LA, July 26: As the band's name suggests, Jane's Addiction is a hard habit to break. The Los Angeles foursome, which blazed the trail for the alternative rock music scene in the late 1980s by melding punk and Goth elements, has reunited for a second time and is preparing to release its first album in 13 years, "Strays."
The band is currently headlining one of the premier concert tours of the summer, the revived Lollapalooza traveling rock festival, which was originally conceived in 1991 for the group's farewell tour.
Jane's Addiction has recorded only two other studio albums, both influential works: 1988's "Nothing Shocking," featuring the hit "Jane Says," and 1990's "Ritual de lo Habitual." Both have sold about 1 million copies in the United States.
But drug-fueled animosity ended the group's initial five-year run in 1991, just as the genre was yielding multimillion-selling acts such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Seattle "grunge" bands Soundgarden and Nirvana.
"We were half a step away from the 'greatest American rock band,"' singer Perry Farrell, 44, said in a recent interview.
"I wish I could have figured out a way to be more mature ... I was basically slamming dope and then going on stage. That's a very immature life, if you think about it."
Evidently a productive heroin junkie, Farrell kept busy through the 1990s, forming Porno for Pyros with Jane's drummer, Stephen Perkins; running subsequent editions of Lollapalooza; and reconstituting Jane's Addiction for 1997's drugs-marred "Relapse" tour. Last year, he got married, tying the knot with a dancer on the tour.
Bureau Report