There were no declarations of hell having to freeze over before they came back together. The members of Jane's Addiction simply reunited the same way they split up in 1991 -- because it felt like the right thing to do.

But don't call this a reunion. The band has taken to calling it a "relapse," since just three of the musicians -- singer Perry Farrell, guitarist David Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins -- are back together, while bassist Eric Avery declined and has been replaced by Navarro's Red hot Chili Peppers bandmate Flea.

It's a cautious relapse, to be sure. The group's new album, Kettle Whistle, is an odds 'n' sods collection of outtakes, live tracks, demos and just two new recordings -- the title track and "So What!" And the tour will be short -- a little more than a month's worth of dates rather than the full-scale assault on the populace.But the excitement, and the demand, is there, making this the hottest reunion this side of Fleetwood Mac (shut your mouth!).

Jane's Addiction has taken on mythic and legendary status in the modern rock world, revered for its no-holds-barred musical approach, its unpredictable rock-concert-meets-performance-art concerts and its controversial, sometimes censored album graphics. The quintessential alternative rockers? You can make a case for it -- particularly since its last great gasp was headlining the first Lollapalooza tour, which kicked the mainstream door open for the alternative revolution of the `90s.

Nobody knows where the relapse will lead. Farrell and Perkins are recording a new Porno For Pyros album, while Navarro and Flea expect the Chili Peppers to reactivate in the near future. For a short while, however, we're going to feed our Jane's addiction -- a relapse to which we'll willingly succumb.

JAMTV: Why did Jane's Addiction break up in the first place?

Navarro: That's a really multi-dimensional question. There's a lot of different answers I could give you. I think everybody might have their own separate answer. The only thing I could really tell you and be diplomatic about it enough is to say that at that time, all four of us weren't looking in the same direction. Far be it for met to tell you what the specifics were; I don't want to disclose anybody's personal life situation. I can safely say there were personality conflicts. A lot of that was probably due to the fact that we were pretty young and green in this business, period. And in life.

Did you see the end of the band coming before you actually made the decision?

Perkins: Not really. We always had good and bad days -- that was in and out of the studio, on tour, in photo shoots, in the studio, on stage. Everything was relative to what was happening around us. At any moment, we were about to break up, and any moment was also about unity. That's the way the band was, really. You couldn't really compare it to "Wow, could this be the end?" because the band did a lot of work after (Ritual de lo Habitual), a lot of touring -- so much that that could've contributed to the breakup, too.

Navarro: Not necessarily for me, but then again, I didn't have much sense of anything. We just were doing what we were doing. I didn't get the sense that was it for Jane's until we were on what ended up being our last tour.

From the outside it seemed like Jane's broke into two camps -- Perry and Stephen, Dave and Eric. Were you estranged from each other like that?

Navarro: Estranged, I wouldn't say. I definitely went through a long period of time where I didn't speak to anybody. It wasn't me saying, "I'm not speaking to them." It's not like if anybody called me, I wouldn't have called them back, and vice versa. I think we just went through a period of time where we had to do some soul-searching.

I never had any feelings of animosity towards anybody, and regardless of what our conflicts were at the time, I always had an incredible love for the band and for everybody in it. I like to think I was always friends with them.

So what kind of contact did you maintain?

Navarro: That's very non-specific, too. It would be one of those things, like I'd either run into Steve or I'd run into Perry around town, and we'd talk for a minute or two. Or I'd see `em at a show, or like at the Woodstock show a couple of years back. The Chili Peppers played on the same day as Porno, and we saw each other there and talked. Itkind of just happened -- you know what I mean? It wasn't like somebody just made a call out of the blue. It was kind of like we were slowly being drawn back together again. It felt very natural. It wasn't like I didn't talk to Perry and Steve for five years and all of a sudden somebody called me or I called them and somebody said, "So, what's going on?" It was kind of a gradual thing.

So how did the reunion -- excuse me, relapse -- come about?

Navarro: I would imagine destiny. It's one of those things that, for me -- purely speaking for myself -- there was never a time I didn't want to do it, necessarily. I definitely needed a break from it when we stopped; I don't know if I needed the band to be over. At the time, that felt like the right thing. But I've always felt that Jane's Addiction was my home, was where I belonged. I never really felt as comfortable in any other musical project as I did in that.

Perkins: Well, I mean, Perry and I will always have Eric and David as friends and musicians. They're both right there. Dave is one of my all-time favorite friends; I've had him since high school...we were in a speed metal band called Disaster. We used to play the Troubadour at the age of 15. And then to go through Jane's together was just an experience I can't even put into words. That's exactly what I wished for, to be in a band with Dave and travel and make people happy. It's a great thing to do.

Our connection goes so deep that I always knew throughout Porno For Pyros that there would always be another musical adventure with me and Dave Navarro. As far as Perry and me and Dave, I know Perry is always willing to expand his musical world. We had a great time with Porno; we were not keeping Dave in or out. Dave and Flea both worked on our second record. It was just exciting to have such great players work with us. We also had Daniel Ash and other people come out, and Mike Watt. And Mike Watt ended up joining the band for about a year. We end up playing with these people, especially with Dave,(and) you wind up thinking "Wow, what could the future be?" We don't want to get in the way of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Maybe when things are slowing down, maybe we can work with them.

How much of a role did doing the song for Private Parts have to do with getting this rolling?

