Everything about Dave Navarro totally explained
David Michael Navarro (born
June 7,
1967) is a
guitarist who has played in the
alternative rock groups
Jane's Addiction and the
Red Hot Chili Peppers. Navarro is a member of
The Panic Channel and the cover band
Camp Freddy.
Personal life
Early life
Navarro was born in
Santa Monica, California, to James Raul Navarro and Constance Colleen Hopkins. Navarro's paternal grandfather was from Spain. He fled persecution during the Spanish uprisings in the 1940s. His mother Constance worked as a model, appearing on the television show
Let's Make a Deal. Navarro was the only person in his paternal family not to speak
Spanish, as James and Constance divorced when he was 7 and he spent the majority of his time with his mother.
Connie Navarro was murdered by her boyfriend eight years after the divorce. Her killer was arrested in 1991, thanks to a viewer tip after Navarro appeared on the television series,
America's Most Wanted. After his mother's death he moved in with his father.
Navarro has two half-siblings on his father's side - a brother and a sister, who are 27 and 31 years younger than him. He attended
John Thomas Dye School in
Bel Air, California and
Notre Dame High School in
Sherman Oaks, where he first met
Eric Avery. He attended junior high at St. Paul the Apostle Elementary School in West Los Angeles (where Sean Astin also attended).
Relationships
Navarro has been married and divorced three times. He married his first wife, make-up artist Tania Goddard, in a
pagan ceremony in 1990 and his second wife, Rhian Gittins, in a civil ceremony on
October 15,
1994. Navarro married model and actress
Carmen Electra, on
November 22,
2003. On
July 17,
2006, Navarro and Electra announced their split to
Star Magazine. Navarro posted a message on his blog the following morning saying "I just want to say thanks for all of your love and support. I'm sure that you can understand that I wish to keep all personal matters private." Electra filed for divorce on
August 8,
2006.
Professional career
Early career
On his
Instructional Guitar DVD Navarro tells how he started playing
guitar at the age 7 after hearing a Jimi Hendrix song at a skate park. He formed his first band South Dakota Railroad in junior high. In high school, he formed the band Dizaztre with
Stephen Perkins on drums and
Rico Quevedo on bass and vocals.
Navarro had also played a part in the modeling of the main character in the
Prince of Persia series. He is credited in the manual as being an inspiration for the character design, as well as the motion capture animations for the Prince.
1986-1993
Navarro joined the band
Jane's Addiction in 1986 as the lead guitarist after he was recommended to vocalist
Perry Farrell by drummer Perkins. The band also featured Navarro's childhood friend Eric Avery on bass. The band became successful and was legendary in the alternative-rock music scene. Personal tensions, however, led to their breakup in 1991. The
Lollapalooza festival tour was created by Farrell as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction.
In 1993, Navarro formed
Deconstruction with Avery on vocals and bass and
Michael Murphy on drums, and the band put out one self-titled album in
1994. Rick Rubin was involved in the production and Gibby Haynes makes a guest appearance.They didn't tour due to Avery's exhaustion after Jane's Addiction.
1993-1998
Navarro was asked to join
the Red Hot Chili Peppers in
1993 after the departure of
John Frusciante. Navarro made his live debut with the band at the
Woodstock '94 festival, where he and the rest of the band wore giant fake lightbulbs on their heads and one-piece silver suits for part of the set. Navarro's only album with the Chili Peppers,
One Hot Minute, was released in
1995 and received mixed reviews, though strong sales.
After the band completed the promotional tour in support of the album, Navarro stated that he wanted to focus on his upcoming solo project, Spread (which included the Chili Peppers' drummer
Chad Smith), and wasn't interested in recording and touring. A planned EP by Spread, to be titled
Rhimorse, and an album
Unicorns & Rainbows: The Pelican, were rejected by
Warner Bros. and after several attempts to find a record label, were left unreleased.
In
1997, Navarro reunited with Jane's Addiction for the
Jane's Relapse tour, bringing along fellow Chili Pepper
Flea, who replaced Avery after he refused to participate. Dave and Flea also appeared together as guests on
Alanis Morissette's 1995 album
Jagged Little Pill.
