In the midst of Jane’s Addiction’s 1991 Lollapalooza run, a cash-strapped Dave Navarro pawned his one-off custom Ibanez model, and now, 28 years later, he’s been reunited with that very electric guitar - courtesy of an unlikely Guitar Center trade-in.
According to the American retailer, the guitar - which features artwork from the LA group’s landmark Nothing’s Shocking album - finally resurfaced in late-2018 when it was sold to Guitar Center Hollywood, whereupon Artist Relations Manager Eric Bradley set out to track down Navarro, eventually contacting him via mutual friend (and former Sex Pistol) Steve Jones.
Upon being reunited with the guitar, Navarro ran through JA classics Mountain Song and Stop, before musing, “An instrument like this is not unlike a relationship with a human being.
It’s your tried and true that's never going to leave you... unless you pawn it for drugs
“It’s something you connect to, that hears you, understands you. It’s your tried and true that's never going to leave you... unless you pawn it for drugs.”
The night Navarro sold the guitar, he fully intended to pick it back up but never did - which led him to his first encounter with PRS Guitars, with whom he ended up developing a number of signature models.
“Chris Haskett from the Rollins Band had a spare PRS,” Navarro recalled.
“He was like, ‘Dude, I got you-take this, play this tonight.’ And that's another story because that's when I fell in love with PRS.”
Navarro is not the first alt-rock guitarist to be reunited with a lost love this year, as the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan recently found himself in possession of his stolen Gish-era Strat after 27 years apart.
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