Many thanks to Hamish at RHCP Sessions for the scans

DAVE NAVARRO JOINS THE CHILI PEPPERS

Shortly after our last issue went to press, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers called to inform us that Jesse Tobias, who recently won the fastest-revolving chair in funk-rock after the band auditioned over a thousand players. has joined Jack Sherman, Hillel Slovak, Blackbyrd McKnight, John Frusciante, and Arik Marshall in the ranks of Peppers past. His replacement is former Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. Here’s Flea’s report.

Hey, I want to tell you about our new new guitarist. Yeah, the rumors are true—it’s Dave Navarro. I’m so happy about it! I had been really worried about how things were going with the band, but now I feel so good.

Things weren’t working out as well as they should have with Jesse. There were a lot of places we needed to go musically that just weren’t happening, both in terms of what we’ve done before and what we want to do now. We just weren’t getting multi-dimensional enough.

Dave totally knows where we’re coming from, has the capabilities to do everything we need,. and brings a whole new dimension to the sound. When we were looking for players before, he was working on the Deconstruction record with [former Jane’s Addiction bassist] Eric Avery, and we never really talked. But then we got in touch, and it just sort of happened.

Dave plays like himself only, which is great. It felt like a real band from the first second we started jamming. So we all went out and got Harley Davidsons and started a motorcycle gang called the Sensitives. We have nicknames: Dave Is “Angel”, Anthony is ‘Sweetheart,” Chad is “Tender,” and I’m “Mr. Soft,” We’re the gnarliest fuckin’ gang, but we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.

—FLEA