Jane’s Addiction guitarist, Dave Navarro has opened up about unreleased material from NHC, his project with late Foo Fighters drummer, Taylor Hawkins and former Jane’s Addiction bassist, Chris Chaney.
NHC (Navarro/Hawkins/Chaney) began as a lockdown project for the three musicians to focus on, before releasing a handful of songs starting at the tail end of 2021 with a collection of singles.
These were followed by an EP titled Intakes and Outtakes featuring a further four songs (One and the Same, I Could Be Somebody Else, Something About You and Fearless). Tragically, the EP was released just weeks before Hawkins’ death on March 25, 2022 while on tour with Foo Fighters.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Dave Navarro gives some insight into the finished-yet-unreleased material, adding that he’s unsure when it could see the light of day.
“We have a completed mastered album, but this might be a little soon. I don’t really know where that stands…” he says. “But I’ll tell you that I really believe that it deserves to come out, because that record, to me, really showcased what a brilliant all-around musician Taylor was, because he wrote most of the songs, played the drums, and sang them.”
Navarro goes on to explain that he encouraged Hawkins to use NHC as a serious platform to display those abilities, rather than defaulting to what he believed to be a more self-deprecating, humorous approach the late drummer had taken with his previous side-projects.
“His overall musicianship, I think, really deserves to be known and highlighted. And he had other projects, Chevy Metal. He had Coattail Riders, and Birds of Satan. But they were somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
“It’s like he almost kind of wanted to take the piss out of himself before anybody else could. But on the NHC material, I wouldn’t let him do that. I was like, ‘No, dude. We’re not making this funny. We’re making this real.’
“And so I really hope it sees the light of day. But yeah, that was one of the most happy experiences of my life making that record with him, and just obviously, I haven’t been able to listen to it since.”
Recently, the Jane's Addiction guitarist also revealed that, combined with a bout of Long Covid, he couldn’t bring himself to play music following Hawkins’ death. He told Guitar World, “I'll be honest – I didn't pick up the guitar for about a year. 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.”
Meanwhile, bassist Chris Chaney (Jane’s Addiction, Alanis Morissette and many more) is currently on tour with rock titans, AC/DC, having been confirmed as the replacement for founding member, Cliff Williams in February.
