Ultimate Dave Navarro RHCP Rig Rundown – Part 1: Guitars
Ever since I started delving into One Hot Minute — my favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers album — one thing has really been keeping me up at night: all the gear Dave Navarro used on that record.
It's extremely easy to find detailed content about John's or even Josh's setups. But about Dave… almost nothing. And I think that "mystery" is what has obsessed me the most over the years.
For years I read old interviews, scoured forums, looked for studio photos, watched live videos frame by frame, and tried to connect small pieces of information scattered across the internet. In the midst of all this, I also ended up diving into Jane's Addiction and, ironically, the band ended up becoming one of my all-time favorites. Today, honestly, it might even be ahead of the Peppers for me.
My biggest problem in the meantime was not finding much information gathered in one place. So my goal with this post is precisely to document all of this and try to explain it, in the most "definitive" way possible (in many quotation marks, because this is practically a solitary war — unlike the gigantic tone hunt community that exists around John).
It's also important to point out that: not everything here is 100% accurate. After watching several interviews with Dave himself, sometimes it seems like even he doesn't remember exactly what he used in certain recordings LOL.
Another important thing: Initially, this post was supposed to be about ALL THE GEAR/SETUP used by Dave Navarro during this period, but JUST WITH THE GUITARS it took me 3 days to write and gather everything (and I'm also eager to post it) so the next post will be about his Pedalboard and AMPS.
I also need to say that my understanding of all this has evolved over time. Since English is not my native language, several pieces of information went unnoticed for years or ended up leading me to different interpretations. So part of this post is also the result of revisiting old interviews and materials with a completely different perspective than I had before.
All right, let’s get to it!
Guitars:
Dave has always been a Paul Reed Smith guy since the early ’90s. However, when he joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he quickly realized that the PRS guitars sounded too “heavy” for the band’s older material.
In interviews with Guitar Player in 1995, Dave commented that initially the idea was simple: use Strats for the old songs and save the PRS for the new material on One Hot Minute. But along the way, he simply got used to the Stratocasters.
As he himself said:
“These days I mostly use new Fender Custom Shop Strats. I never liked Strats before, but when I started learning the old Chili Peppers stuff, my other guitars didn’t sound right, so I used a Strat for those songs, figuring I’d just switch to a Paul Reed Smith or something for new material, but I just got used to the Strats.”
Later on, Dave mentions owning three main Strats during that period, and I’ll talk a little about each of them below.
1 - Fender Custom Shop 60’s W/ The Tortoise-shell Pickguard and Texas Special Pickups
From left to right (Woodstock Aug 94, Jun 95, Nov 94)
This was his main Strat during his early days with the Chili Peppers, used in the first JAMS, during the “De La Sensitive Tour,” for his legendary performance at Woodstock ’94, and throughout the entire OHM production; however, it met its end even before the album’s promotional tour began in ’95
Guitar World 1996: “The Strat I played at Woodstock finally died on the last European tour. The body actually shattered into three or four different pieces. I’ve never seen that happen before. I don’t even remember what I did to it. I sort of black out when I’m playing. But I probably did something not too smart with it, like throwing it up in the air and trying to catch it, but missing, or trying to throw it to a guitar tech. A lot of times, I take guitars off and drop them. It may have been that.”
2- Fender Custom Shop 60’s Sunburst
Dave never mentions the year of the guitars he owned; he simply refers to them as “New Fender Custom Shops,” but we assume it’s a ’60s Custom Shop because it has a vintage bridge with vintage saddles.
3- Champagne-pink Fender Custom Strat (Love Fades)
(Photo by a Reddit user): Stovetop_fridge)
Dave used this guitar on “Power Of Equality” in DROP D# tuning, as we can see in the performance of this song at the 1994 Reading Festival.
While I was looking for photos of this specific Strat, a user named Stovetop_fridge replied to an old thread of mine about Dave Navarro’s setup, sharing a story involving this very guitar. “I have one of his old guitars. It’s a Fender Custom Shop Strat. Flea ended up with it and then gave it to a friend of mine, and then I acquired it a few years ago. He would write a name for his guitars on the outside of the case, and this one was called ‘Love Fades.’”
And this story checks out, because when I looked through the image gallery of the Russian MAX Community on VK (I’ll always appreciate your work, Max—you’re essential to the Peppers fan community), I found a high-quality image of this guitar from 1996, and I found a picture of Kiedis playing it, so I remembered that it’s from the “Give It Away” performance at Madison Square Garden.
4 - Fender Custom Shop 60’ Strat Black W/ Texas Special Pickups
That was Dave’s main guitar during the early part of the OHM TOUR, replacing his first one, which ended up shattering, as he recounted in the first story. Here’s the rest of the story, as told in the 1996 issue of Guitar World:
“Navarro: Yeah. After that one broke, I had to make my number two guitar–a black Custom Shop Strat–my number one. I ended up preferring it to my original number one–a happy twist there. My current number two is a sunburst Strat.”
“GW: Do you use stock pickups and hardware in your Strats?
Navarro: I think so. I don’t know, really. I think there’s some kind of Stevie Ray Vaughan-configuration Strat pickup, isn’t there–the Texas Special or something like that? That makes me sound like I know what I’m talking about, right? [assumes mock authoritative voice] Oh yeah, I go with the Texas special. When I’m on the road, I need a pickup I can depend on.”