Perkins: We did "Freeway" on the second Porno record, and that came out pretty damn cool -- it was so modern and a pretty cool sound, a great achievement. So when "Hard Charger" came about, we were about to record that for the record for the Howard Stern thing, we thought, "Instead of trying Mike Watt, let's give Flea a call, and why not bring Dave? Let's makea party out of it. Let's make this song sound like we're having a good time." So we did. So when that came out so good and we had a great time at the Howard Stern show, and the next night we played a place called Roseland in New York. It was so exciting and a lot of adrenalin came out and a lot of good feelings and emotions. One thing led to another.

Was Eric approached to be part of this?

Perkins: Oh, of course. He was the first person we asked. He declined; he didn't want to have anything to do with the record or the show. That's cool, that's fine with us. With Flea, I don't even have to think about Eric anymore. If Eric didn't want to do it, you've got someone who's dying to do it, and that's an attitude I'm looking for, really. Eric is one of my all-time favorite players to play with. You can't beg someone to play with you if they don't want to play.

And Flea seems like such a natural choice to be part of this.

Perkins: Dave Navarro's been playing with Flea for I don't know how long. And I've played with Flea for years. And, shit, what can you say? He's Flea. We're like, "Shit, man, we can do it with Flea! Let's just do it." Eric's great; Eric's the original. The guy doesn't want to be part of it.

I love having a good time. Going on tour is so fun; imagine going to a party, four or five nights a week, and your band's playing fucking great, and I love these songs. If Eric's not in the mood for that, that's O.K.

How is it different having Flea in the band?

Navarro: I don't know. I really don't know. I'm just thrilled that he's doing it. At this point, I have a very long-standing musical relationship with him. Yes, we've only done one record together, and that record, (the Chili Peppers') One Hot Minute, to me is a documentation of the three of them and myself learning how to play music together, more thananything. But since then, I've been playing with (Flea) for years now. His enthusiasm level is so high; basically, we couldn't ask for anyone better. Flea we've all known for years; we came from the same musical environment, if you will -- the L.A./Hollywood scene. We've all jammed together and we've done shows together. He's more or less family.

Any downside to this?

Perkins: I guess it's like hooking up with your ex-girlfriend again. Obviously if you're with your girlfriend and then you see your ex-girlfriend, you're going to go, "Oh, yeah, cool, nice to see you." But if you're single and you see her, you might even get more interested. So it's not like me and Perry are single, or Dave and Flea are single, but there's time right now. And the time's right. I figure, let's make some good fun out of it.

What does this mean for your other bands, Porno and the Chili Peppers?

Perkins: Me and Perry and Pete and Flea, we all love the Porno songs and the Chili Peppers songs. But we really want to hear the Jane's songs right now. It's really fun to play them. I know they've been playing the Chili Pepper songs, Flea's been playing them for 15 years, and Dave's been playing them for a few years. We've been doing the Porno stuff; that's ournew music, and that's what we believe in as well. But we'd love to hear "Ocean Size" or "Mountain Song," and we think, "Who'd be the guys to play it? Fuck -- those guys." So we just get ahold of them and have some fun with it.

For as momentous as this project is, I'm surprised the tour isn't more extensive.

Perkins: It's just, "Go get your ya-ya's and have some good fun and let's not milk this thing." I know the Chilis have some work ahead of them. I know Porno does. Let's make this a great vacation.

One of the nice things about Kettle Whistle is getting a batch of legitimate Jane's live recordings at last. The band in concert was a whole different trip.

Perkins: They're snapshots of us in a moment. You don't get perfection on stage. You look for not even perfection; you try to get perfection on a record. On stage, you're going for attitude, and that's what you hear. You don't hear perfection, but you hear some really cool people around the band having fun, and then you hear the guys on stage just goingfor it with all their heart. I think that's what counts. That's how we picked the versions. Sometimes sonically they're not going to be all that great or possibly the whole song's not in tune at a moment or something goes wrong -- I drop a drumstick and don't sound quite right for a second. It's the attitude we went for. So they're really cool things.

How hard was it picking the material to go on the album?

Perkins:I had 500 tapes. I thought what I'll do is pick some of my favorite shows and tell some of the other guys, "Hey, you remember that show?" and see what happens.

What's the history behind the song "Kettle Whistle?"

Navarro: "Kettle Whistle" has been performed on many different occasions by the band and actually appears on a bunch of different bootlegs that are out there... it was a long time ago, but perhaps "Kettle Whistle" was maybe one of the songs we held onto for maybe a third album, which obviously never got made. It's kind of a droney song, and we were kinda getting more into that direction towards the end there. So it's very possible we just hung onto it for whatever reasons. It wasn't hashed out, and we didn't record it. I have a memory of recording that song on a four-track when I was 19 years old. Somewhere there's a four track recording of it.

What about a full-scale Jane's album with this lineup?

Perkins: We're gonna play it by ear. We love making music together. If the tour goes well and some ideas pop up...like I said, Porno is recording right now. The Chilis just got back from Japan; they might get some inspiration and want to play. To me it's, "Yeah! Let's make some new music" or, "If you guys want to get back to work with Porno or the Chilis, cool, let's do that, too." After a month tour or whatever it's going to be, we'll really be able to tell where we stand.

Navarro: I think that we're all feeling very relaxed about it. We're not interested in banging out a product, so to speak. We're just interested in doing it right and taking our time. There's more to it for me than just going in and cutting a new song. To me, it's getting reacquainted with some old friends on a personal level and on a musical level. It's just an exciting time. I think the concept of just getting a product out on the streets and for sale is the last thing on everybody's mind. We're more excited about the process than the finished product. I don't think there's necessarily anytime frame.

GARY GRAFF