Porno For Pyros: “It’s time to look back and report on what knowledge and wisdom we’ve gained”

Perry Farrell is sitting at home in front of the iconic photograph in which Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie is looking into a mirror, his reflection staring straight into the camera. The image was taken by legendary rock snapper Mick Rock in March 1972, in a flat in Beckenham, just over a mile from where this K! writer is currently located, speaking to Perry via Zoom, It is, if anything, an illustration of how everything is connected and things go full circle.

Take, for instance, the reemergence of Porno For Pyros, the band Perry started in the wake of the first split of Jane’s Addiction back in 1992. Born into a Los Angeles aflame from the city’s race riots, Porno For Pyros released two albums, 1993’s self-titled debut and 1996’s Good God’s Urge, chronicling social upheaval and the beauty of nature alike, before going on a 26-year touring hiatus. But now they’re back, in similarly charged times, with an environmentally conscious new song, Agua, and a 16-date U.S. tour. It’ll be a case of saying goodbye as well as hello, however, as the jaunt in February and March 2024 – entitled Horns, Thorns En Halos – will be the band’s last.

In anticipation of this farewell to fans, K! catches up with Perry about surfing, smoking crack, toting guns and spiritual awakenings, all delivered in his inimitable dreaming style. “I’m that peripheral person who likes to kick back and watch things unfold,” he tells us. “But then I like to get into the mosh-pit myself from time to time, you know?”

You’re busier than ever, so the obvious question is: after a 26-year touring hiatus, why bring back Porno For Pyros now to say goodbye and make your job even harder?
“No, but it makes my job easier because it all comes from music. If the music was to go silent, it seems like all forward motion would start to cease as well. They say these days it’s all about the algorithm… some of my friends are putting out albums’ worth of material – an obnoxious amount of music – looking to stimulate their algorithms. This is not that whatsoever.”

When the band first started, in the ’90s, it was a turbulent time characterised by the racial tensions of the LA riots. Did you also feel a need to return now in the similarly combustible times we find ourselves in?
“It’s astute to see the cycle coming full circle. When Porno For Pyros were coming up, that was the era of crack cocaine flooding into the streets of Los Angeles and then the world. We were running those streets wild with the LA riots. It was the era of Rodney King and Desert Storm.”

What can you tell us about your newly-released song, Agua?
“We wrote it in Tahiti, the same time that we wrote Tahitian Moon [from Good God’s Urge]. I always loved to sing it when we’d pick up acoustic guitars and bongos and stuff. Fast forward to now, the song has taken on a slightly different, more urgent meaning.”

Tell us about that meaning…
“We’ve really screwed the waters up badly. We’d surf waters back in the early days and I never would have expected how gross the ocean would become in 30 years’ time. If you go to where we used to surf now, you can see all this plastic floating. When you get tubed [surfing term for riding inside the barrel of a breaking wave], there could be plastic bottles being hurled over your head. Because of the way the global streams work, the currents create these pockets in the ocean where the plastic gathers. What are we doing? It’s a good time for us to jump and say, ‘Hold on,’ because water is everything to us – we drink it, we play in it, it has healing properties. We need to recognise that we love the water.”

PFP’s second album, Good God’s Urge, was informed by nature, but was made during a difficult time for you. You’re a markedly different man now, so is it interesting to be able to revisit that period while also writing this new chapter?
“People don’t know a lot about that period because I’ve always been a private person. Back then I was holed up, up to my neck in debauchery. There’s that side to the whole story of Porno For Pyros that people didn’t know about, really, but it’s been 30 years. Thirty years is an interesting number. The number three is the number of strength. If you look at twine, you have three pieces of string, twisted together, creating a cord to build from. After 30 years you can build solutions and strength. Looking at it mystically, it’s time to look back and report back on what knowledge and wisdom we’ve gained. That period was my lowest point in time as far as my health was concerned – my mind and my body were both very demented and lost. I was a speedball addict then, and crack cocaine was coming into the picture so I was a crack smoker. But it was at that time I had a visitation from the spirit world – three times over the course of three weekends in 1994. They didn’t form anything I could see, but they were voices. I was visited first by my mother [who died by suicide when Perry was three] and had a lucid conversation with her for about five minutes, when I asked many questions about where she was. She spoke to me through the person I was sleeping with. Those visits changed me.”

How does it feel to be playing a full tour with Porno For Pyros again after so long?
“I’m jazzed, man. We, as Porno For Pyros, have this wonderful way of fusing jazz and punk together, which is right up my alley. I love the looseness of the format. You can get down with some really strong, forceful music, because we’ve got that in our bone marrow. We love charging hard – and if you do that musically, like with surfing or snowboarding, it’s like you’re taking on a giant wave or a mountain, and there’s a chance you can wipe out. There’s that element of danger that some fellas can’t get enough of, so that’s why I’m excited about getting up there with those guys. We’re challenging each other.”

Porno For Pyros features your Jane’s Addiction bandmate, drummer Stephen Perkins, as well as guitarist Peter DeStefano. What is it that makes your chemistry special?
“All of the songs are stories of our lives. With Porno For Pyros, the self-titled song [from their self-titled debut album], as soon as the first chord is struck, we’re getting in the car, driving towards Compton – we’ve got pistols in our pockets and we’re looking for trouble.”

The tour’s title is ‘Thorns, Horns En Halos’; you’ve always had a fascination with light and darkness, so what can you tell us about the significance of this name?
“The first thing I looked at was the devil boy, the band’s symbol, kind of like the tongue that the Rolling Stones have. I felt we had to present ourselves as having grown on every level. So to show that growth over the 30 years, we went from the horns of the devil boy, to the crown of thorns when you’re suffering and learning lessons, to the halo where you’re hopefully past most of the thorniness of life. That’s the chapter we’re now entering. It’s the era of redemption.”

Agua is out now. The Horns, Thorns En Halos farewell tour will take place next February and March.

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• Perry Farrell on being a solutionist, an innovator and that time he freed slaves in Sudan
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