Dave Navarro Sets the Record Straight on His Lost Years and Rejoining Jane’s Addiction
In September 2022, Jane’s Addiction fans were dealt the rather shocking news that original bassist Eric Avery was returning to the group after a 12-year absence, but guitarist Dave Navarro was taking an indefinite break so he could recover from long Covid. “I really do have to consider everybody on the crew and their families,” Jane’s frontman Perry Farrell explained to Rolling Stone. “They have mouths to feed, and they haven’t had a paycheck in almost two years.”
Over the next year, the void Navarro left in Jane’s was first filled by Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, and then later Josh Klinghoffer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam. During this time, Navarro vanished from public view. His social media accounts largely went dark, and he was replaced as the host of the reality competition show Ink Master. With little information publicly available about his whereabouts, Jane’s fans grew concerned, and long threads formed on fan forums wondering if there was more to the story than Covid.
More from Rolling Stone
Jane's Addiction's Core Four Reunite for 'Imminent Redemption,' First New Song Together in 34 Years
Jane's Addiction Plot North American Tour After Classic Lineup Finally Reunites
Watch Jane's Addiction Debut New Song 'Imminent Redemption' at London Show
But when’s Jane’s Addiction announced a European tour earlier this year, they promoted it with a poster showing the complete original lineup around the time of Nothing’s Shocking in 1988. Nobody knew if that meant Navarro would be returning until he walked onstage at the tiny London club Bush Hall on May 23 along with his three longtime bandmates. It was the start of a triumphant world tour that is heading stateside this week for a run of shows with Love and Rockets.
To learn the truth about Navarro’s absence from Jane’s Addiction, and their future plans, we hopped on Zoom with the man himself. Someone was removing a needle from his arm the second the camera turned on, but this wasn’t a confirmation of the darkest theories fans were baselessly spreading online. It was just a visiting nurse testing his blood levels prior to the tour. “You have a beautiful touch with the needle,” he tells the woman as she packs up her equipment. “Couldn’t have done it better myself.” And with that out of the way, Navarro was ready to speak.
What are you up to?
I’m about to go to rehearsal for the tour. I want to shake the cobwebs off a little bit.
You first did that in London back in May. How did it feel to walk onstage that night and finally play with Jane’s again after all this time?
Well, I was extremely nervous and excited. I was nervous because it had been so many years since I played with the band, but excited because I was playing with the band. As you know, we are now touring with the original lineup, Jane’s Addiction, 1.0. It was the first Jane’s 1.0 show in maybe 30 some odd years that felt like it felt in the late Eighties.
When we reunited in 2009, we did a tour with Nine Inch Nails. We’re big fans, and that was fun and exciting, but I didn’t feel like, “Oh, my God, I’m back in time.” I felt that in this little crammed room. It was a tiny stage with no production, no lights. It was just four guys playing music, and I couldn’t have been happier with it. We were kind of finding our groove again. And there’s something to not being a hundred percent confident about how something’s going to come off, that’s exciting. I also felt good that I was able to get through a show because I’d been very sick.
You’ve played with many bass players since Eric left, and then left again, but there’s surely a different groove to the band when he’s there, right?
A hundred percent. I mean, Chris Chaney is one of my closest friends, and probably the best bass player I know, personally, on a technical proficiency level. He’s certainly the best bass player that Jane’s Addiction had, outside of Eric. Duff McKagan, of course, is an incredible presence. Flea has his own style. He plays with his fingers, not with a pick, so that brought a unique sound to it. Martyn LeNoble from Porno for Pyros was very accomplished as well, and did a very serviceable job.
But the difference with Eric is that he has written the majority of the bass lines that those songs came to fruition out of. So his attack, his size, the way he digs into the string with the pick, and just having been the guy who created what we’re listening to … you can’t replace that. He’s like John Entwistle. You could put another bass player in the Who, and they did, but they won’t have what John had.
When you think of our songs that come to mind for people, like “Stop!,” “Mountain Song,” “Three Days,” or “Ain’t No Right,” songs like that, the bass starts the song … you could strip the drums and the guitars away, and just have the bass and vocals, and it sounds like Jane’s Addiction.
