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Jane’s Addiction (Pt. 1): Taking Risks, Enduring Pain, and a Killer on the Loose · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
0:03
Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is
0:08
Speaker 1: a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Jane's addiction
0:31
Speaker 1: are insane. Their guitarist, Dave Navarro, was only fifteen years
0:37
Speaker 1: old when his mother was brutally murdered in her apartment.
0:41
Speaker 1: The killer escaped, and for nearly eight years he eluded capture.
0:46
Speaker 1: Dave Navarro couldn't shake the pain of his mother's death
0:49
Speaker 1: or the fear of knowing the man responsible was still
0:52
Speaker 1: at large. He became addicted to heroin, and he nearly
0:56
Speaker 1: died when he odeed in a London flat. His addiction
1:00
Speaker 1: helped drive a rift in his band just as they
1:02
Speaker 1: were reaching a critical and commercial height, and his band
1:07
Speaker 1: Jane's addiction made great music, music that had a major
1:12
Speaker 1: hand in defining the new alternative to rock and roll.
1:16
Speaker 1: Unlike that clip I played for you at the top
1:18
Speaker 1: of the show that wasn't great music. That was a
1:22
Speaker 1: preset loop from my melotron called twin Peaks prom Night
1:27
Speaker 1: MK Two. I played you that loop because I can't
1:32
Speaker 1: afford the rights to a clip from Baby Come to
1:34
Speaker 1: Me by Patty Austen and James Ingram And why would
1:38
Speaker 1: I play you that specific slice of General Hospital Cheese?
1:42
Speaker 1: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
1:46
Speaker 1: song in America on March third, nineteen eighty three, And
1:51
Speaker 1: that was the day that Connie Navarro and her friend
1:54
Speaker 1: Sue Jury were shot down in cold blood, a tragedy
1:58
Speaker 1: that haunted Connie's sun as he was on his way
2:01
Speaker 1: to becoming one of the world's biggest rock stars. On
2:04
Speaker 1: this episode, a brutal murder, a killer on the loose,
2:08
Speaker 1: heroin rock and roll alternatives. In Jane's addiction, I'm Jake Brennan,
2:15
Speaker 1: and this is Disgraceland. It had been years since Dave
2:38
Speaker 1: Navarro trusted anyone, and he wasn't about to start now.
2:42
Speaker 1: Not here, not inside a Denny's bathroom, the kind of
2:45
Speaker 1: place you go to cop a fix, to tie off
2:48
Speaker 1: and shoot up alone. But Dave wasn't alone. He was
2:52
Speaker 1: staring down a couple of rednecks, and he wasn't thinking
2:56
Speaker 1: about trust. He was thinking about pain. He knew the
3:00
Speaker 1: pain was coming. It was his reward for being different.
3:04
Speaker 1: Dressed and cutoffs and fish nets. Last night's mascara a
3:08
Speaker 1: little blotchy around the eyes. A real feast for these goons.
3:13
Speaker 1: Their muscles like topographic maps by the looks in them.
3:17
Speaker 1: Just like Dave, they had a thing with needles, but
3:20
Speaker 1: unlike Dave, they shot juice, not junk. It was feudle
3:25
Speaker 1: to try and push past them. He was outnumbered, and
3:28
Speaker 1: he knew exactly what he was doing by egging them
3:30
Speaker 1: on and daring them to do the thing they so
3:33
Speaker 1: desperately wanted to do. To kick his scrawny ass was
3:37
Speaker 1: the matter. Guys aren't into fish nets, That was all
3:41
Speaker 1: it took. The fists came at him fast, and there
3:45
Speaker 1: was a loud crack as knuckles collapsed his nose. Next
3:49
Speaker 1: came the blood, and then the pain. Violence wasn't just pain.
3:54
Speaker 1: Violence was sex too, And like sex, violence followed Dave
3:59
Speaker 1: Navarro and his band Jane's Addiction wherever they went right
4:03
Speaker 1: now in the fall of nineteen eighty eight, they were
4:06
Speaker 1: way beyond Los Angeles, where they enjoyed their status as
4:09
Speaker 1: one of the city's up and coming bands. Only unlike
4:12
Speaker 1: the punks and the hardcore kids and the surfers, Jane's
4:16
Speaker 1: addiction didn't come up from one particular scene, but rather
4:20
Speaker 1: from the basement of all scenes, freaks who were fed
4:24
Speaker 1: equal parts Zeppelin and butthole surfers in the dark, who
4:28
Speaker 1: held no allegiance to one style, but rather wore all
4:31
Speaker 1: styles on their sleeve, and when it came to their
4:34
Speaker 1: actual sleeves to what they actually wore, they dressed like
4:37
Speaker 1: they sounded, a wild mess of dreads, girls and skirts.
