Jack Irons

Jack Irons is an extraordinarily talented, veteran rock drummer who may be as well known for the circumstances that forced him off the drum throne of superstar rock bands like The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam as he is for having played drums in those bands in the first place. Having conquered crippling anxiety disorders that contributed to his split from The Chili Peppers (a band he co-founded) and ended his three year tenure with Pearl Jam as that band was reaching its peak of fame, Jack Irons has recently released his first solo album, Attention Dimension. Serving as a kind of aural diary, Attention Dimension was recorded in Jack’s home studio over the course of several years, and features significant contributions by Alain Johannes of Eleven -- a band Jack has drummed with on and off for a decade -- as well as appearances by former Pearl Jam bandmates Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament. Chili Pepper’s bassist and Jack’s longtime friend, Flea, also helped out with some of the bass tracks. In this compelling interview, Jack spoke candidly with StarPolish about his colorful career, the therapeutic process of making Attention Dimension and his long journey back to health.

STARPOLISH: Attention Dimension was a work in progress for a number of years, but it still has a very cohesive feel and a solid aural identity. Did you always have some kind of vision for it or was it a “wherever the mood takes me in the moment” kind of thing?

IRONS:  This record was all about me exorcising some real manic, creative demons, and I just went for it. I knew I could afford to buy the equipment, have a decent recording set up in my home and learn how to do it myself. Once I got everything set up, I just went nuts with sound and instruments. It was actually very exciting to be able to create, but I really have only learned how to play one instrument pretty well. Everything else was just about really listening and trying to make it musical -- trying to just go with a feeling sense of things. I was real excited about that. I still get excited about it.

I wasn’t under any pressure to get a performance right away and I didn’t have five other band mates, engineers and producers looking to kill me when I kept saying, “do it again.” (Laughs) I really think this record is more conceptual to my creative mind. This particular record was something that I really tried to put everything I could into, creatively. I did all the art work as well.

STARPOLISH: It does make it a very complete picture of who you are and it also shows all of the love that went into it. The artwork is very beautiful.

IRONS: I had a few experiences that drove me to doing that myself and I did it all in Photoshop. Most of those images are manipulated photos of me or of my studio and things around me. In shooting some of these images I used kaleidoscopes and weird things, and then I would just trick it out in Photoshop.

STARPOLISH: Before I actually listened to the record, I had heard it described as a mostly instrumental album. But after playing it a couple of times all of the various vocals become really evident. How do you describe the record?

IRONS: As far as how I would describe the music, I don’t know. I’m waiting for someone to describe it for me (laughs). Alain, from [the band] Eleven, is doing a lot of the vocals and chants, or making his voice sound like an instrument. Eddie Vedder sings on one track and I sing on the track, “Come Running.” You know, when I did this record I tried to tell myself, “I can do all of this,” but singing is a hard beast to tame if it doesn’t come naturally. There are a couple of samples as well, such as the African singers on “ Breaking Sea .” Everything else is really Alain. See, I finished everything to the point where I was like, “Okay, I really think I’m done. I’ve listened to it, I’ve worked on it, and there’s nothing more I feel that I can do to this.” If it needed something more it was going to come from someone else. Alain was mixing everything, so I would give him the music and say, “Look whatever you feel, just bust it out and we’ll decide if it’s working.” Then he’d take it to his studio and that’s how we finished the record. He played very little conventional guitar on this record. Instead, he used all of these crazy instruments and let his voice go wild.

STARPOLISH: To me, the album has such an experimental and almost “world beat” feel to it -- very different from the rock or funk stuff you’ve done in previous band situations. There are also Asian rhythms and African tribal stuff going on. I’d say it’s very eclectic.

IRONS: Yes, it’s really eclectic and I do think Alain, who is a really eclectic character, influenced that a lot. I think the record in general is eclectic, but if you stripped away what he did, there might seem to be a lot more similarity [between the tracks] because I’m just doing whatever I do. There are two tracks that are just me, which are “Oceans Light” and “Underwater Circus Music,” which is a long track. “Underwater Circus Music” is a perfect example of a song where I went craziest. When Alain did the mixes of that track, I swear, it’s 14 or 15 minutes long and it’s played almost all the way though. There are no loops or anything. I tried to record each pass on everything. That song might have 90 different sounds on it; I was going beyond the 64-track possibility of Alain’s Pro-Tools rig (laughs).

