Lollapalooza Founder Perry Farrell: “I Hate EDM … I Sometimes Cringe At My Own Festival”
Perry Farrell started Lollapalooza in 1991 as a farewell tour for his Jane’s Addiction, but in the years since, it’s turned into one of the biggest and longest-running music festivals around. The fest is celebrating its 25th anniversary next week with Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, LCD Soundsystem, and J. Cole headlining, and a number of big name DJs and EDM acts like Bro Safari, Flosstradamus, and Martin Garrix will be performing at Perry’s, the Jane’s Addiction frontman’s eponymous stage.
As it turns out, though, Farrell himself isn’t a big fan of modern electronic music. “When they said they wanted to name a stage after me (when the festival relaunched in 2005), I was honored,” he says in a new interview with 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. 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.”
“The only way to change things is by changing things myself,” he continues. “At my new project, there will be great house music. I hope I will keep EDM at the door. They will be turned away.”