Music Radar interview w/ Dave

[hydro]

INTERVIEW: Jane's Addiction's Dave Navarro on new album, Duff, Dave Sitek

"Duff and I are still cool"
Joe Bosso, Fri 21 Jan 2011, 1:15 am UTC


During the past year, Jane's Addiction have seen founding bassist Eric Avery, always something of an erratic presence, turn in his walking papers yet again. Within months of Avery's split, ex-Guns N' Roses and current Velvet Revolver bassist Duff McKagan joined the fold. And for a time, all seemed hunky-dory.

Six months later, however, Duff up and walked, leaving behind many unanswered questions, the biggest of which being, quite simply, When the band finally tours behind their upcoming album (tentatively titled The Great Escape Artist), who will be playing bass?

"That's really hard to say," says guitarist Dave Navarro. "Up, down, over and around - that's pretty much how life is anyway. Why should a band be any different? And you know what? Up and down and over and around is fine when it's about something that's as much a gift as being a part of this band has been for so long."

Since late last year, the core Jane's trio - Navarro, singer Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins - have hunkered down in the studio with producer Rich Costey (Muse, Interpol) and TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek, who is playing bass and writing with the band but is not, as Navarro stresses during our interview, joining the group on any kind of full-time basis. "We've got some really great people working with us," he says, "and the vibe remains very positive."

Before heading to a recording session on a recent afternoon, Dave Navarro spoke to MusicRadar about the current (and future) state of Jane's Addiction and his thoughts on Duff McKagan's brief tenure in the group. In addition, he offered some sage advice to young musicians looking to walk in his footsteps.

Even though things are "up, down, over and around," I imagine you wouldn't mind a bit more stability in the band.

[laughs] "Well, my sense of stability has always been intact. I think we've dealt with some unstable relationships in the past, but Perry, Perkins and I are pretty locked into doing this. In fact, I would probably go so far as to say that the three of us have never been this stable in terms of our personal relationships. And we've been doing this for so long that with darkness comes the light. So to focus on things that don't go the way you intended, well, usually there are opportunities for things to go in ways that you didn't expect."

I totally understand. But the bumps in the road that you have encountered, are those the things that have brought the three of you closer?

"Ultimately, I think it's a combination of a lot of things: some of the victories we've shared; some of the bumps in the road, for sure; the fact that we've known one another for so long and have worked with each other within different contexts and lineup over three decades. You just kind of take a breath and go, 'OK, these are volatile relationships.' To expect that they won't be volatile at times would, I think, be completely unrealistic."

Frankly, I was a little surprised when Duff joined the band. Not that he was a bad fit; I just didn't see him as the logical choice. How did he hook up with you guys in the first place?

"I'm not entirely certain as to the exact timeline of how that happened. Ultimately, for me to answer that question would be to try to relay a conversation that he had with Perry. The fact of the matter is, on a lot of levels, we were looking at a lot of the elements that were right. We've been longtime friends, we've played together in a lot of the same scenarios, we're from the same time, the same city, the same scene to a degree… Those elements were, in fact, in alignment. To be honest, we as a band are happy to cast our net in different directions. So we didn't know what to expect, either."

read the rest here

[TrevorAyer]

good interview .. i wonder why so much press lately when record is not finished .. usually get press during record push .. hmmmm ..

descriptions make me think they are doing very kettle whistle like songs ... or possibly some jimmy page textures instead of say metallica like textures .. sounds promising