Dave Navarro Talks

[Bong-Man]

http://www.freep.com/article/20090528/ENT0...e+Navarro+talks

FIVE QUESTIONS

Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro talks

May 28, 2009

When bassist Eric Avery joined his Jane's Addiction bandmates in a four-song trip down memory lane at last year's NME Awards, it marked the first live performance of the band's original lineup in 17 years. Now the group -- which also includes singer Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins -- is on the road for a full-scale tour. They're coheadlining with Nine Inch Nails, another major player in the early-'90s underground explosion that Farrell dubbed the Alternative Nation. In fact, the first time these two bands went out together, it was 1991 on a traveling festival, Lollapalooza, that Farrell had launched to take that nation to the masses. We caught up with Jane's guitarist Dave Navarro, who talked about the NIN/JA Tour, how it feels to have Avery back in the band and the new Jane's boxed set.

Question: What's appealing to you about touring with Nine Inch Nails?

Answer: That's a multifaceted answer. Not only have we been friends with Trent (Reznor) for many years, we toured together on the first Lollapalooza in '91, and they've been a favorite band of mine ever since.

Q: Has there been any talk of what you might do when the tour is done? Any talk of recording?

A: The past couple of months, we've just been really focused on rehearsal and the live show, getting our catalog sounding good and ramping up to this thing. So there really isn't a whole lot of time to talk about outlying plans. We do 5 1/2 weeks with Nails and then we take some time off, and I know we have some European dates booked. The original lineup hasn't been to Europe since the early '90s, so that's gonna be a lot of fun. We haven't been anywhere since the early '90s, to be honest with you. So I can tell you that we're all really excited and really pumped up for the whole thing.

Q: How did you go about deciding which songs you'll be doing?

A: Well, we focused on the stuff we did with Eric, since it's the original lineup. So obviously, (2003 album) "Strays" isn't an option. Having said that, we really have three full-length albums to choose from, so we pretty much learned everything we ever did and have it at the ready. We're a band that likes to switch things up from night to night. You never really know what's gonna poke its head out and where that's gonna happen because we don't know. But the good news is that we have all the songs in good form and ready to go if we ever need them.

Q: How does it feel to be playing with Eric again?

A: Musically, it really feels like no time has gone by. It feels natural, and he really proves himself as being part of a machine that's been missing for a lot of years. Even the positioning onstage is down to the exact way it was back in 1991. So it's really nostalgic, but it's also really inspiring.

Q: Are you happy with the way that recent boxed set, "A Cabinet of Curiosities," came out?

A: I am. It's truly a collectible. It's for the diehard fan who has everything but just wants every little bit of history that's been recorded. My thing with boxed sets is that I don't recommend that they get loaded into your iTunes because when you go into random, little tidbits are gonna keep popping up in your random player. If you're into that, that's cool. But I put the Doors boxed set into my iTunes, and the Doors come up way too much. If you put in, like, 70 songs, it's gonna come up a lot, you know? So buyer beware.

By Ed Masley, Arizona Republic