They've put together a show that features Navarro on guitar riffing over Skribble’s unique combinations of hits both old and new. Check out photos from the show at Life Ultralounge in Hartford Feb. 9.
The two make an appropriate pairing, with each developing into a multimedia magnate of sorts. In addition to 300 club dates a year, Skribble has dabbled in acting and producing and is bringing his love of cars to the small screen with a pair of shows in the pipeline for this year—“Sema Zone” debuts on Spike TV this spring and “Skribble’s Extreme Truck Challenge” should follow later in ‘08.
Former Jane’s Addiction guitarist Navarro is a veritable jack-of-all-trades, with weekly radio and Internet TV shows (his “Spread Entertainment” show on maniaTV.com was nominated for a TV Guide Award this fall), adult film directing, a new artist management company and multiple musical projects packing his schedule.
When we caught up with the duo, they were enthusiastic about their new stage show and shared their thoughts on the future of the music business.
Skribble, you have experience touring with rock bands (Anthrax, Primus, Sisters of Mercy) in the past, well before it was hip to introduce a DJ into a live rock show. Is this flipped type of arrangement something you’ve had in mind for a while?
Skribble: Yeah, it’s one thing to just DJ in clubs, but it’s so much better when you’re doing more of a show and a performance, for me, because it’s kind of how I started. I’m not a DJ who just plays record to record, so getting the opportunity to be up there where all eyes are on you, and we’re presenting a whole new way to DJ with live instrumentation that hasn’t been seen by the younger crowds, it’s just very refreshing.
And what’s the draw for you, Dave?
Navarro: There are a lot of different aspects to being a musician and a player and an artist. I love the creative side of things where I’m in the studio and writing songs and working with other musicians, and I just also love live performance and having a great party atmosphere. Working with Skribble allows me the freedom to just let go and have a blast on stage, and certainly to play to a totally different demographic than I’m used to.
How do you guys decide what makes it into the set? Is it a collective decision?
S: Everything’s totally collective. He gave me an idea to do Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” and I took Jay-Z’s “Public Service Announcement”—and pretty much, we want to keep it to where he’s really playing, he’s not doing guitaraoke where he’s playing over somebody else’s stuff. We really strip down these songs—the Rage song we stripped down to just drums—so all the guitar leads are live. And he’ll go in and lay the bass, and I’ll put in a cappella and the scratches, so when you see the show you’re getting full-on production song.
What are some other examples of mash-ups that have worked really well for you?
N: We do “War Pigs” with Biggie. We do “Whole Lotta’ Love” with LL Cool J…
And you actually do an old Jane’s song as well…
N: Yeah, we do Jane’s Addiction, but we brought in Missy Elliott. So it’s a new twist on things. I also have a cover band called Camp Freddy where I just go out with a bunch of different artists and play different songs that we grew up loving, just for the fun of it. And here I get to do that with Skribble, except we’re adding in a totally different element. The songs are still fresh to me in this context. So I can take a Jane’s Addiction song that I’ve played 9 million times, and get on stage with Skribble with a cappella and the scratches that he throws in, and it’s a brand-new experience for me.
How long of a set have you put together at this point?
S: It started at 30 minutes and now, New Year’s Eve, we were on-stage for almost an hour and a half.
N: And you’ve also got Skribble doing his thing before and after. He loves what he does so much that if we have a booking for a two-hour show, he’ll be up there for six hours. They can’t get that guy off the decks.
S: Plus, you’ve gotta understand, I’ve been doing this since 1980. Not to date myself but, you know, it never gets old to me. You get out there, and you’ve got that energy from the crowd, and you get that pop when you look out there and everyone has that big happy-go-lucky cheese-eating smile on their face and their hands in the air, that’s all that matters. It’s the best feeling in the world.
What’s the crowd reaction like to the show?
N: A lot of time they don’t know what to do, if they’re supposed to watch, if they’re supposed to dance. Bottom line is, who gives a fuck man? Just have a good time! We’re not there to be looked at, we’re there to provide entertainment and hopefully allow everyone to see something new and cool and hear things that they’ve never heard before. From show to show there are special moments where I’m playing a riff and Skribble starts scratching over it, and we find ourselves in kind of a free-form jam and neither one of us knows where it’s gonna go, and those are really exciting moments.
As you get more shows under you belt, how are you finding things are evolving? Can you do an album with something like this, or will it just be a live thing?
S: There’s definitely a way you can do an album, provided you can get all the clearances and stuff. It’d be a total remix type thing, and being as we’re re-playing everything you don’t have to really worry about sample credits. You might not get a lot of publishing, but it could be done.
N: And the other thing about that, as you know, the music industry is falling apart. Record sales are plummeting. So there’s two ways of looking at it. One, we could do an album and go through trying to get a lot of stuff cleared to make a full-length album. Or, we can go track by track and make them available online. Even when people put albums on iTunes, the majority of buyers these days basically buy the song they want. Nobody’s buying full-length albums any more.
S: Ninety percent of the DJs in the clubs aren’t playing the original versions of records any more. Everything’s a remix—everything’s a mash-up. I mean, that’s just the way it is. It’s great, too, for the record because you’re giving that artist and that record even more life, or bringing an older record back so they’re going, “Wow.” So there is a very big market for it.
Dave, you’re working on a solo album this year. What’s the vibe of that record going to be like?
N: It’s going to be totally self-serving and self-indulgent. People don’t buy records anyway, so I may as well make the one I want. It’ll be a 100 percent digital release, and I’m going to put up the tracks as we go as opposed to waiting and putting up 12 songs.
S: Within three years, there’s going to be no more CD buying. It’s gonna get that bad. You’re having digital labels open up all over the Internet now. People love the convenience of it. And a lot of these sites now will allow you to download the MP3 file, or download the CD-quality audio file. It’s really about to change crazily right now.
N: The bottom line is if you’re going to be an artist in this day and age—especially for a rock musician like myself—you better make sure you love what you’re doing, because the marketplace is just a mess. The download issue has made things a lot more convenient for the consumer, but it has really fucked the artist. So I’m going into this with absolutely no expectations, and I’m just going to make music that I love making.