What led to this reunion?
I honestly don’t have any idea. That was between Perry and Eric, because at the time I was suffering from long Covid, so the chances of me getting back out on the road weren’t even in the cards.
They went out and they did a couple of legs, one with Troy Van Leeuwen from Queens of the Stone Age, one with Josh Klinghoffer from the Chili Peppers, which is interesting because I was in the Chili Peppers for a little while, and Josh was in Jane’s Addiction for a little while, so that’s kind of a cool thing.
I love both those guys. So they did great jobs, and I stayed at home and recovered. But it was at that time that they were reforming with Eric, and I just really wasn’t around for it. So when talk of writing new music, and doing some new touring, doing a Europe tour, and a states tour came up, they came back to me, and they were like, “We want the original lineup. Are you able to do this?” And I just said, “I’m willing to try and do whatever it takes, to be available for these things. I’ll follow any diet. I’ll see any doctor. I will do whatever exercises I need to do.”
And it’s still problematic. The jury’s still out on what’s the right treatment for long Covid. How do you get rid of it, if you can get rid of it? But I’m in a stronger place, where I can at least get through a 90-minute show, and I can definitely sit in a studio chair for eight hours, because that’s not very exhausting.
So I said, “You know what, I’m going to give it a shot. If I run into trouble, we may need a backup plan, or another guitar player. If we need to cancel dates, maybe that’s what happens.” But that hasn’t happened.
Let’s go back a little bit. When did you get sick?
2021.
When did you realize this was different than a normal case of Covid?
A couple of months later.
What were your symptoms?
Just overall fatigue. Really just not feeling like I had recovered, which led to being home quite a bit, which led to isolation, which led to depression, all those kinds of things. And it was just a pretty miserable experience for several years. And going to different doctors, trying different methods, holistic methods, Western methods. Some doctors claim that they’re specialists. Others claim that there is no way to test for long Covid, and then there was still a lot of skepticism about it being a real thing, at the time.
So I just had to stick it out, man, and I’m in a lot better place right now, with it all. It still rears its head once in a while, but what am I going to do? In fact, last tour, in Europe, I caught a flu or something, and I went and played some shows anyway. So if I can do that …
Did you have mixed feelings about the band going on the road without you?
I definitely had mixed feelings. Part of me was disappointed to not participate, of course, because this is the band I was in since I was a teenager. But I have to say that was overshadowed by the relief I had that I didn’t have to prevent these guys from working.
I would much rather be able to have my brothers do what they need to do, and be who they need to be, and do what they were put on this planet to do, instead of waiting for me. So the fact that they found people to step in for me was a big relief, because I think that if they didn’t go out, I would feel much more guilt than disappointment.
Did you watch any clips online of the shows they played with Troy and Josh?
I did not.
Why not?
I had plenty to focus on. While they were doing that, I was pretty much housebound. I took the time to focus on my art. And I participated in a couple of art shows, and I kept myself busy that way. But no, I never really got a chance to see any of that stuff, and frankly, I don’t really want to, because whether it happens subconsciously or consciously, I don’t want my approach to be altered by something I hear.
That’s because Josh is an incredible player. If Josh played something that I like, and I’m like, “Fuck, I should do it like that,” I don’t want to do that. I want to stay true to what the original lineup was. So in a way, I think it’s good that I didn’t hear those shows, but I heard they went well.
At the peak of your illness, did you worry that maybe you’d never make it back onto a concert stage?
Of course. It was, “Maybe, I’ll never get to do this again. Maybe this is my life for the rest of my life.” You can’t help but lay awake at night and think up scary thoughts. And you just kind of have to pull yourself down to earth.
That involved a lot of meditation, a lot of staying in the present, a lot of journaling, a lot of internal work, just to say, “I don’t know the answer to the future, and I’m not going to sit here and try and predict it … If anything, I should put into the universe, positivity, and try and pull some kind of manifestation effect, wherein I am able to do it again.” That’s just such a hard thing to force the brain to do when it’s looping on negativity.