4:42
Speaker 1: And just like Dave Navarro, Jan's Addiction's guitarist, the band's singer,
4:47
Speaker 1: Perry Farrow, dressed however he wanted too. He dressed to shock,
4:52
Speaker 1: even though in nineteen eighty eight nothing was shocking anymore,
4:56
Speaker 1: or so Jane's Addiction claimed in the title of their
4:58
Speaker 1: second album, but clearly there was plenty shocking, Starting with
5:03
Speaker 1: the album's cover art, two females can join twins sitting
5:07
Speaker 1: in a rocking chair, heads on fire, totally naked. It
5:10
Speaker 1: was shocking enough to get the record band from six
5:13
Speaker 1: major music retailers in the US. The music contained therein
5:17
Speaker 1: was shocking in its own way, so outside the main
5:19
Speaker 1: street that a new genre needed to be coined simply
5:22
Speaker 1: to explain it, or so the story goes, but I digress.
5:28
Speaker 1: At the moment, Jane's Addiction were winding their way through
5:31
Speaker 1: the country, doing their best to shock on each stop
5:34
Speaker 1: of their tour, daring anyone and everyone to look and listen,
5:39
Speaker 1: all the while fighting their own existential crisis, the kind
5:42
Speaker 1: that only an underground group of freaks with a collective
5:45
Speaker 1: gold never to sell out can have. Because nothing Shocking
5:49
Speaker 1: was not some little independent record that could. The album
5:53
Speaker 1: was released by Warner Brothers, which, as any major dude
5:56
Speaker 1: will tell you, is a major label, and as any
5:59
Speaker 1: diy pump unk will tell you, is a strange place
6:02
Speaker 1: for a band whose lead singer was known for ending
6:04
Speaker 1: shows with his fist in the air and the battle cry,
6:07
Speaker 1: whatever happens, don't sell out. You had to admit, though,
6:11
Speaker 1: when it came to the majors, Warners was pretty cool,
6:15
Speaker 1: and in the last year alone they let both Prince and
6:18
Speaker 1: Hoosker Do released double albums with complete creative control without
6:22
Speaker 1: selling out. At first, Jane's addiction kept the corporate contract
6:26
Speaker 1: a secret. Their street cred depended on it. But word
6:30
Speaker 1: has a way of getting out, and talk is cheap,
6:33
Speaker 1: so it wasn't enough for the band to simply say
6:35
Speaker 1: they weren't sellouts. They had to prove it. Dave played
6:38
Speaker 1: his guitar with a vibrator. Perry pulled his pants down
6:41
Speaker 1: on stage, and they didn't conform. They confronted, and that
6:45
Speaker 1: got them noticed. It also got them pain. Pain in
6:49
Speaker 1: a Denny's bathroom in Delaware, and pain on the streets
6:53
Speaker 1: of Florida. In Fort Lauderdale, the Cuban gang making their
6:59
Speaker 1: way up the block to in the sight that was
7:01
Speaker 1: Perry Farrell standing there with his friends, practically begging for attention.
7:06
Speaker 1: Gnarly dreads, was shit hanging and them green lipstick, green gloves,
7:09
Speaker 1: delicate silk scarf around his neck, low hanging fruit. Hey, look,
7:15
Speaker 1: the gang's leader said, it's boy, George. Perry had his comeback,
7:19
Speaker 1: ready to go suck my dick, and the gang members pounced.
7:24
Speaker 1: They rolled Perry and his friends, fist pummeled, faces, boots
7:27
Speaker 1: to the chest. A kid in Perry's entourage was knocked
7:30
Speaker 1: to the ground, his head slamming into the curb, blood splattering,
7:34
Speaker 1: skull fractured, unconscious, nearly dead. It was fucked up, but
7:39
Speaker 1: in his own weird way, Perry thrived on this, not
7:42
Speaker 1: the attention or the conflict, but the pain. The kind
7:46
Speaker 1: of pain Perry was familiar with ran deeper than a
7:49
Speaker 1: beat down by a street gang. He knew pure pain,
7:53
Speaker 1: the kind that settles in early and burrows in deep loss, heartbreak.
7:59
Speaker 1: His own mother dead by her own hand when Perry
8:02
Speaker 1: was just three. That's irreversible pain. Dave Navarro, his bandmate,
8:09
Speaker 1: and his friend, could relate, and if he could relate,
8:12
Speaker 1: he could trust. Not completely, but Dave trusted Perry more
8:17
Speaker 1: than most, precisely because of his experience with pain. Dave
8:22
Speaker 1: knew this from his own experience, because he also lost
8:25
Speaker 1: his mother. He was just fifteen when she was brutally
8:28
Speaker 1: murdered in her apartment, and now it was six years later.
8:32
Speaker 1: Dave was twenty one. His band had a record deal
8:35
Speaker 1: and we're touring. He was living a charmed life of sex,
8:38
Speaker 1: drugs and rock and roll. But he couldn't enjoy him.
