Dave Navarro looks back on “backlash” to replacing John Frusciante in Red Hot Chili Peppers and the “disconnect” he felt from the band

Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro has looked back on his time with the band and the backlash that followed when he replaced John Frusciante.

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Frusciante departed the band in 1992 and Navarro, who had left Jane’s Addiction when they broke up the year before, stepped in. He only recorded one album with the band, ‘One Hot Minute’, and it failed to be as successful as their previous studio album, 1991’s ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’.

In April 1998, the band announced Navarro’s departure, and Frusciante rejoined the same month. He left again in 2009, before rejoining a decade later. With Frusciante back in the band, they had a run of successful albums including ‘Californication’, ‘By The Way’ and ‘Stadium Arcadium’, and Navarro has admitted in a recent interview with Guitar World that he felt out of place in the band.

“Whatever magic John brought to the Chili Peppers, I didn’t have that style of magic,” he said, describing himself as a “goth kid in a funk band”.

He explained: “If you had to narrow down what the disconnect was, I’d say that would be it … It became clear pretty fast that as much as we tried and as much as we wanted it to work, we weren’t coming from the same musical place.

“The best way I can describe it is that I was in a cover band with the actual band. And that’s a very strange place to be – especially with the clashing of styles.”

Navarro addressed the reaction he received from “diehard fans”, explaining, “There was a lot of backlash from the fanbase because I was filling John’s role.”

He continued, “I always found it odd that any of that was directed at me. I was like, ‘Well, if you don’t like me being here, you can blame them. I didn’t force myself into this, they asked me. All I did was say yes.’”

He said the lukewarm reception ‘One Hot Minute’ received impacted everyone in the band, but that he was “feeling the brunt” of the question marks over the album’s direction. But despite that, he described it as the “most successful record” he’d ever played on, so it felt like a win for him personally but a failure for the rest of the band.

Navarro and Frusciante, meanwhile, teamed up together in 2020 to play Jane’s Addiction’s ‘Mountain Song’ at a memorial show to honour Andrew Burkle. The following year, Navarro joined Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis to cover Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ as part of Navarro’s Above Ground charity concert to raise awareness and funds for mental health for people in the music industry under the MusiCares programme. It marked the first time the pair had performed together since Navarro left the band.

As for Jane’s Addiction, however, Navarro said earlier this year that there’s “no chance” they’ll ever play together again. Last year, the band’s classic line-up of Navarro, Perry Farrell, Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins performed together for the first time since 2010, and they released their first new music together in 34 years, but the comeback ended abruptly after frontman Farrell punched Navarro onstage in a show in Boston.

At the time, they announced an immediate hiatus, cancelling the rest of the tour, and Navarro told Guitar Player earlier this year, “There was an altercation onstage, and all the hard work and dedication and writing and hours in the studio, and picking up and leaving home and crisscrossing the country and Europe and trying to overcome my illness — it all came to a screeching halt and forever destroyed the band’s life.

“And there’s no chance for the band to ever play together again. I have to say that’s my least favourite gig, without throwing animosity around, and without naming names and pointing fingers, and coming up with reasons.”

In July, Navarro, Avery and Perkins filed a lawsuit against Farrell over the fallout from the tour, and in September, Farrell responded with a legal filing of his own, denying “each and every allegation”.

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