Perry Farrell Didn’t Want Metallica To Play Lollapalooza In ’96
Metallica are one of the headliners of Lollapalooza this year, but according to a recent interview with RollingStone.com, Jane’s Addiction frontman and festival creator Perry Farrell wasn’t so hot on them playing for the first time in 1996:
“I helped create the genre alternative, and alternative was against hair metal, teased-out hair, spandex, bullshit rock music. Metallica, in my estimation at that time, wasn’t my thing. I was into alternative and punk and underground. My friends were Henry Rollins and Gibby Haynes and Ice-T…
“I’m all about genuine, authentic, heartfelt, the real deal. So I was not sure about Metallica back in those days. It’s my fucking party and I’ll have who I want.”
It’s funny to think about a time when alternative rock was saving the world or whatever. What is now remembered as the soundtrack to a million flannel-clad fratboys’ summer was, at one time, a breath of fresh air. It was that or watch Axl Rose play piano with dolphins in a limousine.
However, it’s good to know that the people behind Alternative as a genre were just as shallow, short-sighted, and self-involved as the hair metallers they were rebelling against. If Farrell had listened to Metallica, he would’ve heard genuine, authentic, and heartfelt lyrics along with big awesome riffs. If anything, in ’96 Metallica was doing their best to be as alternative as possible. But nah, they were just a bunch of cis-gender longhairs with distorted guitars, right?
Fuck this dude for caring about appearances over content, fuck him for thinking that hanging out with different rock stars makes him “punk” and “underground”, and fuck him for becoming exactly the kind of drug-addled fashion victim he claimed to stand against.
The interview goes on:
According to Perry, he has learned to appreciate Metallica in recent years. “I like their music,” he says.
I’m sure you did, once you listened to it. It doesn’t hurt that you’re the festival organizer and they’re the biggest band of all time within their genre. Everyone’s got a mortgage.
