Jane's Addiction Reunion

Bassist Eric Avery has finally signed on, because show is "honoring the past instead of trying to re-create it."

By Chris Harris

After much deliberation, Eric Avery, the original bassist for seminal rockers Jane's Addiction, announced on Tuesday night that he's decided to share the stage with his former bandmates at least one more time — on April 23, during the first-ever US NME Awards.

The show will mark the first time he's performed with Jane's — which also includes frontman Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins — in public since the group first split in 1991.

The band will be honored with the Godlike Genius Award during the ceremony, which is set for the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. Avery's publicist did not disclose how long the band's set will last or which songs it will be playing. It remains to be seen whether this performance will lead to a full-fledged, true reunion tour.

Avery has declined previous offers to reunite with the band — first for its reunion tour in 1997, when his spot was filled by the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, and again in 2001, when Chris Chaney filled in; the band split yet again in 2004.

He explained his reasons for signing on this time in a statement issued Tuesday, in which he said he'd "chosen to reject the prospects of reuniting in the past for personal and philosophical reasons. I have always considered reunions to be a way to make a quick buck, and it sells short my own experience of it the first time around. The reason I started to even consider this is because it's honoring the past instead of trying to re-create it."

In a recent interview with MTV News, Avery didn't seem optimistic about the prospects of a reunion. "Life was telling me that I wasn't supposed to be doing that," he said. "I certainly didn't want to drag my past out and try to put the dreadlocks back on and re-create something. I feel that Jane's is really a vibe and a time. It wasn't like we were the Beatles. We didn't have crafty pop songs where it sort of didn't matter who played them because they're just really great songs. We were sort of a time and a vibe, and I didn't just want to be a shallow version of my former self.

"I keep thinking maybe that will change," he continued. "Maybe I will become desperate enough for money, or maybe I'll suddenly want to play those songs again, but so far, it just hasn't happened. I like Jane's remaining what it was for me."

Source: MTV