Navarro's tenure in the Red Hot Chili Peppers was marked by tension within the band. Some of the several sources for this tension included Navarro's vastly different outlook on life and Navarro's more traditional way of writing songs, as opposed to the Chili Peppers more jam oriented style. These and other factors eventually led to his departure due to "creative differences". One of the main reasons for his departure was an incident where Navarro arrived at a band rehearsal clearly under the influence of drugs and eventually fell backwards over his own amp.
1998-2002
In
1998,
Marilyn Manson asked Navarro to play a guitar solo for Manson's song "
I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)", which appears on the record
Mechanical Animals, to which Navarro agreed. In addition to Manson, he also worked with Manson Mentor Trent Reznor on the
Nine Inch Nails album
Further Down The Spiral on the song 'Piggy(Nothing Can Stop Me Now'. Navarro played bass and guitar in 1999 for the band
Nancy Raygun. In
1999 Navarro played guitar for
Guns N' Roses in the song "
Oh My God" which appeared in the Soundtrack for
End of Days. Navarro also contributed work on the second album Hotel Paper from
Michelle Branch, and played guitar in her first single "Are You Happy Now?". He plays guitar on
Fighter, sung by
Christina Aguilera on the album
Stripped, which was released in 2002. Dave Navarro also made a musical guest appearance on the popular WB series
Charmed in the episode titled "Size Matters".
On
June 19,
2001, Navarro released his first and only solo album (as of 2007), entitled
Trust No One. Much of the material was taken from the aborted Spread album. The album features Navarro on vocals as well as guitar. Navarro's numerous personal problems, such as his mother's murder and his heroin addiction, make up the bulk of the album's lyrics, and contribute greatly to the dark tone of the album.
2002-2007
In 2002, Jane's Addiction again reunited and recorded a studio album, with Chris Chaney now playing bass. Following the release of
Strays in 2003, Jane's Addiction went on a massive worldwide tour, which included an American tour as part of
Lollapalooza 2003, which was only moderately successful. After the tour was completed, Navarro, Chaney, and Perkins posted a message on Navarro's site announcing that Jane's Addiction had broken up yet again, saying that "Sometimes the best creative relationships are the most combustible and they aren't meant to last forever".
In 2004, Navarro contributed his guitar ability on
Dead Celebrity Status' debut album,
Blood Music. He played guitar on their lead single, "We Fall, We Fall." Also in 2004, Navarro contributed his guitar work to
Glenn Hughes's album
Soul Mover. He also performed additional guitar for "There For You" on
Flyleaf's self-titled album in
2005.
In 2005, Navarro began serving as co-host of the
reality TV show, alongside
Brooke Burke. During the competition to determine a new lead vocalist for
INXS, the exposure and success of the show made Navarro's name much better known among mainstream music fans. Navarro returned to work on a new season of
Rock Star called, which premiered in North America on
July 5,
2006 and ended on
September 13,
2006. They are forming the band
Supernova which features
Gilby Clarke (ex-
Guns N' Roses) on guitar,
Jason Newsted (ex-
Metallica) on bass and
Tommy Lee from
Mötley Crüe on drums with the lead singer,
Lukas Rossi, having been selected at the end of the show's run. On the final episode, he committed to working with Runner-up
Dilana Robichaux on her upcoming album.
In 2006, he focused his energies on his new band,
The Panic Channel, which is made up of himself,
Stephen Perkins and
Chris Chaney of
Jane's Addiction, and lead singer
Steve Isaacs. He also has started an Internet radio station called
Spread Radio Live
, where he hosts non-FCC regulated radio via the internet along with other hosts such as Electra,
Messy Stench, Lisa & Johnny from
Killola, and the
SuicideGirls'
Bee Jellyfish.
On
May 17,
2007, the hourlong, weekly "Spread Entertainment" debuted on Navarro's website. Navarro said he was attracted to doing a show on the Internet because of the lack of censorship. Navarro said that "I want to use the Internet to support artists and see things that are out there that other corporate structures aren't allowing us to see. It seems with satellite TV, the Internet, magazines -- there's almost so many options, and we're only seeing the same five things."
