountain Song” [Nothing’s Shocking, Warner Bros.]?
Those were the first notes I ever played with Perry. That riff came from the first time we got together to jam. Perry taped it on a little hand-held recorder and listened back to it later. Perry says—and this speaks to the future of the Jane’s sound—because I played that exact same thing over and over for the eight or ten minutes without changing, he thought that I was either an idiot or a genius. He decided that he appreciated it.
What about your line on “Been Caught Stealing,” from Ritual De Lo Habitual?
That came from something Perry was humming, asking me “Can you do something like m’nuh, m’nuh, m’nuh?” The song’s transitional parts are some of my favorite bass decisions. When I hear them now I think, God, what a weird way to play through those chords.
That line takes a lot of stamina to play. Did you ever have a tough time playing it live?
Definitely—especially considering the fine physical condition I kept myself in back in those days . . . . [Laughs.] I remember having evenings when my forearms would start to burn.
On that same album, “Three Days” is an epic ten-minute track that the band knocked out in a single take. How did that come about?
Recording it was funny. As I remember it, a few record-label people came by the studio to see how it was all going. I think we had run through the song twice when they came in, sat down, and listened to us play. We didn’t feel any corporate pressure, because especially then, Warner Bros. had a real family vibe about it. Having friends who were also record executives in the room really focused us, and we just played that third take for them from start to finish, and that’s what’s on the record. All the basic tracks were done in that take. Dave was always doing overdubs upon overdubs, so I’m sure he did a ton, but I don’t remember. I just remember everyone being really stoked that we nailed that song from beginning to end.
Has your playing style changed since then?
In the Jane’s days, my role was to build the foundation Perry, Dave, and Stephen could float around, but now my job is to fit into a pre-existing structure. I find that nowadays—especially playing other people’s music—my original way of playing sticks out too much. So yes, I take a very different approach. In my own music, though, I’m freer on bass. When I started to record with synths, I began to bifurcate my bass responsibilities, playing root-note bass lines with my left-hand on the synth, and playing high, rhythmic, chordal lines on bass.
When you’re on the road, do you play bass in your downtime?
I never do. Lately I’ve thought that I’d like to, but it’s logistically difficult. Since gasoline prices are so crazy now, it’s cheaper for the band to fly to gigs. If I were to travel with a bass, it wouldn’t last very long. We’re all really excited, though—for the last few legs, we’ve had ground transportation. It’s nice not having to get into those tubular regurgitated-fart tanks.
Jane's Says
For more on Eric and Jane’s Addiction, check out the new book by Brendan Mullen, Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction [Da Capo]. A fascinating collection of stories from Eric, Perry, Dave, and Stephen, it also includes insight into the band from dozens of other musicians and friends involved with or influenced by Jane’s Addiction, including bassists Jeff Ament, Chris Chaney, Norwood Fisher, Flea, Twiggy Ramirez, and Mike Watt. Take it from Eric: “It’s a really cool book. It’s especially fun for me, because it’s sort of like reading my diary from age 20.”
Currently Spinning
Blonde Readheads, Misery Is a Butterfly [4AD/Beggars]; Queens of the Stone Age, Lullabies to Paralyze [Interscope] “I tend to like slow, melancholic, arty music—stuff that’s texturally dense. Half the time I’m listening to books and podcasts on my iPod. Right now I’m reading—rather, listening to—a book called Mind Wide Open, by Steven Johnson. It’s about neurology and cognitive science—basically, how we think. It’s super cool.”
Avery’s Office Products
Though Eric Avery played the same early-’80s Fender Precision Bass through Ampeg, Gallien-Krueger, and Trace Elliot amps for all of his work with Jane’s Addiction, he switched to Jazz Basses over ten years ago. “I did it for personal, history-of-my-life, spiritual reasons,” he says. “I wanted to make a break with my Jane’s Addiction bass, so I decided to retire that bass in ’92 or ’93. I’ve always liked the look and feel of Fenders, so I switched to a Jazz Bass.”
In his Jane’s days, Eric tended toward a mid-scooped tone. “I slant the [Ampeg SVT-2PRO’s graphic] equalizer from a big bottom to a small top, but with the very highest bands as high as they’ll go for the clicky pick noise,” Eric said in a March ’91 Guitar Player interview. On tour with Alanis Morissette, Eric played through Ashdown ABM 500 EVO II heads and ABM 810 8x10 cabinets. With Garbage, however, Eric has turned over control of his tone to soundman Tom Abraham, who has worked with Garbage for years. “He really takes a proactive role in the band’s sound,” Eric says. “We don’t have any amps onstage—we all play through rackmounted Line 6 PODs. He splits my signal, running one through distortion and leaving the other one clean. On its own, the distorted channel sounds tinny and terrible, but with the clean signal blended, it ends up sounding nice and punchy.” Since Garbage flies to most of its shows, the band has three identical rigs that leapfrog from venue to venue. Onstage, Eric plugs into two Boss pedals, a TU-2 Chromatic Tuner and an ODB-3 Bass OverDrive, and he uses in-ear monitors. “In my mix, I have Butch’s drums, the samples—which are also percussive—plus Shirley’s vocals, the guitars, and then me, probably in that order.
