Just when the Jane's Addiction reunion couldn't get any stranger, it gets truly bizarre. Original Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan ended his short tenure with the band in September, and now Jane's have recruited a very different talent to join their "creative team": TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek.
The band announced Sitek's arrival yesterday, noting that he'll both write and play bass on Jane's summer 2011 album. Sitek has already established himself as one of indie rock's best producers thanks to his work with TVOTR, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, and, uh, Scarlett Johansson, and last year he branched out with his own side project, Maximum Balloon. So it's a bit odd that the producer (who won't be producing here; that's Rich Costey's job) has elected to join Jane's Addiction's latest revitalization project. Perhaps the two bands mingled at last year's Lollapalooza?
Sitek has already joined Jane's Addiction in their Los Angeles studio, and so far things seems to be going great! "This process has been both inspiring and incredibly freeing," says Dave Navarro. "The events over the last year have proven themselves to be a necessary part of the journey as they have led us to our current creative team and direction." Adds Perry Farrell, "Dave, Steve [Perkins] and I are fully immersed in the process of making modern music. It has been a great experience thus far, and the results have so much potential."
We guess the big news here is "Don't expect a new TV on the Radio album any time soon," but as fans of Jane's early discography, we're intrigued by what the next Jane's Addiction album sound like. Will it be a continuation of the promising "Whores"/"Chip Away" single the band recorded with Trent Reznor producing? Or will it employ the dark tribal grooves and fuzz of TV on the Radio? Whatever the result, it can't get any worse than that abysmal "Entourage" song.
[Photo: Jason Squires/WireImage.com]