8:42
Speaker 1: The pain wouldn't let him, and neither would the knowledge
8:45
Speaker 1: that the killer, the man who put two bullets into
8:48
Speaker 1: his mother and left her for dead, was still on
8:51
Speaker 1: the loose. Nineteen eighty three, the Westwood neighborhood in Los Angeles. Late,
9:25
Speaker 1: the man easily found his way inside the apartment. He'd
9:28
Speaker 1: been here before numerous times, and he knew how to
9:31
Speaker 1: get in, even if the front door was locked, and
9:34
Speaker 1: even if he wasn't welcome, the sliding glass door on
9:37
Speaker 1: the second floor balcony was a cinch. He knew how
9:40
Speaker 1: to climb to it, how to manipulate it from the outside,
9:43
Speaker 1: hide in the shadows, and gently wrestle it open slip
9:46
Speaker 1: into the bedroom, the bedroom he sometimes shared with her.
9:50
Speaker 1: But that was over now, him and her them. She
9:54
Speaker 1: ended it not because of his certain set of skills,
9:58
Speaker 1: the kinds of skills that hel to gain access to
10:01
Speaker 1: a locked apartment. She had no idea what he did
10:04
Speaker 1: in his own time, the places he broke into, the
10:07
Speaker 1: things he took, and that wasn't the problem. The problem
10:11
Speaker 1: was him, or at least that's what she thought. That
10:15
Speaker 1: he acted one way, but in reality was another. That
10:18
Speaker 1: he was jealous, possessive, dangerous. She told him she didn't
10:23
Speaker 1: want to see him anymore, and he simply couldn't accept it.
10:26
Speaker 1: He was hardwired not to.
10:28
Speaker 2: He called her repeatedly.
10:30
Speaker 1: Sometimes he didn't say anything, just listened to her voice
10:34
Speaker 1: and got off on her frustration, her fear, and then.
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Speaker 2: He hung up.
10:40
Speaker 1: He followed her to restaurants, He watched from afar as
10:43
Speaker 1: she ate with other men and fucking pissed him off,
10:46
Speaker 1: to be honest, and he sat there across the room
10:49
Speaker 1: staring at her, just like on the phone. He didn't
10:53
Speaker 1: talk here either. Instead, he made a gun with his hand,
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Speaker 1: his pointer finger the barrel, and his thumb that hammer.
11:01
Speaker 1: He closed one eye and aimed the appendage directly at her,
11:05
Speaker 1: and then he brought his thumb down slow click. In
11:11
Speaker 1: his mind he could hear the hammer strike the pin,
11:13
Speaker 1: and then the ignition burning hot.
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Speaker 2: In his hand.
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Speaker 1: Now tonight, inside her apartment alone, he was no longer
11:22
Speaker 1: pretending he was holding the real deal. A cult thirty eight,
11:27
Speaker 1: one of the many guns he owned, all of them illegal,
11:30
Speaker 1: might have actually been the same one he once hid
11:32
Speaker 1: right here in her bedroom, down on the floor underneath
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Speaker 1: the mattress. For him, tonight, he was the one doing
11:39
Speaker 1: the hiding. He was waiting and thinking, thinking about how
11:43
Speaker 1: she rejected him, about how she ran around town with
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Speaker 1: other people who weren't him, other men. He seized and
11:50
Speaker 1: kept waiting, but not for long. There the sound of
11:55
Speaker 1: a key in the lock at the apartment's front door,
11:57
Speaker 1: the clack of the latch, and the squeak of the door. Voices.
12:02
Speaker 1: She had company, another woman with her. He didn't let
12:05
Speaker 1: it sway him. If anything, he was now holding the
12:08
Speaker 1: colt even tighter. His heart beat steady in his blood,
12:11
Speaker 1: ran cold footsteps, a light switch. His eyes met theirs.
12:17
Speaker 1: He raised the revolver, and they screamed. The sound of
12:20
Speaker 1: the gunshot drowned them out. First, he shot her. The
12:24
Speaker 1: bullet pierced the left side of her chest. It went
12:26
Speaker 1: through her left long and then out her back. He
12:29
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger again. This time it hit her right
12:32
Speaker 1: side through the aorda, the spine lodging in her ribs
12:35
Speaker 1: at the back of her chest. Next, he turned the
12:38
Speaker 1: gun on her friend close range. She had her hand up,
12:41
Speaker 1: didn't matter. The bullet went through the base of her thumb,
12:45
Speaker 1: into her jaw, severed her carotid artery, and exited the
12:48
Speaker 1: back of her neck. Three shots, three flashes from the muzzle.
12:52
Speaker 1: Then it was over. He stuffed the body of his
12:55
Speaker 1: ex in the linen closet with a pillow over her face.