“I’m not very aware of exactly which strings I’m playing now,” Eric admits. “A few years ago, one of Alanis’s guitar players overheard me saying that I use medium-gauge strings, and he just went, ‘Eric, no you don’t.’ I just tend to tell people to get me medium gauge. I’m not one who likes old-sounding strings. On this tour, they’re being replaced more frequently than in the past, because we’re looking for brightness and punch to fit sonically with the band. That’s made me more aware of hearing the gradual deadening of the strings from show to show.” Eric’s hard-hitting playing style no doubt accelerates the process. “When I started with Garbage, Duke [Erikson, guitarist] was watching how hard I play, and he said, ‘I predict you’re going to break a string every other show.’ But I don’t—I can count on one hand how many times I’ve broken a string. I do go through a lot of picks, though—like, a pick a song. They don’t snap, but I wear them down, and I create all kinds of pick dust.”
Avery In The Archives
Shortly after Jane’s Addiction released Ritual De Lo Habitual, Guitar Player interviewed Eric alongside then-bandmate Dave Navarro [March ’91]. Here are a few of the things Eric had to say.
“I have to play a line over and over exactly the same way for a good ten minutes before I can decide whether I like it. I’m looking for a feeling rather than a sound. My lines start out with what comes naturally; then I strip away whatever I can. I think ‘uncomplicated’ and ‘interesting’ are almost invariably synonymous.
“When I was a little stoner kid, I was into stuff like Yes, but by the time I got my own bass, I was into Echo + the Bunnymen and Joy Division. Our interest in the Velvet Underground and Joy Division is what initially got Perry and me together. My only bass hero is Peter Hook [of Joy Division and New Order]. But I never wanted to play like him. That’s the big mistake people make—mimicking their influences, instead of taking their perspective and then doing something different in their own voice.
“When I was in high school, I wanted to rebel against the Izod-shirt preppie mentality, so I’d never wear any of those clothes. But by doing that, I gave that style the power to dictate what I liked and didn’t like. The same thing can happen in music; there are things to rebel against, but we can’t let them dictate our reaction. Don’t pay any attention to it. Hold true to your vision. If you’re not expressing exactly what you want to express at any given time, then what is the art you’re making?”
Eric Avery, Metalhead?
When Metallica was searching for a bass player to replace Jason Newsted in 2003, Eric was one of the few players granted an audition. Though Metallica ended up selecting Robert Trujillo, here’s what Eric had to say about the audition.
“In auditioning, I was basically looking for a story to tell the grandkids. It was Flea who first planted the idea that I might actually get the gig. I was talking to him a few days before I went to audition, and he was like, ‘Well, why wouldn’t you get the gig?’ I said, ‘I’m not that guy. I’m not Metallica’s new bass player.’ Flea was like, ‘Why not? They write rad music, and you’re a great bass player.’ Up to then, I hadn’t really even considered the idea of getting the gig. I was just looking at it as a chance to go play ‘Master of Puppets’ with Metallica for an afternoon.
“I remember being at a small dinner party with some friends the night before the audition. They were like, ‘So, are you excited? Tomorrow you could become Metallica’s bass player, you’ll become a millionaire.’ My friend said she could see it all beginning to dawn on me, and I got this deer-in-the-headlights look, and I receded from the conversation in terror. It was a shocking realization.
“It turned out to be an amazing day. They flew me up and gave me the red-carpet treatment, which was really charming. When we started playing, I was shocked that it was just guys with amps facing each other as if we were in a garage. It was really like hearing Metallica as if they were playing in their garage and we were all 20. We played through ‘Master of Puppets,’ ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls,’ and ‘Fuel.’ It was a lot of fun.”
Excerpts taken from Brendan Mullen’s Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction [Da Capo]
As his band members and friends attest, Eric played a crucial part in forming the Jane’s Addiction sound. Here are a few excerpts taken from Brendan Mullen’s Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction [Da Capo].
Flea “The music of Jane’s Addiction revolves around Eric’s bass playing. In all the songs, you really feel the bass at the center. He is no virtuoso at putting down fancy speed chops, but conceptually he was absolutely incredible, melodically and groove-wise. There’ll never be anything like it again. It’s one-of-a-kind bass playing. Eric is one of the greatest rock bass players ever. I’d put him in the top five or ten, for sure.”
Dave Navarro “Eric’s bass lines were the signature sound [of Jane’s Addiction]. His playing provided a whole dynamic that transcends words. He had a grounded, repetitive, rolling sonic quality, but extremely melodic—that was unusual for metal-influenced players like Stephen and myself.”
Stephen Perkins “Eric—with his amazingly cool bass lines and his deep sense of the groove—was the best. He was so solid I could go crazy on my drum parts. Eric enabled me to be Keith Moon.”
