Penthouse “Pop Shots” was/is a series that ran/runs in the magazine where a well-known person gets the chance to produce an entire shoot for us. Depending upon the skill set of the individual chosen, they may do part of the hands-on work, or they may select from a curated group of high-level professionals to help complete their vision. We do not do them to any schedule, because inspiration can be a fickle mistress, and she really, really hates deadlines.
The Penthouse World According to Dave Navarro
Say hello to Dave Navarro, member of Jane’s Addiction, guitarist for Red Hot Chili Peppers, host of Ink Masters on Spike TV, and no stranger to beautiful women. Penthouse sat down with Navarro to talk about women, sex, and the source of inspiration for his set of photos, which were shot by Holly Randall.
So, Dave Navarro, what is sexy to Dave Navarro?
The answer to that question is very difficult to put into words, because what’s sexy to me at three in the morning is probably different than what’s sexy at nine a.m. And I think that’s probably true for a lot of people.
When I wrote that question I thought, This is a stupid fucking question.
Well, it makes sense that you would ask that question, but I think the answer is, so many things can be sexy. That’s why I chose these two models. Because they’re very, very different, you know? Even the style of modeling that they do is very polarized. [Editor’s note: Skin Diamond is an adult performer, and now a Penthouse Pet; Mosh is an alternative/fetish model.] And I think that kind of speaks to my sensibilities.
Let’s approach it from a different direction: Talk about some of the decisions you made for this shoot.
The decisions I made were, in my mind, more in terms of “sexy” than “hot,” because those are different things. To me, sexiness is mystique and mystery, a yearning to want to know someone, whereas straight-up “pornographic” imagery falls more into the “hot” category, and is just more lustful. I think what I was trying to accomplish here was to show these women in a way that appeared strong and interesting and mysterious, because ultimately that’s what I find sexy in women and people.
So they’re “sexy” and not “hot” per se?
I mean, they’re hot women to begin with, so that can’t help but be a component. But to put them in a darker environment, and stay away from pornographic setups, and play with shadows and light a little bit more, and create an atmosphere that really has a mood — that was a little bit more along the lines of what I wanted to accomplish. Skin Diamond is a very well-known adult-film star, and I feel that we’ve seen her in adult scenarios and setups plenty, but Mosh isn’t. From what I’ve seen of her work, it’s more fetish-oriented and burlesque. I was told I could pick anybody I wanted to, and those were the two I selected.
There’s a lot to be said about the choices you made and didn’t make. I think the ebony-and-ivory theme is interesting. Is there some sort of story there?
Believe it or not, the black-and-white issue wasn’t even intentional. We thought about it afterward. I was told that I could find the two prettiest girls I could think of: Skin is a good friend of mine, and she’s just got such a life energy and spirit to her — in addition to being gorgeous.
It comes across in the photos.
Yeah, she’s just a superfun girl in real life. So I knew I could count on her to bring that. But I’d never met Mosh. I just took a chance that we might work together, and I knew that I could count on Mosh to look stunning. I knew they would both look stunning. But I didn’t want to do a typical pornographic shoot; I wanted to do something that had a little more of a Kubrick feel to it. Whether we achieved that, I don’t know, but what I mean by that is, I wanted to set up a scenario, an environment, that was oddly timeless and had a distinct mood to it.
Had you been to that location before?
I had never been there. I selected it out of a couple of different choices. One of the options was a more goth, dark, castle kind of environment, which spoke to me on a lot of levels, but I just felt that it was a little too obvious.
A little too in-the-box? Because that’s what you’d expect Dave Navarro to do?
I think so, yeah. I mean, in my own house it’s one thing, but I’m not trying to portray me in these pictures. I just felt it would be fun to experiment with something a little out of the ordinary. And to be perfectly frank, in my own life I don’t watch pornography, and I don’t look at pornographic material.
Based on what I know about you, I’d imagine you don’t really need to.
Well, yeah, I understand that, but for me I’ve always felt that it’s oddly synonymous with being hungry and only looking at a menu and not being able to order anything off it.
A friend once said that looking at a solo girl in a porn mag is like looking at a skate park with no one skating it.
Yeah, same thinking. If I’m hungry, I’d rather eat. I don’t want to watch a film of people eating, you know what I mean?
When you’re horny, you want to fuck.
