The exquisitely groomed co-founder of influential rock band Jane's Addiction was once infamous for his dangerous habits, and he detailed his debauchery in the memoir "Don't Try This At Home."

Now, he's on the relatively straight and narrow but gets his adrenaline rush when his brand new band, the Panic Channel, plays brand new material for an audience that could lose interest and head for the bar at any moment.

"There's always that sense of, 'Is this one going to go over or not?"' Navarro, 39, said in a recent interview with Reuters. "I equate it to the feeling that you get when you're driving downtown trying to cop heroin, and you're hoping you don't get arrested."

Added fellow Jane's Addiction alumnus, drummer Stephen Perkins, 39, who favors pot, "It's like, 'Yes! I've got the goodies, and I wasn't busted, and I went through that park. That was fun."'

Navarro, Perkins and late-era Jane's bassist Chris Chaney, 36, formed the Panic Channel in 2004 after Jane's vocalist Perry Farrell quit suddenly to pursue other interests. Their debut album, "(ONe)," was released last week via Capitol Records, and debuted at No. 108 on the U.S. pop charts with modest sales of 8,500 units.

MEET THE NEW GUY

The Panic Channel could have been a "supergroup" like Audioslave or Velvet Revolver -- drawing from components of defunct famous bands. But they went with an unknown singer, a one-time MTV personality named Steve Isaacs, 37, who had befriended Navarro several years earlier.

So don't call them a supergroup, and try not to mention Jane's Addiction either.

"Us three continued on ... one guy's missing," Perkins said.

"No, no, no," Navarro interrupted. "Nobody's missing ... We aren't Jane's Addiction with a new guy. We're a brand new band."

The "new guy" is a heavily tattooed savant whose favorite singers include Freddie Mercury of Queen and Chris Cornell, late of Soundgarden and now of Audioslave. Isaacs meshes his traditional pop songwriting sensibility with his bandmates' wild experimentation.

Bravely ignoring the Jane's Addiction songbook, the band just finished a club tour where it focused solely on tunes from the debut album, and an encore of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused." Another tour will begin in the fall after Navarro is done with judging duties on the CBS talent show "Rock Star: Supernova."

To their surprise, the guys of Panic Channel say no one yelled at them to play such Jane's nuggets as "Mountain Song" or "Been Caught Stealing." Rather, in a rare benefit of Internet piracy, many fans knew the words to the unreleased songs.

"They were singing the words," Isaacs recalled. "It was unnerving. How do you know the words of that song?"

Added Navarro, "It was really kinda weird, like they'd hacked into our brains. A little freaky."

"RAW AND DIRTY"

The tour also served as a valuable bonding experience, because the tight budget forced them to share a bus, double up in hotel rooms and bathe in the sinks at concert venues.

"It's what I loved about this business to begin with so many years ago," Navarro said. "It was just real and gritty and raw and dirty ..."

"... and all that goes right into the performance," interrupted Perkins. "How do you perform a dirty show after taking a Jacuzzi bathtub and having 24-hour room service?"

Groupies were a no-no, because the band members were all in relationships at the time, though Navarro has since split from wife Carmen Electra. He says they remain "the best of friends."

As men of some wealth and taste, they could have opted for the five-star life, but Isaacs said it was more important to act just like any other band starting from scratch.

In 10 years' time, if all goes well, and "we have, like, the jet set, Four Seasons tour, I will love every second of that, too, because we earned it," he said.

The new album should appeal to fans of the mainstream, modern and classic rock genres. The first single, chosen by the label over the band's objections, is the ballad "Why Cry." The musicians say the next single, "Teahouse of the Spirits," which opens the album with a bang, is a better introduction to their sound.

Perhaps the highlight is the eight-minute supernatural opus "Night One," which Isaacs said he built around a Navarro riff that "just had this spirit and this movement to it and this flow." Isaacs even went to the trouble of researching ouija boards and paranormal events as he crafted a story about two kids who contact their dead uncle.

"Certainly having a solid songwriter in the band is something new for us," Navarro added.

As a bonus, Isaacs also plays guitar, which gave Navarro some latitude to get a little more melodic and lyrical with his solos. The rhythm section also benefited. Chaney said his bass lines were inspired by Isaacs' vocals, while Perkins said Isaacs opened his eyes to new ways of playing the drums.

Reuters

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