STARPOLISH: You also did a lot of the engineering for this project. Did you feel like that depth of hands-on involvement was particularly therapeutic for you?

IRONS: I think it really did help me. Frankly, when I stopped playing with Pearl Jam I was in pretty bad shape, mentally and emotionally. My nervous system was just not well. After I left that band, I didn’t get into the studio for about a year. I went through a year of major crisis and just felt like I was in “survival mode” for a long time. After a year or a year and a half, I started to see a little progress. I was feeling a little better and eventually I found my way into doing music again. The engineering part was a real challenge, obviously. I had to get real straight and learn how to do things, so I think the whole process was therapeutic. I really feel like it helped me start to achieve balance in areas that had been a struggle for me since I was in my mid-twenties. It’s also very stimulating and, though I’m getting better at it, there was a period where I was overdoing it, which is no surprise. All in all I think the whole process of making this record served me to begin to be healthy again.

STARPOLISH: You’ve always been very open in talking about the depression and anxiety or bipolar disorders you’ve grappled with for years. How do these challenges affect the way you approach the drums and the music that you make.

Jack Irons

IRONS: Ultimately, what I can say is that when a person is feeling more grounded and not having the anxiety issues, it’s just easier to do anything. When I first really experienced the depth and severity of [my illness], it was like, how do you live with something like this? How can you survive, or even do anything? I definitely had a lot of years before I really had to face it. When you live long enough with it, you know the sun is coming up again and that the fears are just what they are. Eventually, the anxiety starts to dissipate because you give in to that process. Recognizing that was part of me getting better, but it’s taken many, many, many years. I feel like I’m becoming a pretty grounded character now and my day to day [life] is pretty good. It’s been steadily progressing but it’s been seven years since I stopped playing with Pearl Jam.

STARPOLISH: Those anxieties definitely played a big part in shaping the course of both your career and your life.

IRONS: It’s not a big deal now, but obviously it’s been a big deal in my past because I’ve had to leave some very good and popular bands. I just couldn’t keep up with the life that came along with that kind of success. That was my dream for a long time -- and I got there -- but I couldn’t sustain it. I’m okay with that because I’ve been given lots of other things. I have a great family who give me a lot of support. I feel like the universe has really helped me to find the kind of life that I can live in order to enjoy my life and keep it together. Unfortunately, the intensity of touring a lot is difficult. It’s something that creates imbalance. When I had my chance to do that it was hard for me.

I do think that I’m a different person now and I’m happy about that. I work hard at being healthy; I’ve dedicated my life to trying to figure out “what is it going to take so that I’m not bottoming out so heavily?” I was getting to points where it was like I was recovering for years. It was ridiculous. I’ve really gotten into healthy foods and exercise and I’ve found what works for me. I wish I could put together the perfect program that I could do every day to just achieve the goals I want, but there’s just no such thing. For a guy like me who’s really sensitive and has these issues, that’s been a tremendous challenge. Then again, I’m getting used to that now, too.

STARPOLISH: What role has your spirituality had on both your physical recovery and the way you create your music?

IRONS: It’s a big one, you know. The concept of self-transcendence is how I can live with the anxieties that used to seem so giant to me. That whole process is just…god, if I didn’t have that to rely on then I’d probably be in the same position I was in seven years ago. Essentially, in my mid-twenties, when I first started to experience these bi-polar episodes or whatever you want to call it, I ran with it and I did whatever it took to get through the day – medications or whatever. I did all that for a long time. Then in Pearl Jam, when I broke down again, it was like I was just too old to keep doing that. In other words, I really had to start to face this head-on because I couldn’t keep running and distracting myself. You can do that in your twenties or even mid-thirties and really get away with a lot (laughs).

When I hit my mid-thirties -- and I’m now in my early forties -- it was starting to grind me, and I knew there was no getting away from paying the price. I have this friend who I joke with about having an ‘emotional credit card’ (laughs). You’re building up debts in your twenties and thirties; then you get to your late thirties and you have to pay up. That’s the way it was for me. I think that’s a time in people’s lives where they start looking for some sort of spiritual path, so to speak. A lot of people do that and they don’t all have to have had my journey to realize that your vital energy is changing. You’re feeling things you never felt before. You don’t quite feel the same invincibility that you once did.