I went on the Jane’s Addiction fan forum and read all sorts of rumors and speculation about why you were gone. Did you see any of that stuff?
No, no. I imagine that one of the theories was that I was on drugs.
There was definitely a certain subset of fans convinced that was the case.
I’m not surprised. I mean, my past is no secret. But if you think about it, the funny thing about that is that I played for 25 years in Jane’s Addiction, high as fuck. Drugs would not keep me from the stage. I might even have more experience playing loaded than sober with the band. So, in fact, I wish it was that problem, because there’s a solution to that problem. And I can also still perform high, or I have, for most of the band’s career, so no. But what were the other theories?
Some people felt that your grief over Taylor Hawkins’ death was so intense that you were emotionally unable to perform.
There is some truth to that. It’s not why I didn’t do the tour, but once we lost Taylor, I didn’t pick up a guitar for a very long time. It was a very long time because that was one of the more painful losses in my life, for sure. But at the same time, Taylor was the biggest Jane’s Addiction fan you could imagine. And even if there was grief, because I was feeling grief, I would go out and do it for him. I would be motivated to go out there.
So I don’t know if I’m dispelling any rumors, but the truth is the truth, and it’s affected every area of my life. All you have to do is call my parents. It’s pretty simple. I could give you a list of 10 doctors that I’ve seen.
You don’t need to convince me. This was all coming from fan forums.
Hey, I would be skeptical too. If back in the day, if Keith Moon got sick and had to cancel a tour with the Who, I’d be like, “Yeah, he’s sick for sure. He’s fuckin’ drunk in a hotel room somewhere” — not that I’m comparing myself to Keith Moon. I can see the connection of somebody who has a very public history with chemical abuse and them being, all of a sudden, not being active.
They didn’t see you on social media or Ink Master either.
Yeah, one of the things that was really important for me, during that time, was just to stay away from social media. I had to focus on my life. I had to focus on getting better, and flipping through pages of people living their lives, out in the world, really is not the greatest thing for you psychologically when you’re going through something like that.
When did you start feeling that maybe you could pick up a guitar again and rejoin the world?
Rejoining the world … that’s a tough one. The band, I can do. Rejoining the world, I’m still kind of working on that. And I started picking up the guitar because I got really inspired by other guitar players that I was listening to at the time. So I just started doing deep dives on their playing, their technique, their equipment, the gear that they used, and believe it or not, started learning and playing a lot of Steely Dan. I’ve always loved them, but it’s so far away from what I do, and so it felt fresh and interesting. It was a challenge.
If you can play Larry Carlton, you can play anybody.
Yeah. Jay Graydon too. Some of the chordal structures they use in their songwriting … they’re so counterintuitive to what I do that it didn’t feel like I was doing the same thing, and then I started just kind of falling in love with the guitar again.
And then you reached a point where you felt maybe you were ready to get into a room with the band again?
There was a day, where they had a studio day, and they said, “Hey, we got studio today. If you want to come up, and try and lay a track down, we’d love to have you.” I was like, “Fuck it. What do I got to lose? Let’s do it.” And that track ended up being “Imminent Redemption,” which is the first song that we put out.
Tell me about that one.
When I got there, Avery’s bass line and the lyrical content was just all laid out there for me. And I wanted to put a Jane’s-y feel to it. That’s because sometimes, I’ll go to jazz chords and do Bo Diddley, right-handed stuff, but I also love to swim in echo and delay. On the earlier Jane’s records, especially Nothing Shocking, and Ritual [de lo Habitual], there’s guitar solos all over the place. And so I was like, “OK, that should be the approach,” and I wanted the verses to sound kind of out of tune and just warbly. So I doubled those with the tremolo bar to make them just kind of uncomfortable.
Where did things go after you worked on that one song?