Yeah, I suppose. I think these two girls come across as gorgeous and seductive, but they also look like people who I’d want to hang out with. And that’s something that I thought was pretty important. The truth is that a pretty girl can get you interested, but an interesting girl can keep you interested. Do you know what I mean? And I felt like I wanted to show these women that way.
Obviously these artists all ended up with photographs for the magazine, and equally obviously, a great many of those photgraphs involved some level of nudity. Consdering that display of such art goes against the standards set by Penthouse for the free portions of the web (that we control), we have done a bit of culling, combined with a bit of selective cropping, so that you might at least get a feel for the feeling of the artist on tap for the occasion.
It’s strange that someone who doesn’t look at porn directed a porn movie and now a porn shoot.
Right, but I also don’t listen to a lot of rock bands even though I’m in a rock band. And I don’t watch reality TV, but I’m on a reality-TV show. I think that being behind the camera on this Penthouse shoot was what was intriguing in terms of directing the film. I’m a closet filmmaker and have been for many, many years, and the fact that I was given a budget and a crew and a selection of stars to work with, I was like, Yeah, that sounds like a fun thing to do.
When I first heard about this, I started thinking of all kinds of people who would be interesting to direct a shoot — like, John Waters came to mind. I’m just wondering, aside from the gothic angle, were there any other concepts you had?
Waters would be a great one. But he’s someone who’s in the visual arts. Whereas I think it’s interesting to watch what someone who’s not in visual arts would do — a writer, or someone who has to create imagery through other means. I think a band tries to create imagery with music. Or a writer creates imagery with words, and so forth. I can almost imagine what John Waters would do. And I did have the instinct to do something gothic and dark, I had the instinct to use a lot of tattooed alt models, I had a big instinct to do something weird, something funny. But ultimately the conclusion I came to was that that would be making this more about me than about the models. And that’s not what I wanted to do.
Interesting. Because the way I read the project was that this was about Dave Navarro and what he thinks is sexy.
Yeah. But I’ve spent so much of my life doing things that ask for attention, and I didn’t want to spoil this opportunity with a bunch of randomness to create some kind of psychological insight into the workings of my mind. That’s not what this was about.
I hear you. You have plenty of outlets in which to express yourself.
Exactly my point. I do a radio show, I do a television show, I’m in a rock band.
The Dave Navarro show is center stage.
Yeah, like, enough already. And in this case, I didn’t want to do something that would, I don’t know, disrespect these girls. The initial vision was to do something beautiful and something that, if I saw it in a magazine, I would find sexy and something that I would also feel comfortable framing and hanging in my home.
What’s your favorite part of a woman?
Well, there are a couple of different things. I think that the sexiest part of a woman varies from woman to woman.
Why did I know that was going to be the answer?
I hate to be so diplomatic with my answers, but, you know, I don’t have a type.
That was the next question: Do you have a type?
I don’t. I think in this particular shoot I wanted to focus on Skin’s curves, especially in the small of her back and the back of her legs and those little divots that the light really shines nicely off. But if I had to pick a type, I’m not a leg, or ass, or breast man; I’m a face man. And I’m an eyes man. At the end of the day, that’s who I’m interacting with. That’s where the human is inside. And I’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of years with a lot of different beautiful women, and ultimately it comes down to what keeps me interested and intrigued and inspired. It’s what’s going on upstairs and behind the eyes. There are some eyes that are more intense than others, and there can be intense eyes that don’t have the light behind them, and what I look for is that light. But just on an aesthetic level, in terms of types, I like girls with funny-colored hair and tattoos, and I like blonde bombshells, and I like Asian women, and — you know, it depends on the woman. They’re all my type.
We have several updates featuring the thoughts of Dave Navarro online here, including a fascinating Legacy Reprint from the January, 2011, issue of Penthouse Magazine. Dave even did a stint as a columnist, so in many ways beginning something new with an old friend makes perfect sense for us.
We pulled this original Pop Shots Dave Navarro episode out of the server archives simply because it was the very first printed “episode” back in 2014. The discussion of “filmmaking” brought to mind that while some of the artists over the years did shoot video along with the frozen microseconds of time in the photographs, as near as we can tell, Dave did not. We should at least pop in an Instagram link for him — which we have now done — and we should most definitely give you a way to get to Holly Randall, the über-talented photographer on this shoot. You can find Holly lots of places, but if you want to really get to know something about her, you should look into one of her workshops.