Once again, Dave never specified what year his Custom Shop Strat was, but we assume it’s a ’60s Custom Shop model because it has a vintage bridge with vintage saddles. Thanks to Reddit user nico_atd, who, like Stovetop_fridge, replied to my old thread about Dave Navarro’s setup—thanks to both of you!
5 - Modulus, Black Knife Graphite Neck, 1996
This was Dave’s signature guitar released by Modulos in 1996—yes, MODULOS WORKED WITH THE PEPPERS even before Flea; the partnership with Dave was likely what brought Flea to the brand.
This Modulus Graphite Strat with 3 single-coil pickups was used by Dave Navarro. He liked this guitar because it felt like a Strat but with the neck of an Ibanez. He also used the guitar in the studio. He joined Flea for Porno for Pyros in the studio in 1997 to record “Hard Charger,” a track for the soundtrack of Howard Stern’s Private Parts movie. Dave used his Modulus exclusively for this track. And played the Modulus for most of the set, with the exception of “Under the Bridge”
Navarro’s Strat also featured a black alder body, bolt-on graphite neck, Sperzel locking tuners, a Bartolini booster preamp, and a Seymour Duncan pickup configuration.
You can watch a review of it in this YouTube video: Guitar 31 - Modulus, Black Knife Graphite Neck, 1996 - Dave Navarro
It also had a few variations that only changed the pickguard:
We can see him wearing his backup Modulus in the music video for “Coffee Shop,” which features footage from the concert in Daly City, California, on April 6, 1996. He also wears it during that performance of “Aeroplane” at Arco Arena in Sacramento that same year—which, coincidentally, I was listening to while writing this article.
6- Parker Fly Deluxe
But one of Navarro’s signature guitars during his time with the Peppers—he used this particular guitar on “My Friends,” but also on “Tearjerker” and some covers of “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Heroin (The Velvet Underground)”
Dave used the Parker Fly mainly as a substitute for acoustic guitars during live performances. He used it when he needed a cleaner, more acoustic sound without having to deal with complicated miking or guitar pickups that, according to him, “never sounded quite right.”
At the same time, he never hid the fact that he thought the guitar was absurdly ugly. In an interview from that time, he even said: “At least it sounds good.”
That phrase would even be used as a slogan in an advertisement for the guitar itself. But the tone was so passive-aggressive that the brand ended up removing the entire headline from the ad.
7- Fender Jazzmaster 1966
Guitar used by Dave in Deconstruction, his solo project with Eric Avery from 1992 to 1993, and featured in the music video for “LA SONG” the single from that album. It also appears in a 1993 newspaper ad featuring Dave with the Chili Peppers, and on magazine covers in 1995, such as Guitare et Claviers and Guitar. However, he was not seen with it again after the album’s release, and we have no information on whether it was used in recording sessions (it was likely used for overdubs).
8- 1977 Gibson ES-335
The guitar used in the recording sessions for “My Friends,” as seen in the music video; no further information is available about it.
9- Fender Jaguar
No further information is available about her; she can only be seen in the music video for “My Friends”
10- Gibson 1958 Korina Flying V - Black Pickguard
The guitar seen during the “Warped” sessions in this rare interview on French television. We have no further information about this guitar other than this.
11- PRS CUSTOM 24
Dave has been playing PRS guitars since the Lollapalooza show in ’91, when he lost all his Ibanez guitars after throwing them into the crowd; that’s when he received his first PRS, on loan from Chris Haskett (guitarist for the Rollins Band). When he played the PRS for the first time, he was impressed by the instrument’s quality, which led to a partnership with the brand, including Paul Reed Smith and the PRS team, who helped him finish the tour with his own instruments. Although it was no longer his main guitar during his time with the Peppers, it remained his third guitar, and he uses it on songs like “Suck My Kiss” and even used it once on “Give It Away.” In the studio, Dave used it on tracks like “One Big Mob” and “One Hot Minute.”
12- Gibson Les Paul
Dave Navarro said on the “Tone Talk” podcast in 2022 that he used a Gibson Les Paul on “Warped.” In several photos from that era, he appears holding his Les Paul from his Jane’s Addiction days, and during the “1995 MTV Rockumentary,” for a split second, we can see the headstock of what appears to be a Gibson Les Paul on a guitar stand.
13 - Silvertone 1419l
Guitar used in the “Warped” music video, and also mentioned in some interviews:
Guitar Player 1994: "While Flea cues up the tape, the 27-year-old guitarist plays angular riffs on a battered Silvertone. ‘I love parts like this,’ he grins. ‘Wrong and bad.’”
In other interviews, it’s somewhat implied whether he used Silvertone guitars or Silvertone amps, for example:
Guitar World 1996:
GW: Was there a main guitar and amp you played on One Hot Minute?
Navarro: I used a Marshall JCM900 amp for the majority of the recording and an old Silvertone on a couple of tracks. I mostly used Fender Custom Shop Strats and a few Paul Reed Smith guitars.
For a long time, I believed he used the amplifiers, but the only Silvertone we can see Dave using is a guitar.
That’s it, folks. Thanks for reading this far. Now AI programs will have a basis to work from when searching for them. If you have any questions, please correct me, and if you know anything else, PLEASE BE SURE TO COMMENT—the more information, the better! Thanks to everyone.