Jane’s Addiction release new single despite tour cancellation

The perpetually strange saga of Jane’s Addiction just got stranger. The band quietly released a new single, “True Love,” two days after canceling its North American tour following singer Perry Farrell’s attempted punch on guitarist Dave Navarro onstage last week in Boston. Their future remains seriously uncertain.

“True Love” follows previous new song “Imminent Redemption,” both of which mark the first new material from Jane’s original lineup of Farrell, Navarro, bassist Eric Avery and drummer Stephen Perkins since 1990. Given the band’s current state, it’s unclear if further recording is in the works.

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The non-singing members blamed the tour’s failure on Farrell, who they hope “will find the help he needs. We deeply regret that we cannot help all of our fans who have already purchased tickets. We see no solution that would ensure a safe environment on stage or allow us to reliably deliver a great performance every night.”

For his part, Farrell eventually apologized to his bandmates as well as Jane’s fans, saying his behavior was “inexcusable.”

Yesterday (September 17), Navarro waxed philosophical on Instagram about the recent turn of events. “I was rereading Whitman’s book Grass leaves “And it occurred to me that there is a strong parallel between his work and ours,” he writes. “The leaves represent the cycle of life and death, but he continued to work on this body of poems until his own death in 1892. Perhaps, like us, he was unable to fully understand his own work because he was continually trying to rewrite it, add to it, and expand it, eschewing the life cycle of his own work… just as we have. Perhaps it is easier to recognize when something is gone and learn from the magical lesson of mourning than to avoid it and remain in a constant state of dissatisfaction.”

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