In addition to being the frontman of alternative icons Jane’s Addiction, Perry Farrell is a co-founder of the legendary Lollapalooza festival and still plays an integral role in the management of the festival.
However, he’s got some concerns about the direction the festival has taken in recent years. The festival actually started as a celebration of alternative music, though you wouldn’t know it these days.
Of course, Farrell, like anybody, acknowledges that Lollapalooza has to change with the times in order to stay relevant, but if he could make one change, he’d probably get rid of all the EDM acts on the bill.
As Stereogum reports, this year’s 25th anniversary Lollapalooza lineup is topped by the likes of Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, LCD Soundsystem, and J Cole, with big-time EDM names like Martin Garrix and Flosstradamus.
But Farrell doesn’t have a lot of appreciation for such acts. “When they said they wanted to name a stage after me (when the festival relaunched in 2005), I was honored,” Farrell recently told the Chicago Tribune.
“I like the adulation. But now you say, ‘Perry, what’s going on with your area here?’ Believe me, I’ve got questions myself. I hate EDM. I want to vomit it out of my nostrils.” In fact, Farrell sees EDM as a perversion of one of his true loves.
“I can’t stand what it did to what I love, which is house music, which was meditative, psychedelic — it took you on a journey. …I sometimes cringe at my own festival,” Farrell admitted.
“The only way to change things is by changing things myself,” he continued. “At my new project, there will be great house music. I hope I will keep EDM at the door. They will be turned away.”