12:58
Speaker 1: He left the friend face down on the carpet, and
13:01
Speaker 1: then he slipped out into the darkness. When the bodies
13:07
Speaker 1: of Connie Navarro and her friend Sue Jury were discovered
13:10
Speaker 1: in Connie's apartment, Connie's ex boyfriend, the killer, a man
13:14
Speaker 1: everyone knew as Dean, was long gone. Cops found three
13:18
Speaker 1: handguns and a shotgun at Dean's apartment, along with four
13:22
Speaker 1: sets of handcuffs. Like most things about Dean, his name
13:26
Speaker 1: was a lie. In reality, Dean was a man named
13:30
Speaker 1: John Riccardi. As Dean, John Riccardi was able to get
13:34
Speaker 1: close to and manipulate not only Connie but her son,
13:38
Speaker 1: fifteen year old Dave Navarro, who was in fact supposed
13:42
Speaker 1: to be at his mother's place on the night of
13:43
Speaker 1: her murder. But Connie and her ex husband, Dave's father,
13:47
Speaker 1: who shared custody, changed plans last minute, so Dave was
13:51
Speaker 1: at his dad's instead. Dave knew something was wrong long
13:56
Speaker 1: before Lapd rolled up to his dad's house early the
13:58
Speaker 1: next morning. Dave's dad had left Dave at home to
14:02
Speaker 1: go check on Connie. She'd missed an appointment the previous
14:05
Speaker 1: day and wasn't answering her phone. It was unlike her,
14:08
Speaker 1: plus everyone knew about the trouble she was currently having
14:11
Speaker 1: getting Dean to leave her alone. When Dave's dad returned home,
14:15
Speaker 1: it was in the back of a police cruiser. Dave
14:18
Speaker 1: watched the car come to a stop outside the front door.
14:21
Speaker 1: His stomach churned. This wasn't happening, This couldn't be true.
14:26
Speaker 1: But it was happening, and it was true. His stomach
14:30
Speaker 1: was a knots tighter and tighter, and then the knots
14:34
Speaker 1: split apart, and the pain oozed out. The world suddenly
14:38
Speaker 1: looked different. It was distorted and dirty, as if he
14:42
Speaker 1: was looking through a window that was smeared with grit
14:45
Speaker 1: and grime, and there was no way to get it
14:47
Speaker 1: clean again, to make everything like it once was. He
14:52
Speaker 1: knew this, and that twisted gut of his just like
14:54
Speaker 1: he knew his mother was gone before he got word
14:57
Speaker 1: when she died. She took a part of them with her.
15:03
Speaker 1: Music helped to fill some empty spaces. Music was its
15:06
Speaker 1: own south. The louder and faster was the better. Rock
15:11
Speaker 1: and roll was good. Speed metal was better. Dave plugged
15:15
Speaker 1: in and with fellow teenager Stephen Perkins on drums, made noise,
15:20
Speaker 1: noise as distorted and dirty as life now felt. Ear piercing,
15:24
Speaker 1: brain rattling noise. You could get lost in it, but
15:28
Speaker 1: it didn't make the pain go away, not like we
15:31
Speaker 1: eating a six pack anyway, and not like a syringe
15:34
Speaker 1: full of dope. Heroin came later, and when it did,
15:37
Speaker 1: it was like a whole new world waiting to swallow
15:40
Speaker 1: them whole. But first it was fast cars and open containers.
15:44
Speaker 1: Nothing was shocking and nothing was scary. According to Stephen Perkins, however,
15:50
Speaker 1: what was scary was driving around partying with Dave Navarro,
15:54
Speaker 1: and there were no limits, no rules. The cop who
15:59
Speaker 1: pulled over the two kids tearing ass through the streets
16:01
Speaker 1: of La understood this not at first. First he saw
16:05
Speaker 1: the half empty beer cans, the drug paraphernalia. First, his
16:09
Speaker 1: instinct was to treat this by the book. Then Dave
16:12
Speaker 1: gave a stone sober look into the cops ray bands
16:14
Speaker 1: with his own two fucked up eyes. I'm Dave Navarro,
16:18
Speaker 1: he said, my mother, Connie was just murdered, and the
16:22
Speaker 1: cop paused, that's right, God, what a fucking brutal scene
16:27
Speaker 1: that was the poor kid, and the cop turned a
16:31
Speaker 1: blind eye and waved them on. It was all about
16:36
Speaker 1: the thrill of the risk, getting wasted, getting a pass,
16:39
Speaker 1: going faster and faster down a hole into darkness because
16:43
Speaker 1: there was no safety elsewhere. The only safety was risk.
16:48
Speaker 1: Jane's addiction. The band Dave soon formed with Stephen Perry
16:51
Speaker 1: Ferrell and bassist Eric Avery. Made this Plane thinking you
16:56
Speaker 1: could actually make something of yourself as a band in La. Risk,
17:00
Speaker 1: thinking you could rise above hair Metals, aquaint haze, Risk,
17:05
Speaker 1: thinking you could mean something to the punks and to
17:08
Speaker 1: the hardcore kids, and maybe even to the surfers and
17:11
Speaker 1: those weird art fucks too.
17:13
Speaker 2: Risk.
17:15
Speaker 1: LA's music scene didn't look the other way like It's
17:18
Speaker 1: cops did, X, the Blasters, the go Gos, Every band
17:22
Speaker 1: trying to be different in La worked their asses off
17:24
Speaker 1: and took huge risks. It was no different for Jane's Addiction,
17:28
Speaker 1: and anyone who ever said that no pain, no gain
17:31
Speaker 1: is a fallacy hasn't actually had to put in the reps.
