By: Rick Landers

Guitar International caught up with Them Guns‘ front man, Navarone Garibaldi, to talk about the group’s music, guitars, snakes and a plane. Although, brought up with the aura of celebrity, as the son of Priscilla Presley, “Nav” has paid his dues playing dives, sitting alone grinding through the challenges of crafting melodies and lyrics that grip and crank up an audience’s need to rock and roll, today he and his mates are making a name for themselves in their group, Them Guns.

In a world where pop music, silky lyrics and auto-tuning abound, the explosive riffs of the powerful synth-rock group, Them Guns, clear the arteries, rippling sonic booms straight to the soul. Heavy metal and all its thunder can be discovered in small bars and packed large venues, with all the strutting pomp, drama and flash, borne in the Sixties and now unleashed decades later.

Navarone’s survived the troughs of family strife, the temptation’s of life, and is now on a positive focused path to work his family’s musical stock and trade, as well as has moved forward to support and reclaim family connections before unknown.  He left home at 18, and eventually found what in hindsight seems inevitable, a life that now embraces music as a passion and a career.

The electric quartet, Them Guns, pulls together Navarone on guitar and vocals, Kyle Hamood (keyboards/drums) and Chuck Holiday (bass) and percussionist, Chris Hudson. Together they rock the rafters with a mix of their originals.

Guitar International is pleased to present Navarone Garibaldi on its pages and to highlight the music of Them Guns, a group apparently named in some fashion after the classic film, “The Guns of Navarone”.

THEM GUNS AT L.A.’S TROUBADOUR ON AUGUST 23 – TICKETS HERE.

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Rick Landers:  Let’s start out with how you met your band and are you the leader of the band?

Navarone Garibaldi:  I would say it’s kind of a co-led band. Me and the keyboard player, I would say are equally important parts.We met in Santa Cruz, I think in 2005 or 2006, maybe. And we started playing together in  2010.

I had a drummer in mind, he lived in L.A. and we were in Santa Cruz. So we came to L.A. and he was playing in another band, so we went to go see him play, and the bass player in that band was just really, really good. So I was like, man, I want a guy like that. You know, the band ended up breaking up, I think a few months later. So I said, “Hey, how about you join us here?” And he did it.

 

Rick: So did you have a vision of what you wanted? Not just the music itself, but the look of the band that you wanted? Because I have a band and I wanted a standup bass player, ‘cuz I’m doing Americana stuff. I knew what I wanted musically and “the look.” Did you have kind of a thought process?

Navarone Garibaldi: You know, we have, I feel like we’ve kinda gone through a few different phases depending on who’s the most fashionable in the band at the time, that kinda leads it. We had for a while another bass player, his name was Drew and he was kinda more fashionable.

He was like a really Sixties and Seventies style, and we had more of that look for a little bit [Laughs]. And then for a while we were more just in casual kinda stuff. And finally getting a nice little wardrobe together of some nice good looking special occasion outfits. [Laughs]>.

Rick: So, who’s in the band at the moment?

Navarone Garibaldi: It’s me, Kyle Hamood and Chuck Holiday. And then our drummer is Chris Hudson.

Rick: And so are you getting a lot of gigs or are you traveling? Are you touring at all?

Navarone Garibaldi: We just signed with a a booking agent. So, hopefully, we’re gonna be starting some festivals, and some tours will be great. We also signed with a European booking agent. So, hopefully we’ll be going all over the world, hopefully Brazil. We’re booked at The Troubadour in L.A., on August 23rd. You should come out, it’s going to be a great show.

Rick: How many songs have you released at this point? Is it just the one?

Navarone Garibaldi: No, we have a full album that’s been released, and then we have I think maybe three or four singles. And then we have our second album with two singles from that are out. The album’s called, Dark Horizon.

Rick: And what is that, twelve songs?

Navarone Garibaldi: Ten on this one. But, we’ve already started working on our next one. I think  our next one’s gonna be like a 15, 16 song album.

Rick: From what I’ve heard you’re playing pretty much hard rock and it almost sounds like classic rock, but you’ve  added some other elements from different eras, and you’ve got a great voice. Your vocals are really strong and you’re, like “in your face” a lot. Do you also do ballads and, and other styles on your albums? Or are you looking to do that in the future?

