Inside Perry Farrell’s Enduring Mission to Popularize Stateside Warehouse Culture –

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Losing a million dollars will teach a man a few things. Just ask Perry Farrell.

Farrell has maintained just the right combination of DIY attitude and an appetite for controlled chaos to continue effectuating his lifelong ambitions in music—but it hasn’t always been sunshine and roses for the legendary rocker.

Today the Jane’s Addiction frontman is planting the seeds of a promising global event series, “Heaven After Dark.” While the event itself has the makings of a hit, Farrell needed to apply decades of experience and intangibles to make it so.

Ahead of the upcoming “Heaven After Dark” takeover of Los Angeles’ Catch One in early December 2022, Farrell caught up with for a candid interview wherein he shared his view on the state of dance music’s past and present, and the underlying drive powering his ambitious concert series.

Speaking with Farrell, it’s clear his latest creation—developed alongside his wife, Etty Lau Farrell—is arguably his most personal live event offering intersecting with electronic music culture. That in itself is a statement which carries considerable weight given it’s coming from the progenitor of Perry’s Stage at Chicago’s Lollapalooza, one of the most iconic live platforms for electronic dance music artists on the worldwide festival circuit.

Farrell is certainly proud of Lollapalooza’s increasingly global reach. He proudly points out that the beloved brand, which has launched satellite events throughout South America and Europe, is currently executing on its bold ambitions to expand to India in 2023.

Perry’s Stage at Chicago’s Lollapalooza has become one of the biggest performance platforms in dance music.

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But despite the continued success of Lollapalooza overall, there’s a lingering desire in Farrell’s mind to return to an era of simplicity and authenticity. Prior to Lollapalooza’s widespread commercial success, it operated as a sort of ragtag touring carnival showcasing a diverse fusion of artistic mediums.

“Heaven After Dark” represents an opportunity for Farrell to once again return to those humble roots—and electronic music plays a critical role in his goal to achieve those long-held creative aspirations.

In a way, the event’s most recent catalyst arrived with the release of Farrell’s 2019 LP, Kind Heaven, his first solo album in 18 years. Naturally, given the passage of time, it was overflowing with a hybrid of digital and analog ideas.

From a performance aspect, the assembly of the resulting Kind Heaven Orchestra saw Farrell bringing together dancers, a harmonious vocal choir, rock guitarists, analog synth players and an orchestral string section to perform cuts from the album. The endeavor could best be described as a head nod to the Vaudeville era of performance art.

Reflecting on the early beginnings of “Heaven After Dark,” Farrell describes falling into the concept “ass-backwards.”

“We started this new project, Kind Heaven Orchestra, and we wanted to put together nights that were in clubs that were out of the way, or underground,” Farrell recalls. “We installed the Kind Heaven Orchestra into it. Why I say it’s ass-backwards is because we built the performance first, and then backed our butts into this shell… a nautilus… where we backed in the music into the underground downtown Los Angeles art scene.”

Farrell characterizes “Heaven After Dark” as a hybrid showcase with the ability to modulate between both live- and electronic-based performances to varying degrees. Between his work with his experimental creative projects, Kind Heaven Orchestra and Satellite Party, Farrell’s sound already incorporates elements of electronic music, like analog synths and drum machines. But his discography’s intersection with the dance music world has become increasingly tangible as champions of the underground, such as Maceo Plex, Tim Green and Sasha, have jumped at the opportunity to contribute remixes.

Farrell has listened to dance music with a lifelong fascination with the process. As a result, much of his appreciation for the production side of the art appears to come from a focus on the technicals. Maceo Plex, who is set to perform at the upcoming “Heaven After Dark” event in Southern California, received praise from Farrell for his remix of Kind Heaven’s “Let’s All Pray For This World.”

“It was so modern and so original, specifically on his vocal slicing technique,” Farrell said of Plex’s rendition.

Farrell’s determination to wave the flag of the underground scene may seem curious on its face, but he has maintained an appreciation for dance music and its earliest purveyors for decades. He’s also been eager to share that appreciation with the world by spotlighting the genre’s timeless talents and newcomers alike, a key part of his mission with “Heaven After Dark.”

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But despite these immutable intentions to champion underground music stateside, Farrell learned early on the importance of trying to time the market. He recounts one of his earliest event offerings, Enit Festival, an electronic music event in 1996—years prior to the EDM boom of the 2010s—that was described in its advertising as “an inter-planetary festival celebrating cosmic peace and sexuality.”

In the early 90s Farrell spent time in Europe going deep down the rabbit hole of warehouse culture, discovering Sasha, John Digweed and The Orb, among other prominent DJs. This inspired the events behind Enit, which included a combination of music from dusk to dawn, a communal tree planting ceremony and beaming sounds into outer space with the hope of transmitting information to passing UFOs.