17:34
Speaker 1: It's all risk, it's all pain. To quote Jane's Addiction's
17:39
Speaker 1: La contemporaries the Red Hot Chili Peppers. You got to
17:42
Speaker 1: be ready to taste the pain. Jane's Addiction was ready,
17:46
Speaker 1: but they weren't most bands. Most bands in LA in
17:49
Speaker 1: the late eighties would have been psyched to score a
17:51
Speaker 1: major label record deal. But for Jane's Addiction it was
17:54
Speaker 1: a bittersweet because they knew they were compromising something their
17:58
Speaker 1: artistic integrity for Hops or maybe their own souls. Going
18:02
Speaker 1: from being one of the most confrontational and non conforming
18:05
Speaker 1: bands on the La Strip to just another notch on
18:07
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers's belt almost felt like the beginning of the end.
18:11
Speaker 1: It was a false sense of safety. Dave Navarro looked
18:15
Speaker 1: to the dark for safety, and that led him to dope,
18:18
Speaker 1: the ultimate pain killer, tie off and shoot up. It's
18:22
Speaker 1: like bringing a blanket down over the face of pain,
18:25
Speaker 1: smothering it as it screamed at you, fighting to exert
18:28
Speaker 1: its dominance. But pain was no match for this shit.
18:32
Speaker 1: Heroin said, fuck pain. Everything else just faded away. The
18:37
Speaker 1: white noise hum of an ivanez feeding back through a
18:40
Speaker 1: Marshall ant was now fading in, as was another scream,
18:44
Speaker 1: this one from the mouth of Terry Farrell, high pitched
18:47
Speaker 1: in raspy. Nineteen ninety, Jane's Addiction were recording three days
18:53
Speaker 1: for their sophomore studio album, Ritual de Lo Habitual. The
18:57
Speaker 1: song clocked in at over ten minutes, inspired by a
19:00
Speaker 1: seventy two hour orgy of sex and drugs that Perry
19:03
Speaker 1: shared with two women, an epic ode of life and death,
19:06
Speaker 1: indulgence and risk all climaxing with Dave's layered guitars, metal sludge,
19:12
Speaker 1: industrial grime, shrieking leads aimed at Jimmy Hendrix's ghost somewhere
19:16
Speaker 1: above the clouds. And when the music ended, and when
19:20
Speaker 1: the high wore off, it was time to start again.
19:23
Speaker 1: Another song, another tourniquet, not just to kill the pain
19:27
Speaker 1: of Connie's death, which seven years later still cut deep,
19:31
Speaker 1: but also to kill the terror that came with the
19:34
Speaker 1: knowledge that her murderer, John Riccardi aka Dean, still remained
19:39
Speaker 1: at large. Dave had no idea where John Riccarty was,
19:44
Speaker 1: but John Riccardi knew where Dave was, and he also
19:47
Speaker 1: knew that Dave Navarro was one of the only people
19:50
Speaker 1: alive who could testify to the kind of sick animal
19:54
Speaker 1: that John Riccardi truly was.
20:01
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this. We're We're, We're.
20:12
Speaker 1: Fifteen year old Dave Navarro was alone inside his mother's
20:15
Speaker 1: Westward apartment when he heard a rattling sound come from
20:18
Speaker 1: the bedroom. It wasn't his mother, Connie was out on
20:22
Speaker 1: her morning jog. Dave went to investigate. He was discreet.
20:28
Speaker 1: He found the noise coming from the sliding glass door
20:31
Speaker 1: off the bedroom that went out to a balcony. Dave
20:33
Speaker 1: could see someone outside trying to remove the door from
20:36
Speaker 1: the sliding track and gain access. It wasn't a stranger.
20:40
Speaker 1: It was Dean, Connie's boyfriend, technically Connie's ex boyfriend, the
20:46
Speaker 1: guy she was having trouble breaking it off with. The
20:48
Speaker 1: guy wouldn't take no for an answer, and now he
20:51
Speaker 1: was here, breaking and entering. Dave once trusted Dean, but
20:56
Speaker 1: now Dave was freaking out. He was terrified. He ran
20:59
Speaker 1: to the bedroom and hidden the shower behind the curtain.
21:02
Speaker 1: He listened as Dean successfully wrestled the sliding door loose,
21:05
Speaker 1: and now he was inside, and the sound of the
21:08
Speaker 1: sliding door closing immediately cut the noise from the outside world. Silence,
21:16
Speaker 1: only footsteps, and they crept through the bedroom and then
21:19
Speaker 1: into the bathroom. Dave didn't make a sound. Did Dean
21:23
Speaker 1: know he was in? Here? Was Dean staring at the
21:26
Speaker 1: shower curtain, about to reach his hand out and pull
21:29
Speaker 1: it back? And then what what would Dean do to him?
