J GRGRY – DREAM TOUR

In this Dream Tour segment, the dark pop artist, J GRGRY, lets you know who he would like on his ultimate tour lineup. You can check out the feature, after the break.

My Dream Tour would involve me being a part of the 1991 Lalapalooza tour.

Perry Ferrel curated such an incredible line up that first year, including some of my all-time favorite artists, NIN and Siouxsie and The Banshees. Jane’s Addiction, Ice-T, the Violent Femmes and Living Colour being on the bill was a huge change in how music, and music audiences, in particular, were brought together under one proverbial roof. In subsequent years of the festival the eclectic nature of the lineups grew with more and more genre blending, but, that first year was really a defining moment to me when I look back and think about the landscape of Alternative music for me as a kid and a teenager.

Nine Inch Nails had a profound influence on me as a teenager and to have been side stage watching them performing “Pretty Hate Machine” that close to its release would have been astounding. Reznor was inspired by that tour to write more guitar driven and aggressive music which turned into the EP “Broken” which was a huge group of songs to me as I began learning guitar and teaching myself how to play music and write songs.

Siouxsie and The Banshees is one of my all time favorite artists as they emerged during a time in music that I look to fondly for inspiration as that scene they were a part of created Joy Division and the Cure, all three bands that have heavily influenced me as a songwriter. Siouxsie is such a beautiful and creative performer and their music had a playfulness that always made me feel like I was in a dark carnival that I desperately wanted to be a part of.

Jane’s Addiction was another band that became prominent in my early development as I was picking up the guitar and learning about my love of music. “Been Caught Stealing,” “Mountain Song,” and “Jane Says” totally changed my concept of popular music due to the fact that Perry’s voice was fairly obscure yet people really responded to his sound. He had such a unique tone and charector and the harmonies they produced on those recordings were so interesting in combination with his tone. I never thought I could be a singer until I started hearing bands like those on this first Lalapalooza tour. It gave me a hope that I carried through countless hours of sitting at the piano and struggling to keep pitch and basically teach myself how to sing.

To have been around such influential and dynamic musicians with such creative souls would have been so inspiring. To have played alongside those artists would have definitely been a dream!

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