Once we did that, we just continued working on more music, and the tour was coming up, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to go. And then, finally, I talked to my doctor, and he’s like, “Hey, man, there’s no medical reason why you can’t go right now. If you have trouble out there, then that’s another issue,” but it turned out to be cool. And I was lucky enough to have my girl join me, and everybody in the band was very supportive. And I’ll say that some of those U.K. club dates are among my favorite Jane’s Addiction shows that I’ve ever played.
The last reunion with Avery was pretty short. What are doing to make sure history won’t repeat itself yet again?
I’m not sure there’s a plan, specifically, in place. I think one of the things that’s helpful is that the first time Eric came back, we just went out on this huge, massive tour, with no new material, and just kind of like, “It’s the original band playing the whatever big arena with Nine Inch Nails.” I mean, it was great. It was fucking great to see Nine Inch Nails every night, but it was showbiz.
And that’s great. That’s cool. I’m lucky we got to do that tour. But this one, we’re playing smaller rooms. We have new material. We’re way stripped back on production and just more interested in moods and textures and drones, and having things be sonically experimental rather than, “Here comes the dog-barking song [‘Been Caught Stealing’].” We seem to have found a depth within ourselves that we weren’t maybe able to reach in our younger years.
I saw photos of you in European art museums with Avery. It’s pretty clear that you mended the friendship.
Oh, yeah. Our friendship was mended years ago. He had some opinions to share about me, and I had some opinions to share about him, and if you really think about it, that’s no different than something two brothers would go through. But we’ve talked plenty of times in between and reconnected that way.
It’s funny that you bring up the museums because in the late ’80s, early ’90s, when we would tour, we didn’t have a cellphone, we didn’t have a computer, we didn’t have the internet. We didn’t know anything. But all we knew is that, “There’s a museum here, let’s go see this show or that show.” We got to see some really great stuff. And there was a moment where I was like, “I can’t believe that I’m back in Europe, in a museum with Eric Avery,” and we just started laughing because it was like, that’s what we used to do.
The dream of so many fans is a new album with the 1.0 lineup. There hasn’t been one of those in 34 years.
That’s more than likely going to happen. I mean, we have recorded material. I don’t know specifically the model, if it’s going to be a song at a time, or if we’re going to drop a song and then a record, or I don’t really know. I kind of stay out of that stuff. What matters to me most is that this stuff is on vinyl.
I don’t know anything about streaming or anything like that. But I’m 57 years old. I’ve been in this band since I was 17 or 18, and it’s the same band, and we have some of the same hurdles, and we have other obstacles that are no longer there. There’s always hurdles in collaborative creative efforts, but overcoming those hurdles is where the solution happens, and the solution, should it reveal itself, can be pretty exciting.
The songwriting process has really changed thanks to technology. Everything was on reel-to-reel before, and so all four of us would have to be in the recording studio to get something down. There’s something really magical and special about that, because all the tapes are live, and everybody’s playing together and tempos fluctuate, but it’s human, and it feels good. But the state of technology now allows us to individually, to work on ideas away from the room, and then when we come into the room, have a way more concrete concept of where we want to go rather than fishing.
Aerosmith announced just last week that they were hanging it up. There’s also no more Rush, Van Halen, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. All of these giants are falling. Does this make you feel any sense of obligation to keep your band going?
I wouldn’t say I feel an obligation. I feel a desire. But you mention Rush. What’s funny is that Rush were my earliest childhood influences. The same goes for Stephen Perkins. But oddly enough, Perry and Eric hated Rush. They just hated them. But if you listen to songs like “Three Days,” “Then She Did,” or “Trip Away,” and I could go on, you can hear the Rush influences that Stephen and I snuck in there that they didn’t know about. Let’s just put this this way: They were all about Joy Division back then. They weren’t about “Limelight.”
What do you think about Chris Chaney joining AC/DC?
I think that is just the most awesome thing I could ever think of. I’m really happy for him. It’s no wonder they chose him because he’s so fuckin’ good, but it’s like comical in a sense that he’ll probably be up in his bedroom, in a hotel, on days off, playing Jaco Pastorius lines because he could do all that shit. Stanley Clarke, all those cats … Then he goes onstage and hits E-A-D over and over and over, all night. But it’s great. I’m so happy for him.