Navarone Garibaldi: It could happen in the future. I’ve been doing a little bit of solo stuff as well, and I’ve been working with Jorgen Carlson. He’s the bass player from Government Mule.

Rick: Ah, okay. Yeah. Warren Haynes’ group.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, cool. So, I’ve been going to his place and working on some stuff, and that’s kind of a little bit more melodic and calmed down.

Rick: Is he in the L.A. area?

Navarone Garibaldi:  Oh, yeah, he’s like a literal hop, skip and jump away from my house. And that helps. [Laughs]

Rick:  I’ve got a Dobro player, he’s like right around the corner. When you were first ready to get out and perform, where you doing open mics or doing cover songs? Or had you already started playing originals?

Navarone Garibaldi: We came out pretty much from the start with originals. We started our first show that we ever did was at this tiny little, like in the middle of the woods bar, that’s technically called Felton Music Hall, but it’s actually Santa Cruz proper. But it’s a  tiny little biker bar. And at that one the first song that we ever played was the “Sympathy for the Devil’ [Laughs] by the Rolling Stones.

Rick: I’ve gotta tell you, back in the ’70s the first time I played in a bar in Michigan that’s the song I played. One guy came up to me and told me I had a lot of guts. [Laughs]

Navarone Garibaldi: It’s a great song, great song. You get a good reception from the group.

The bar said they were considering not having music during the week anymore. And then they’re like, “Man, you guys came and we’re gonna be having you guys back a lot!” And so we started playing there. And then the next big show we did was actually in Santa Cruz, a place called the Boom Boom Room, it’s kinda like a small little blues bar. And we booked a show for February 17th and something happened, and they either they called me or I called them and said, “Hey, look, we can’t do this February 17th.” And the booker says, “Well, let’s just move it back a month and, and we’ll do March 17th.”

That’s perfect. He didn’t take into account that that’s St. Patrick’s Day. And so it was kinda like, I think maybe, two months out that that was gonna be happening. And then about a month out, he calls me and he says,”Hey, we didn’t realize that we booked you on St. Patrick’s Day, and we kind of have a bigger act that we kinda wanna book for this day. Can we change it again?”

And I was like, “No, no, no, no, we’ve already booked this, we’ve already sent out invitations. We’re doing it this, this time.” And he was like, “Okay, fine. And it ended up being a huge show, like a sold out show! And so we started a residency there at the Boom, Boom Room.

Rick: That’s cool. Wow. That’s great. So, he was pretty happy. And what was it, what was he looking for? Like a Celtic group, some Irish guys?

Navarone Garibaldi: [Laughs] No, I think just more of like an established band, but it was only, I think that was our second or third show. So yeah, I think they wanted someone that they were for sure gonna bring with them people.

Rick: It’s good you stuck your guns on that, so you know, Them Guns makes sense.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah. [Laughs]

Rick:  I was recently reading how Sting came up with songs, and it sounded like mostly, either a phrase comes to him or he comes up with a title and they start from there, or he’ll noodle most of the time. And, it’s like a puzzle and you start putting a puzzle together. Is that kind of how you write songs yourself or how do things come to you?

Navaronne Garibaldi: Man, it seems like whenever I try to write a song, it just doesn’t really come out [Laughs]. And then, literally sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, put a pen to paper, wake up in the morning, and there’s a song written that I don’t even remember writing. So, sometimes they just come in the moment of inspiration and sometimes they’re a real drag to work on. [Laughs].

Rick: Do you record stuff so you remember how they go? Because sometimes, you know, I’ll forget. Oh, great. Thinking, where did that go?

Navarone Garibaldi: I should. [Laughs]. I should, but I don’t.

Rick: Well, if you’ve got the chord progression,  you can kind of remember it, but if you don’t, yeah, then you forget, then you hope it’ll come back.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah. Exactly. They usually do.

Rick: I found some of the better songwriters are also big readers, and they tend to be pretty curious. about everything. Does that sound familiar? Does that characterize kind of what you’re like?

