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Writer's pictureEric Senich
Sep 283 min read

Jane's Addiction Guitar Tech: 'Perry Farrell Punched Dave Navarro Backstage'

Updated: Oct 21




Long-time Jane's Addiction guitar tech Dan Cleary says the September 13th onstage drama between Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro continued backstage with Farrell landing a punch to Navarro's face.


Cleary, who was among those captured on fan video trying to contain Farrell’s anger and break up the fight that night in Boston, took to his podcast Rare Form Radio to give a moment-by-moment, blow-by-blow breakdown of the event he says marked the end of Jane's Addiction.


"[It's] safe to say that the band is no more," said Cleary, who was joined on the podcast by Todd Newman, a friend of Navarro’s for 30 years. "People I know, the fan base, and people want this to be able to be worked out. I just, I personally just do not see that being a reality."


During the 90-minute video, Cleary played excerpts from the audio feed at the Friday the 13th show. Farrell can be heard singing out of tune and out of time from the rest of the band. That is followed by the confrontation between band members onstage and then offstage. Navarro — who had been shoved and then had a punch thrown at him onstage — shouts at Farrell, "What the fuck was that you mother fucker. I will never play with you again you fuckin' piece of shit!" The sounds of a scuffle followed which, according to Cleary, was the moment Farrell landed a punch.


"That one he actually connected with," said Cleary. "Right hand to the left side of Dave's face right? Okay? So any of this talk of cheap shots, like, this guy [Perry] - I feel for him because something is going on mentally but he was, he looked crazed, he was acting crazed, and this shouldn't have happened."


While Cleary placed the blame on Farrell, pointing at substance abuse as the cause of his actions, he was emotional when expressing his sadness for what happened.


"I have cried about this five or six times since it happened because it, it's so much bigger than just this one moment," said Cleary, who has been Jane's Addiction's guitar and bass tech for 17 years. "It means a lot for, I mean, obviously for my career, for their careers. We had plans. I mean, this was supposed to go for couple more years."


Cleary said the tension between Farrell and his bandmates goes all the way back to the first night of the U.S. tour. He revealed that Farrell “quit the band” before the opening show in Las Vegas, even as fans were starting to come in for the gig, only to be talked into going on with the show at the last minute.


Cleary also responded to comments made by Perry's wife Etty Lau Farrell who stated the incident happened because her husband had finally “reached his breaking point” because the rest of the band was drowning out Perry's voice each night.


"We had 33 shows booked on this tour," said Cleary. "We were like, this was show 15. I forget how many it was but we were five weeks into the tour. Every single day we have an

allotted time period during the day for the band to soundcheck. That's what sound checks are for right? If there's issues, you show up, you come first. First of all, we started this at rehearsals before the tour right? I have to say Perry never came to a single rehearsal. The band came five or six times, he never came right, which is fine if you show up and kick ass but that wasn't completely the case. But again, there are sound checks every day so Perry my

friend, if you're having issues on stage, you hire the best people in the world to help you with these things. If that was really the problem, come to soundcheck and figure it out right?"


Watch the entire video below and tell us what you think. Will Jane's Addiction every play together again? Should they play together again?












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