You and Chris recorded a lot of music with Taylor Hawkins shortly before he died. Is that stuff going to come out at some point?
I sure hope so, man. We have a completed mastered album, but this might be a little soon. I don’t really know where that stands, but I’ll tell you that I really believe that it deserves to come out, because that record to me, really showcased what a brilliant all-around musician Taylor was, because he wrote most of the songs, played the drums, and sang them.
His overall musicianship, I think, really deserves to be known and highlighted. And he had other projects, Chevy Metal. He had Coattail Riders, and Birds of Satan. But they were somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It’s like he almost kind of wanted to take the piss out of himself before anybody else could. But on the NHC material, I wouldn’t let him do that. I was like, “No, dude. We’re not making this funny. We’re making this real,” and so I really hope it sees the light of day. But yeah, that was one of the most happy experiences of my life making that record with him, and just obviously, I haven’t been able to listen to it since.
Will you be returning to Ink Master?
No. I think my time there is done. I mean, that was fun to do for many, many years, but I also think that it kind of just overshadowed that I was a musician. My number one love is music, and art, and playing. And that was a bigger platform than the band had. And so I’ll get stopped in the airport, “Hey, you’re the Ink Master guy,” and like, “Yeah … Yeah, I’m the guy who stood there and read cards, that told me what to say.”
I don’t know if TV is in the cards for me again, although I did have fun and made some really great friends. I’m still friends with the whole cast of all of that, and certainly had great times. But at this stage in my life, I’d like to really focus on my visual art and my musical art, and I find that to be more satisfying.
Do you think Jane’s will introduce more new songs onstage this tour?
There will be another one that’s on the stage, and I don’t know if I’m giving anything away, but nobody in management has called me and said, “Don’t do this or that,” but “Imminent Redemption” will be available on vinyl. And it will be backed with another song. So that’s exciting to me because I’m a vinyl freak.
To wrap up here, how much better do you feel physically at this point?
I feel pretty good. It’s hard to say a hundred percent, but I don’t think I could put a number on it. Really, the reality is it’s a day-to-day thing. Some days, I wake up and I’m like, “Let’s go.” Other days I wake up, and I’m like, “Fuck this, I’m going back to bed.”
The fact that on days off in Europe, I was able to get out to museums and cathedrals and see some pretty incredible architecture, it’s a good sign, because it means that I just put it out on the stage the night before, and then I woke up, and I walked around the city for a couple of hours. So that’s something I couldn’t have done a year ago.
What were they testing your blood for when we got on the Zoom?
I was doing a blood test, just to kind of check my levels before I go on tour. Just to see if there’s any supplements that I might want to bring, or medications or whatnot. But you know, my blood work’s been great now for a while, but I just stay on top of it.
If I can say anything, this experience has forced me to be the healthiest I’ve ever been in my life in terms of what I eat. I quit smoking. I work out every day. I’ve changed everything around me to try to heal. I’ve never lived this clean and healthy of a lifestyle. Before, there was always something. Even if I quit drugs, I still smoked, or I ate a pint of ice cream before going to bed, whatever the fuck it is. I don’t live like that anymore.
This has been a great wake-up call. I’ve learned a lot about nutrition and about the supplement industry. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry, and the majority of it is a scam. You should be getting your nutrients from food, not from capsules. Your stomach dissolves 80% of the capsule that you’re taking. The amount that actually gets in your bloodstream … you may as well not even take it. So I just learned a lot about that. I don’t want to cause some controversy about that, but I’ve just been down all the roads.
I’ll let you go, but I’m glad the things I was reading online from some of the more fevered fans aren’t true.
Was there ever anything like QAnon, like really crazy?
Not really. They just thought you were on drugs or maybe were secretly fired by the others. But it was mainly just drugs.
I wish they had gotten a little more creative. “The truth is that he’s Q, and he’s pulling all the strings.” That would have been funny.
Best of Rolling Stone