STARPOLISH: I think you’re blessed to have such an incredible awareness of what you’re dealing wit, and to know that there’s a way to handle it.

IRONS: Well, I believed it [was possible to get better.] The way was maybe not what I originally thought it was, but I was more of a manic character than a depressed person. I’d be the guy that’s doing way too much and just pushing himself way too hard. I can still be like that and over-work if I choose, but I’m really working on not doing that. This is like a life-long process and there’s no way around it. Now that I’m on this path, it just keeps going. You never get the perfect day or the perfect plan, but now my quality of life is much better and I’m much more comfortable.

STARPOLISH: In a 1998 interview with Modern Drummer you said, “I don’t think music is too far removed from one’s mental state.” To be honest, when I was listening to Attention Dimension for the first time, I couldn’t help but wonder how your mental state affected the way the record turned out. I mean, the inclusion of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” a song written by Pink Floyd about Syd Barrett’s mental deterioration, seemed self-referential in a good-humored way.

IRONS: That’s just sort of the way it turned out. When Eddie sang (the lyrics) “Remember when we were young” in the vocal, I didn’t know if that message was meant for me, because I definitely went sort of nuts on him and the rest of the band. I originally did that version of “Shine On” in 1995. I was living in Seattle and I was really into Dark Side of the Moon, especially for the way it sounded. I was a stereo geek and I’d go into stereo hi-fi places and play it on different speakers. When I started to do the percussion music in my basement in Seattle, I remember picking up the steel drum and thinking, “Hey, that melody’s easy.” Rhythmically I just had an idea in my mind and maybe I rehearsed it once or twice before I went into a little local studio, rented some tympanis along with the steel drum and I did a few songs in that session. That stayed with me from 1995 until maybe 1999. At that point I did a gig with Les Claypool, which was his first Frog Brigade show and I was playing with (Primus drummer) Herb Alexander. Les and I were neighbors at the time; his wife and my wife are friends and the whole thing. So Les and I got together and we were jamming and I suggested he check out this crazy cover of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” He dug it, so he said, “Let’s do our own version of that version.” He ended up using that on his album, Live Frogs: Set 1.

When I started getting the track ready to put on my album, I asked if he’d put bass on it and he said yeah. Les put some bass on it and then I gave it to Alain, who brought it all together. He hit a home run with his guitar part and by laying down the harmonic structure so that when I gave it to Eddie he could hear it right away. Back in 1995, I know Eddie and I were both fans of that record. It’s just really coincidental in a conscious manner [that it ended up on my album], but who knows how the subconscious mind influenced it.

STARPOLISH: Mentioning Les Claypool brings me to how so many of your former band mates – from Eddie to Stone Gossard and Flea -- make guest appearances on Attention Dimension. What was that like to reunite and collaborate with so many of these people? What special qualities do you think that kind of team work brought to the album?

IRONS: It was huge in terms of making me really feel good about doing this and having my friends’ support. I was very isolated for a long time. I didn’t speak to a lot of people for years. I think I had three or four conversations with some of my ex-bandmates over the course of four or five years. I was definitely off on my journey, but as life turned out, everyone was on his own journey, too. But I was very isolated, I didn’t have many friends and I was having a lot of problems -- so it’s not like I would have had a lot of friends at that point. I’m married; I have two kids and a lot of responsibilities, including the responsibility to try to get myself together for them. It just became my time to deal with it, so when my friends were willing to support me after four or five years of really not sharing this with anybody, I was really thrilled.

I do think it helped me want to put the record out and helped me feel like I could pursue a career again. These people were all close family to me in some way. Musically, I think it added all of the diversity on the record. In other words, if it’s just me, it’s all going to sound like me. Flea coming in and putting his bass part on some song makes that song completely unique on the record, because there’s no other groove like that. Having Stone on one track really changed that song and made it into something else that I was really happy about. I was pretty thrilled by the idea that you can make art like this. You can connect with people you’re close to and they can take what you do, go off in their world and put their chocolate with your peanut butter, so to speak. That way, you come up with something totally new and you don’t know what to expect. If anything it’s just too bad it doesn’t last very long before everyone is back to doing their own thing.

STARPOLISH: It does put a family vibe on the album.

