Dave Navarro couldn’t play guitar for a year after Taylor Hawkins died.
The 57-year-old musician had finished recording an album with the Foo Fighters drummer and bassist Chris Chaney under the banner NHC shortly before his friend passed away in March 2022 aged 50 and he admitted he found it too “painful” to pick up his instrument again in the aftermath of his pal’s shock death.
He told Guitar World magazine: “I’d just completed making a record with Taylor Hawkins and Chris Chaney.
“We mixed and mastered it, and then we lost Taylor. That was in the middle of COVID, and it was actually very painful for me to pick up the guitar after that.
“I didn’t pick up the guitar for about a year. He was such an inspiring artist — not only was he a phenomenal drummer, he was an amazing songwriter and lyricist… just one of those humans that everybody loved.
“After losing Taylor I didn’t play for a long time. Then, about a year into it, I picked up the guitar, started playing some cover songs, and just kind of got used to the instrument in my hand again,” he said.
Dave – who rejoined Jane’s Addiction earlier this year and returned to the stage with them in London in May – eventually rediscovered his love of playing guitar by studying some of his favourite musicians while battling long COVID.
He said: “Since I had the illness, I was housebound for a long time, and that’s when I really started getting into some out-there guitar players I normally didn’t study, like [session great] Jay Graydon.
“I started studying Jay, and I started diving deep into Van Halen, tone chasing, and reading everything I could about the gear [Eddie Van Halen] used, may have used, or that’s rumored to have been used.”
Dave even revisited his own back catalogue.
He added: “I spent most of my days during my illness just kind of woodshedding guitar and relearning things. I played Jane’s Addiction records front to back and tried to relearn things I’d played in the ’80s and ’90s that I’d forgotten.
“That was a challenge, and that was fun. And because I knew I was gearing up to join again at some point, the band wanted to start working on new music. I was well enough to go in a studio and sit in a chair. I’d sit for 10 hours, so that was easy, and we wrote some new music.”