Navarone Garibaldi: Oh, completely. Yeah. I love, I love learning.

Rick:  Are you curious about other things besides, you know, songwriting and playing music and like, do you have other hobbies or other interests that kind of tie into that?

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah. I’m a herpetologist. So, that kinda leads into other interests. So yeah, I’m a herpetologist. So for people that don’t know that’s the study of reptiles. I’ve been into those since I was a little kid. And in 2015, I saw there was an advertisement for, it was like six or seven days all inclusive in the Amazon jungle with three of the world’s top reptile experts.

It was like 1,700 bucks or something like that.

Rick: That’s not bad. It’s money, but it’s not bad.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, exactly. But it was like five different lodges catching everything you see, and it was good for your money, you know? And I was like, “Wow, that’s a deal!” Like, sign me up. So I signed up and I went the first time. And that was an amazing experience. It was so cool. I became really good friends with Tom Crutchfield. He’s a big guy in the reptile world. He became one of my really good friends. I’m now the godfather to his grandchildren. Wow.

Rick: Really? Cool.

Navarone Garibaldi: The first trip went great and then they were doing it every year, and they did it again in 2016. I missed it in 2017. I was like, all right, let’s go. So that time I went and had a totally different experience that time. It’s a bit of a long story to get into, but basically  extra-terrestrials showed up on the premises of, of where we were. Oh. And they were going into the rooms of people, Uh,huh <affirmative>. And I was sitting there listening too, it happened the entire night. It was pretty terrifying experience. [Laughs]

Rick: That was Brazil, right?

Navarone Garibaldi: That was actually in Peru. I tried to go to Machu Picchu. Before the trip. But I went there with my dad and he wasn’t the best at the travel planet. So, the trip did not work out. [Laughs]

Rick: That’s too bad. It’s supposed to be a fascinating place. I plan to go there at some point. Do you have reptiles of your own then, or?

Yeah, I keep and breed reticulated pythons which are, they come from Southeast Asia.  Indonesia. And so I keep and breed those. And then I have an Asian water monitor like a big lizard. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I just got an Anaconda recently.

Rick: [Laughs] A really, really young one or a long one?

Navarone Garibaldi: It’s a young one, and it’s a yellow Anaconda. The green Anaconda are the big monster ones. These ones come from either Uruguay or Paraguay. And, and they’re a lot smaller and they’re yellow instead of green.

Rick: So have you written a song about ’em yet?

Navarone Garibaldi: [Laughs] Not yet. [Laughs] You know what, actually, on our new album, there is a song that we do. It’s a cover, so I didn’t write it, but it’s a song called, “I Handle Snakes”.

Rick: Haven’t heard it to check it out. Well let’s get back to songwriting a little bit. There was a book written probably around the time you were born. It was called, Flow. This book is about those moments, that I think happens with songwriters. It’s when you get to the point where you’ve got a phrase that feels perfect, it clicks.  Like, everything’s perfect in the world because you’re right there where everything fits. Do you find that’s what you do when you find a lyric, when you think, “How’d I come up with that?”

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah. I feel like I also have a freaking entire notebook of one phrases. [Laughs] Do you really need the rest of the song written now?

Rick: Sometimes those phrases, you’re walking around, you’re going, that’s a good phrase. And you’re out and you’re, I don’t know, picking up groceries and you forget, you know?

Navarone Garibaldi: I for sure love that. And then I write that out, and then I go, “Where do we go from here?” Or, you know, like, that phrase is so great. How do you create something to keep up with how good that phrase that you thought of is?

Rick: And I think that sometimes all you need is one or two really good phrases like that in the song. As long as the rest of the song and the melody’s good, you get that, yeah. And people go, “Whoa, how do you do that? Or how’d she do that?”  Let’s see. Oh, so what guitars do you have at the moment, and what guitar did you start out with?

Navarone Garibaldi: My first guitar was Fender Strat. I started out right-handed. I play lefty, I’m a lefty. But, I started out right-handed when I was probably 12. And my hand was hurting. Like, this isn’t working out for me. I think I need a lefthand guitar. They were like, “No, you just wanna be like, Kurt Cobain, blah, blah, blah. But if you save up and you want, you can buy your own lefthand guitar,” [Laughs].