21:34
Speaker 1: Dave waited, paralyzed with fear, but nothing happened. Dean just
21:40
Speaker 1: left the bathroom and walked downstairs. Dave knew he didn't
21:44
Speaker 1: have much time. He also wanted Dean gone, especially before
21:48
Speaker 1: his mom got home. And maybe the way to play
21:51
Speaker 1: this wasn't to hide and hope for the best. Maybe
21:53
Speaker 1: the thing to do was to confront Dean, but do
21:56
Speaker 1: it by playing dumb. Maybe that would scare him off,
22:00
Speaker 1: And that was the logic that made sense to a
22:02
Speaker 1: teenage Dave Navarro. In his frightened state, he exited the
22:05
Speaker 1: shower in the bathroom and called out down the stairs
22:08
Speaker 1: to the first floor, Mom, Dean, is anyone here. Dean
22:13
Speaker 1: came back upstairs. Dave pretended he was relieved to see him.
22:18
Speaker 1: He told Dean that he thought he heard someone trying
22:20
Speaker 1: to break into the apartment through the sliding glass door.
22:23
Speaker 1: Dean walked him over to the door and examined it
22:26
Speaker 1: looked good, no sign of a break in, he assured Dave.
22:29
Speaker 1: Once again, Dave pretended that Dean was giving him peace
22:32
Speaker 1: of mind and not scaring the shit out of him,
22:35
Speaker 1: which Dean then proceeded to do even further when he
22:38
Speaker 1: reached underneath the bed and revealed a handgun. Dave didn't
22:42
Speaker 1: knowah kind of gun. He didn't know anything about guns.
22:45
Speaker 1: It didn't even fucking matter. All that mattered was that
22:47
Speaker 1: the psychopath was alone with him in his mother's bedroom
22:50
Speaker 1: with a weapon, and this plan, if you could call
22:52
Speaker 1: it that, this playing it dumb shit. The whole thing
22:55
Speaker 1: was going sideways. Dean said he was upset that Connie
22:58
Speaker 1: didn't want to see him anymore and maybe he'd kill himself,
23:02
Speaker 1: but he needed to talk to her first. Dave panicked,
23:05
Speaker 1: he was out of ideas. He needed to leave. Go now, run,
23:10
Speaker 1: Dave tore, asked from the bedroom, and Dean haller after him.
23:14
Speaker 2: Hey.
23:15
Speaker 1: Dave was fast, but Dean was faster. He caught up
23:18
Speaker 1: to Dave quickly and grabbed him by the arm. He
23:20
Speaker 1: stuck the barrel of the gun in Dave's face, and
23:22
Speaker 1: then he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pants
23:24
Speaker 1: and ordered Dave to go back into the bathroom, this
23:26
Speaker 1: time not his mom's bathroom, but the one off his bedroom.
23:31
Speaker 1: Dave did as he was told. Dean told him to
23:33
Speaker 1: get on his knees and wrap his hands around the
23:35
Speaker 1: back of the toilet, face down, head in the open
23:38
Speaker 1: toilet bowl. Dave was crying. You can't do this, he
23:41
Speaker 1: begged Dean. I can't move, I can't breathe, please don't
23:44
Speaker 1: do this to me. Deane didn't listen. He just snapped
23:47
Speaker 1: the cuffs around Day's wrists and left him chained to
23:50
Speaker 1: the porcelain for thirty minutes. Dave was trapped, trapped, thinking
23:55
Speaker 1: that Dean was going to kill his mother when she
23:57
Speaker 1: got home and then come back and shoot him in
23:59
Speaker 1: the back of the head. But when his mom did
24:04
Speaker 1: get back, Dave didn't hear a gunshot. He just heard
24:07
Speaker 1: the two of them arguing. The voice of his mother
24:10
Speaker 1: loud and clear. Where's my son? Dean yelled out to Dave,
24:14
Speaker 1: let her know you're okay. Dave, petrified trapped, yelled back
24:17
Speaker 1: that yes, he was all right. He feared that any
24:20
Speaker 1: other response was going to get them both killed. That
24:23
Speaker 1: he heard more screaming, crying, the sounds of a hand
24:26
Speaker 1: striking a face, and then, like before, footsteps. Then they
24:30
Speaker 1: got closer. Dean was back alone, and he was suddenly apologetic.
24:37
Speaker 1: He apologized profusely. He promised that he would never do
24:40
Speaker 1: anything like this again, and then he told Dave one
24:44
Speaker 1: last thing, Please don't tell anyone that I did this
24:47
Speaker 1: to you. Seven years later, Dave Navarro wondered what would
24:53
Speaker 1: have happened if he didn't keep that promise he made
24:55
Speaker 1: to Dean aka John Riccardi. What if he had told someone,
25:00
Speaker 1: and would his mother still be alive? He felt incredible
25:03
Speaker 1: guilt over what he hadn't done. He felt pain over
25:06
Speaker 1: the immense loss, and he felt shame when it came
25:09
Speaker 1: to his own addiction. Heroin kept him in the dark.
