Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell says it may now be time to leave the festival behind
It was born out of what was meant to be a farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction and has grown into a multimillion-dollar juggernaut over the past 25 years, but Farrell has set his sights on something new
Lollapalooza, one of the biggest music festivals in America and on the cusp of its 25th anniversary, wasn’t meant to last beyond its first year in 1991. And now that it has, its co-founder, Perry Farrell of the band Jane’s Addiction, says it may finally be time for him to move on.
“The idea that you can protect yourself from people who want to make millions of dollars off your idea – you better have a suit of armour,” says Farrell of how Lollapalooza has grown from a one-off six-week travelling festival into a multimillion-dollar franchise over a quarter-century.
It was conceived as a Jane’s Addiction farewell tour that also included other underground bands and artists such as Living Colour, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Rollins Band, Nine Inch Nails, the Butthole Surfers and Ice-T. It was a risky move that turned into a profitable tour.
When it finished, Farrell – who is married to the Hong Kong-born Etty Lau and is a regular visitor to the city – was ready to stop, but “the record industry loves success. They wait for something to hit, they go to the hilltops. They go right to next year – hey, the Red Hot Chili Peppers want to do it [in 1992]. I didn’t have much else to do that year, I knew I was going to put Jane’s down for a time, and I figured, why not? I was up for another party.”