Non-musical work
In addition to his musical work, Navarro has briefly appeared in two movies,
Floundering (1994) and
Uptown Girls (2003). Navarro also wrote a movie review column entitled "Movies & Crap" for
Bikini magazine with his cousin Johnny (although they referred to themselves as brothers in the column). He has written for
Details,
Nylon,
Ray Gun, and
Us Weekly magazines and co-written a photo book entitled
Don't Try This at Home. And he also has made several appearances on the television series
Celebrity Poker Showdown, playing no-limit
Texas Hold 'Em in support of the
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
Navarro appeared on
Punk'd with his third wife,
Carmen Electra, after they were both punk'd by
Ashton Kutcher during a hit-and-run chase. In 2002, he and Electra starred in, a reality series documenting their courtship. They returned to MTV in 2004 for another reality series,, which focused on the events leading up to the couple's wedding.
In 2005 Navarro was the host of the reality TV show "
Rock Star" which featured the band
INXS and 15 singer/songwriters trying to win a place on the band. In 2006 the show featured
Rock Star Supernova.
Navarro is currently working on a drama program involving the police with his biographer,
Neil Strauss and recently appeared as one of the judges of
Miss Universe 2007 held on
28 May 2007 at the National Auditorium in
Mexico City,
Mexico.
Navarro has just completed his directorial debut, a
pornographic film entitled "Broken" starring
Sasha Grey. "Broken" was released in September 2007 by
Tera Patrick's production company, Teravision.
Navarro is featured in
Liam Kyle Sullivan's "Kelly" Let Me Borrow That Top video, as a tattoo artist.
He has guest starred on an episode of
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job as himself, where his name is heavily misspelled, even after corrections.
Dave Navarro is mentioned in the "
Blue Harvest" episode of
Family Guy where Obiwan uses his Jedi Mind Trick to tell the Stormtrooper Bouncer that he's a friend of Dave Navarro so they can get into the Cantina.
Navarro is a spokesperson for New Balance athletic shoes.
Dave is currently one of the hosts on "Camp Freddy Radio" which can be heard on L.A. and O.C.'s Indy Radio 103.1 FM on Saturdays from 6PM - 8PM.
Navarro had a cameo in the 2008 documentary, "
Super High Me".
Navarro was a guest on Fox TV's "
Mad TV" on May 17, 2008
Equipment of choice
During the first few years of Jane's Addiction, Dave played a black
Gibson Les Paul. Around the time of the band's major label debut
Nothing's Shocking in 1988, he played
Ibanez RG series guitars, including one custom painted with the album cover art. He is seen in the film "Gift" and the "Stop" video playing a blue Ibanez RG, which suggests it was used in the recording of the album
Ritual de lo Habitual. During the 1990 Ritual tour, he primarily played a custom-shaped single cutaway gold Ibanez.
Dave began using
PRS Guitars on the
Lollapalooza tour in 1991. His signature model white PRS is now his number one stage guitar. He has several models in his regular stage and studio rig.
He used a
Parker Fly Deluxe for the Chili Peppers days during the live versions of "My Friends". He used it for its super clean tones that would sound almost identical to an acoustic. Dave also openly admits that "It's one of the ugliest guitars I've ever seen", as quoted from the Dave Navarro instructional DVD.
During this era, Dave went with a more treble based guitar in the
Fender Stratocaster. He had several in his possession. All of them were a 3 single coil pattern but he also had a Modulus Stratocaster made.
Dave has also been seen playing
Gibson Les Pauls,
Kramer (
Van Halen Signature) Guitars,
Fender Telecasters,
Takamine Acoustic 12 strings, and even a
Squier Hello Kitty Stratocaster given to him by Carmen.
Dave previously used a vintage
Marshall JCM800, but now plays through 2
Marshall JCM900 amplifiers which are dubbed Tanjerine and Peach. For large gigs he'll also use a Marshall Mode 4 for clean tones. In the studio he's also commonly known to use a Vox AC30 for cleans and a Bogner Uberschall for dirty tones.
With effects, Dave prefers
BOSS. He uses a BOSS Octave Pedal, 2 BOSS DD3 Digital Delays, a BOSS Turbo distortion for extra volume during soloing, A Dunlop Cry baby Wah Pedal, Marshall Footswitch, and several others.
Discography
With Jane's Addiction
With Red Hot Chili Peppers
1995 One Hot Minute
Solo
1995 Rhimorse (Unreleased)
2001 Trust No One
With The Panic Channel
2006 (ONe)
Footnotes
Further Information
Get more info on 'Dave Navarro'.
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