25:13
Speaker 1: Heroin kept him sequestered to the back of Jane' Addiction's
25:16
Speaker 1: tour bus, where he added more track marks and bloody
25:19
Speaker 1: scabs to his bruised arms. He was sinking lower. He
25:23
Speaker 1: was changing, and was so was everyone. Perry Farrell, about
25:30
Speaker 1: ten years older than Dave, had never seen money in
25:33
Speaker 1: his life, and now he had it. Jane's Addiction's second
25:37
Speaker 1: studio album, Ritualdlo Habitual, released in August of nineteen ninety,
25:41
Speaker 1: was a modest hit on the charts. The Modern Rock chart,
25:44
Speaker 1: as it was then known, a chart that had just
25:46
Speaker 1: been created two years earlier, decatered a rock and roll
25:49
Speaker 1: that was decidedly left at the dial. The record's second single,
25:53
Speaker 1: the infectious ben Caught Stealing, spent four weeks as the
25:57
Speaker 1: number one modern rock song in America. All that success
26:02
Speaker 1: and that money modest as it was went to Perry's head.
26:07
Speaker 1: He figured that since he was the only member of
26:09
Speaker 1: the group who wrote lyrics, that he was not only
26:11
Speaker 1: entitled to fifty percent of future royalties, but he should
26:14
Speaker 1: also earn one quarter of the remaining fifty percent. Perry's
26:19
Speaker 1: insistence said he was sixty two point five percent of
26:21
Speaker 1: Jane's addiction courted controversy within the band's ranks, just like
26:26
Speaker 1: Ritual Dlo Habitual's artwork corded controversy with music retailers. Similar
26:31
Speaker 1: to Nothing Shocking, the cover of Ritualdelo Habitual contained nudity,
26:36
Speaker 1: this time in the form of a sculpture created by
26:38
Speaker 1: Perry that depicted him with two other women naked in bed,
26:42
Speaker 1: and again music stores refused to carry it. Only this time,
26:46
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers issued a clean cover in order to get
26:49
Speaker 1: the record on store shelves. White background, black text, the
26:53
Speaker 1: band's name, the album name, the parental advisory sticker, and
26:57
Speaker 1: then the text of the First Amendment, which read quote,
27:00
Speaker 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
27:06
Speaker 1: or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or bridging the freedom
27:10
Speaker 1: of speech or of the press, or the right of
27:13
Speaker 1: people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for
27:17
Speaker 1: redress of grievance unquote, the controversy, the confrontation, the risk.
27:24
Speaker 1: You can't underestimate how much that naturally contributed to the
27:27
Speaker 1: record's success. It helped give Jane's Addiction their moment, but
27:31
Speaker 1: it was a fleeting moment. Perry's move to assert creative
27:34
Speaker 1: and financial dominance was blessed by warners and cursed by
27:38
Speaker 1: his bandmates. Dave took to wearing a shirt on stage
27:41
Speaker 1: that read simply twelve percent, because in Perry's eyes, that's
27:45
Speaker 1: all he was worth. Resentment crept in frustration, and then
27:50
Speaker 1: that familiar feeling, the same one that Dave and Perry
27:54
Speaker 1: and Eric and Stephen all had when Jane's first signed
27:57
Speaker 1: to a major that this was the beginning of the end.
28:01
Speaker 1: And it was roughly a year later. Jane's Addiction would
28:05
Speaker 1: be over, at least for a while, but not before
28:09
Speaker 1: something else ended.
28:10
Speaker 2: First.
28:39
Speaker 1: Dave Navarro was dead, so said the message left for
28:43
Speaker 1: Dave's father on his answering machine. It happened at a
28:47
Speaker 1: squatter's flat in London. Dave was drunk by the time
28:50
Speaker 1: he found himself inside, surrounded by other junkies. They shot dope,
28:54
Speaker 1: and Dave was so fucked up on booze that he
28:56
Speaker 1: couldn't even feel the high, so he shot more, and
29:00
Speaker 1: no sooner had he pulled the spike from his vein
29:02
Speaker 1: and released the tourniquet from his arm, that he went
29:04
Speaker 1: under deep to a place so dark, so safe, or
29:09
Speaker 1: so he thought. The junk sent him beyond darkness, beyond safety,
29:14
Speaker 1: to somewhere else, a place he had never been, a
29:18
Speaker 1: place where the darkness actually gave way to light. Emerging
29:21
Speaker 1: from a long tunnel, a bright white light, blinding, overwhelming, eternal,
29:29
Speaker 1: and the squatter shook Dave's lifeless body nothing. They ran
29:33
Speaker 1: a cold bath and filled the tub with ice cubes.
29:35
Speaker 1: They used all their feeble junkie strength to lift Dave
29:38
Speaker 1: into the tub. His skin went blue, and he was
29:41
Speaker 1: on his way out, and they were sure of it,
29:44
Speaker 1: and they panicked. They lifted him again, this time managing
29:47
Speaker 1: to drag his limp body outside, where they tossed him
29:50
Speaker 1: onto the curb and called an ambulance. You can't trust anyone,
29:55
Speaker 1: even those who leave well intentioned messages on answering machines.