IRONS: Yes, it is like that. They all supported Alain and he put a lot into the record. He took as much time as he felt he needed to do it right. We did the record at my house and Flea came over. Flea and I are friends and we see each other fairly often, so it was great to be back playing music with him again. For the guys in Pearl Jam, it was just great to be in touch. Eddie definitely put some time into his work and so did Stone and Jeff. They sat with it as long as they were comfortable, and I don’t think they did anything grueling, they just waited until it was right. I was thrilled, because when I got the record to a point where I thought, “It would be great if I could just get some people to play on this,” I just went to the people I’ve played with. That’s all I know. It was amazing how it happened. There was a great synchronicity and timing on my side. I can’t say that I could pull it off the same way again. I’ve been very humbled in these last years. It’s a very humbling experience, my whole personal journey; because I was…do you want me to [go into] how this all went down?

STARPOLISH: Sure, if you want.

IRONS: I was born and raised in LA, so I can look back now and I can say it’s a very career-driven psyche in Hollywood. I wanted to be a musician from the day I was 13 or 14. That’s all I ever wanted to do and I was completely dedicated to doing it. If I look back on my life: being very career driven, breaking down, going to a mental hospital, leaving the Chili Peppers – that was a crucial period of my life where I could have easily thrown in the towel, because I didn’t know what to think at that point. I was really messed up. Hillel [Slovak, Chili Peppers guitarist and Jack’s best friend] had died and I had left a band that was finally going to reach a point of success that we’d all been working for. I was really in a messed up way, personally.

As circumstances turned out, I got a phone call in the hospital from Joe Strummer – or a friend of Joe Strummer – asking me to play on his record, Earthquake Weather. If that call hadn’t come, I don’t know what would have happened. I hadn’t played in months. I wasn’t even considering playing. Maybe I would have come back around, because as you see now I could never stop doing music. But back then [doing that record] kept me in the business, interestingly enough. And on that Joe Strummer tour is where I met my wife-to-be and where I met Eddie. Those kinds of opportunities were always bubbling for me at that time. When I had to stop playing after [I quit] Pearl Jam, of course by now I had a wife and kids and had achieved some success, that’s a big part of it. I had already had some career moves that were good for my family and me. But it was just like…everything went away. I’d finally really made it to a point that I was playing with people that I really loved and we were playing at a high level. We were a popular band selling records, my career was doing good and all that…and there I was just…gone. I had to leave it.

STARPOLISH: That’s intense.

IRONS: I swear, that was very humbling because there was no universal phone call to come and drag me out of it. It was like, “No, Jack. You’re toast. Now is the time to really try to get this together and try to live with who you are.” (Laughs) Everything I did was really on my own for the longest time. My career got shot up and it was over. So this record is redefining and reintroducing [me]. I feel like with this record completed, I can make music like this all the time. I just felt like this is what’s coming to me. There was no master plan. If knew that if I could just finish it, then I would just knock on the door a little bit in terms of trying to collaborate with people again. What I really want to do is make music with other people again. It really felt like if I wasn’t going to get it together, I wasn’t going to be here anymore. There was definitely a period where I didn’t conceive of longevity. I didn’t even think about it. I was much more on a crazy train. I got into tattoos and I’ve got tattoos all over me. When I did something I just did it more than was good for me.

I’ll be honest with you. A lot of this record was recorded in that way, but at the end of the day I always came back to center and only settled for what felt right to me. There’s a real complexity to the layering of the record but I don’t think it all feels like a manic record.

STARPOLISH: I’d say it feels vibrant.

IRONS: I do think that there was a fine line between creating this music and working through anxieties or transferring from anxiety to this. It’s hard to explain but in the mental process there were definitely some coinciding patterns, and the music is the more balanced stuff. Whenever you do anything and you learn to do it smoothly, you learn what it takes to do that again and again. With the next music I do – and I’ve already started doing some stuff – the process might be a bit smoother.

Jack Irons

This album took a long time to make, and it was recorded in two different residences and many different rooms, so it’s all going to sound different because it is really different. When you set up in a studio for a few months to do a record with a band, you’re visiting the same room every day. You move a couple of mics around or take a couple of drums away but you’re in this mode, so there’s maybe a similarity to it. That’s definitely not how this record was because these songs happened over a long time.

STARPOLISH: It’s like a diary in that way.

IRONS: It is something; I don’t really know what (laughs).

Attention Dimension is available for purchase from www.JackIrons.com