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Daily News (Los Angeles, CA) (April 25, 1997): pL20.
Byline: Fred Shuster Daily News Music Writer

ERIC AVERY ROCKS OUT OF HIBERNATION WITH POLAR BEAR.(L.A. LIFE).

We know what's become of Perry Farrell, Stephen Perkins and Dave Navarro, but what happened to bassist Eric Avery when seminal Los Angeles alternative rockers Jane's Addiction disbanded six years ago?

Avery said he wasn't sure he wanted to return to the music business after the deconstruction of Deconstruction, the project he worked on with Navarro for one album before the dreadlocked guitarist scurried off to join the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

"I'd been writing the whole time, but I was looking for something that would keep things interesting for me," Avery said. "I've been laying low and allowing an organic process to happen. I didn't want to start playing around until I was in a place I was happy with. I feel like I've done four records over the last few years."

Avery apparently has found what he was looking for in Polar Bear, the group he formed with Biff Sanders, drummer and sampler from freakish underground industrial-rockers Ethyl Meatplow. The band, which also includes guitarist Thomas Von Wendt, combines a deep bass groove with loops, samples and other post-hip-hop elements.

Polar Bear appears Wednesday at Dragonfly in Hollywood; a five-cut CD is due next month.

"I didn't want to make music like Nine Inch Nails or Ministry, but I did want to combine my interest in computers, MIDI (multi-keyboards), and old and new sounds," Avery said. "I can really see a progression from Jane's to Deconstruction to now. I feel like I've hit a stride."

Avery was at a loose end when the widely imitated Jane's broke up in late 1991 in a flurry of personal, musical and, in Farrell's case, legal problems. The quartet, which released two albums on Warner Bros., called it quits just months before Nirvana made alternative the mainstream in rock.

"I think the amount of success we achieved when we did exceeded Perry's and my expectations," Avery, 31, said from his Santa Monica home. "I don't look back on it as if I could be filthy rich if we'd stayed together a few more years. In the opposite sense, actually, I'm sort of glad we were over before we got to the point of making music that was bland and terrible. Jane's was so time-specific where the ingredients had to be exactly the way they were - our relationship with each other, the L.A. scene at the time. It seemed to be a conspiracy of a lot of different elements, so I don't know how long it could have been sustained."

Avery met Sanders, his partner in Polar Bear, through ex-Ethyl Meatplow singer Carla Bozulich, who's now leading the countryish Geraldine Fibbers. But both musicians recall a date in the mid-'80s when their respective former bands shared the bill at a downtown Mexican restaurant turned underground rock dive.

"I don't like straight techno music, but at the same time, Biff likes cooler old jazz records," Avery said. "We agree we don't want to use the same store-bought techno sounds that everyone else is using. We want to create our own sounds."

Although Polar Bear is issuing its debut disc on a small local independent label, Avery is optimistic the band eventually will land a major label deal.

"I wanted to approach things kind of organically and not just try and go back to where I was when I stopped, as if to say, `Here I am, MTV. Let's get the ball rolling!' " the bassist said. "I feel like I've revisited a time when I was naive and excited about the music industry, the way I was a dozen years ago. We'll go with a major, but first I wanted to take it slow."

THE FACTS
Who: Polar Bear, with the Lemmings.
Where: Dragonfly, 6510 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.
When: 11 p.m. Wednesday.
Tickets: $7.
Information: (213) 466-6111.