Email to a friend Printer friendly Font: * * * * Tickets $30 at Ticketmaster - - - If Perry Farrell had his way, the streets of the world's cities would have musicians playing on every corner. Office workers would unchain themselves from their desks and run dancing through the streets. And the world in general would be a much happier place.
"I think there should be no reason why there shouldn't be celebration in the streets," said the frontman of Satellite Party and the former frontman of Jane's Addiction. "We shouldn't be slaves to our offices. We should be in a constant state of heightened jubilation.
Why not?" The 48-year-old rocker -- who conceived Lollapalooza and is considered by many to be the godfather of alternative rock -- has always had a reputation for being something of a hedonist. But while drugs of all kinds were once his pleasure, he now talks about being blissed out on his love for music.
Farrell's latest project -- officially called Perry Farrell's Satellite Party -- is not just a band, but an intended movement that will spark revolution and change wherever it goes. It touches down in Vancouver Sunday night at the Commodore. The project's first album, Ultra Payloaded, is a conceptual creation that is intended to be a catalyst for change, but not in a preachy or overly-earnest kind of way, and using plenty of rock, funk and soul to get the message across.
"The first thing I want to do is make people happy and entertain them and let them forget about their cares and their worries," Farrell said earlier this week via cellphone from Aspen, where he was on a tour stop. Once he attracts people with his music, the idea is that they will then be turned on to Satellite Party's message about changing the world -- specifically, the environment -- one step at a time. Farrell is a supporter and contributor of Global Cool, a 10-year initiative devoted to reversing climate change.
He says he does what he can to minimize his impact on the environment when the band is touring, but concedes that there is more he could be doing. "It takes a bit of money to actually green yourself and green things," he says. "Satellite Party itself, we're just starting out and [we're not yet at] the level where we can be using biodiesel generators and biodiesel buses.
We're not there yet. "So for right now, the best that we can do, we recycle and we use hard utensils, metal utensils, re-useable things on our bus." For someone who is accustomed to playing arenas and massive festivals, Farrell is surprisingly realistic about Satellite Party's growth and modest success.
Album sales have been weak, but he's created his own label on which he will re-release Ultra Payloaded, with hopes it will do better the second time out of the gate. He talks frankly about the project's humble progression, but without any audible disappointment. "I'm starting in clubs.
I'm starting from scratch, doing it from the street level up," he says. "I love the people I'm working with. I love my project.
We are starting from a much more of a grassroots position, but I don't mind it because, as I say, my heart's in the right place. I love making music and I get to do it every day. And that for me is enough.
It's like falling in love with someone, but they're not rich, but you love them. And that's where I'm at.
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