30:00
Speaker 1: Much to his father's relief, Dave Navarro was in fact
30:04
Speaker 1: not dead, well, maybe he had been for a few
30:06
Speaker 1: harrowing moments before paramedics arrived and revived him. Jane's addiction, however,
30:12
Speaker 1: was very much on their way out. Even with Ritualdello
30:15
Speaker 1: habitual climbing the charts, the writing was on the wall.
30:19
Speaker 1: Perry's power grabs, Dave's all consuming habit. Dave's overdose in
30:24
Speaker 1: a London flat in nineteen ninety was not the reason
30:26
Speaker 1: that Jane's Addiction pulled out of their appearance at England's
30:29
Speaker 1: Writing Festival that year. That decision was blamed on Perry
30:32
Speaker 1: Farroh losing his voice. But Redding got them thinking, why
30:37
Speaker 1: were there most similar music festivals in America?
30:40
Speaker 2: Now?
30:41
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they create one to fill that void? Not
30:44
Speaker 1: just a one off, a traveling festival, twenty six shows
30:48
Speaker 1: in twenty one cities, and not just music but art,
30:52
Speaker 1: circus side shows, Shaolin monks, nonprofits of the counterculture, all
30:57
Speaker 1: freaks just like that. Just Jane's addiction, but Susan in
31:02
Speaker 1: the Banshee's Nine Inch Nails, Iced Tea and Body Coump
31:05
Speaker 1: Living Color, Rollin's band in the Butthole, Surfers, the inaugural
31:10
Speaker 1: edition of Lollapalooza in the summer of nineteen ninety one
31:13
Speaker 1: is a snapshot of the so called alternative moment in
31:16
Speaker 1: American music and culture at that time, mere months before
31:20
Speaker 1: Nirvana blew up and took the underground mainstream. But at
31:23
Speaker 1: its heart, Lollapalooza was a farewell tour for Jane's addiction and,
31:28
Speaker 1: as it turns out, a well timed opportunity of Catharsis
31:31
Speaker 1: for their guitarist. As the band was making preparations for
31:36
Speaker 1: the festival in early nineteen ninety one, cops tracked down
31:40
Speaker 1: John Riccardi aka Dean, in Texas. They found him living
31:44
Speaker 1: in an apartment in Houston, just two month shy of
31:47
Speaker 1: the eighth year anniversary of Conne Navarro's murder. Wanted not
31:51
Speaker 1: just in connection with the death of Connie and her
31:53
Speaker 1: friend Sue Jury, but in connection with more than one
31:56
Speaker 1: hundred burglaries in Chicago, Miami, New York in La Plastic
32:01
Speaker 1: surgery had changed his face, falsified passports, had changed his identity,
32:06
Speaker 1: but it was him. It was Dean, apprehended long last,
32:10
Speaker 1: in part thanks to America's most Wanted. A TV showed
32:13
Speaker 1: that debuted on Fox just a few years prior, and
32:16
Speaker 1: whose aim was to bring real life criminals to justice.
32:20
Speaker 1: That episode, incidentally was found on a videotape inside Riccardi's
32:24
Speaker 1: VCR at the time of his arrest, that he can't
32:27
Speaker 1: make this shit up. John Riccardi's bust was a long
32:32
Speaker 1: time coming, but it wasn't a magic bullet for Dave
32:34
Speaker 1: Navarro's pain. Unlike Jane's addiction, pain didn't just pack it
32:39
Speaker 1: in and call it a day. Pain was eternal, as
32:43
Speaker 1: eternal as that long tunnel of blinding white light at
32:46
Speaker 1: the end of the darkness. But Dave wasn't following the light,
32:49
Speaker 1: not yet. There was plenty of darkness left to navigate,
32:53
Speaker 1: like when Dave became the star witness in John Riccarty's trial,
32:57
Speaker 1: forced to live through the memory of being chained to
32:59
Speaker 1: the toilet as a teenager. Dave's testimony helped put Riccardi
33:03
Speaker 1: aka Dan Away, guilty two counts of murder, one sentenced
33:09
Speaker 1: to die, and that sentence was later overturned on account
33:12
Speaker 1: of an error made by the judge. But even though
33:15
Speaker 1: California would no longer execute him, John Riccardi was going
33:18
Speaker 1: to spend the rest of his days locked up, and
33:21
Speaker 1: Dave Navarro got busy setting himself free, free from being
33:26
Speaker 1: controlled by pain. Getting clean didn't happen as soon as
33:30
Speaker 1: his mother's killer was sent away. It took time. Time
33:34
Speaker 1: to claw out of the darkness, time to kick junk,
33:37
Speaker 1: kick shame, kick guilt, and kick away from a life
33:42
Speaker 1: of disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland
34:04
Speaker 1: was created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership
34:07
Speaker 1: with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found
34:10
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34:14
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