So I did, and I got myself a sunburst Fender Strat, left-handed. And I had a recital the next day, and I’d been practicing it right-handed, and I said, “I think I’m gonna do a recital left-handed.” I’m  like, “You’re crazy. Got this.” And I did the recital left-handed in a day. But, then after that, I was given an SG. [Gibson SG}

Rick: Was it Cherry red?

Navarone Garibaldi: No. It’s a sunburst, as well. It’s nice. It’s like a darker sunburst. And there’s an all white ES-339. It’s a hollow body and it’s like a really skinny hollow body Gibson.

Rick: What are the pickups?

Navarone Garibaldi: I’m pretty sure there’s Humbuckers. But, it was a custom thing that they did for me. Because Henry [Juszkiewicz], he was doing it, and I was like, “Oh man, thank you so much. I’ll come to Nashville to pick this up. Yeah, yeah. I don’t want you to ship it. ”

So, I fly to Nashville to pick it up, go to Nashville, headquarters of Gibson, pick up the guitar, open the case. And I don’t think that I specified that I’m a lefty.

I got this unique, one of a kind in the world right-handed guitar [Laughs]. I’m crushed [Laughs]. Oh my God. So, they said, “Oh my God, we’re so sorry.” [Laughs]. But they ended up making a white one, I still have. But you know, I also discovered that I [don’t] like white guitars, they kinda get like this yellowish hue to them after a while. So, sticking with darker guitars now.

Rick: I’ve read that you didn’t grow up in luxury, which, I would’ve expected. So did your mom purposely raise you to make sure that you had a normal perspective on life?

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, I think that was the case. Yeah. And certainly, I grew up and I moved outta my house when I was 18. The week I turned 18. I definitely had a privileged youth, but it was in comparison to other celebrity families, I think it was, and then as soon as I moved out when I was 18, I was pretty much on my own. I grew up pretty quick after that.

Rick: Yeah, yeah. A lot of lessons learned to learn, I suppose.

Navarone Garibaldi: I had a girlfriend that moved in from Minnesota, and I really liked her. And she lived in L.A. for about two months, and she asked, “Have you ever lived anywhere else?” I said, “No. She was like, people are not like this everywhere else, you need to experience somewhere else. I said, “Where?” She’s says, “Anywhere…Santa Cruz [Laughs], let’s go.”

Rick: Then I guess she was good for you at the time.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, yeah. She was good. It was good. But, now I’m back in L.A.

Rick: Do you feel your band has the right mix of instruments?

Navaarone Garibaldi: I always say a band is kinda like a puzzle, you know? But it’s like a puzzle that you only need five pieces, but they dump an entire puzzle onto the board. You have to find the pieces that are for that one puzzle within thousands of other pieces. So if there’s ever a chance that, you know, a piece fits with us nicely, I would not be opposed to adding another guitar player at some point. I mean I would like to have  a string section to play with. So I would like to add members, you know, as we go along.

Rick: Do you find that for some of your songs you’d like to have something that’s, I don’t know, like I’ve got a Dobro guy, but sometimes I’m thinking I could also really like to use a saxophone on a song, but I don’t have a saxophone player. But, you can’t really do that unless you’ve got money to go on tour, and then you gotta pay somebody, more musicians, to come and play.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, you’ve gotta use tracks.

Rick:  Are you gonna be touring soon? I know you’ve mentioned you’ve got a booking agent.

Navarone Garibaldi: That’s the plan. Hopefully we’ll be doing some festivals and some shows inside the U.S., hopefully some Europe shows, and yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re working on some Brazil shows, which would be incredible!

Rick: What about acoustic guitars?

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, I have a Gibson Hummingbird that I’ve had since I was 16 probably, so it’s a great guitar. But, I was a little bit too young when I got it, I think. I didn’t take the best care of it. I was throwing knives one time and I missed the target. I hit my guitar. So it’s got a little bit of living in it. It’s got some history. And then recently I just got my second acoustic, a Martin D-28.

Rick: Oh yeah. That’s the one to get. They’re great guitars. So let me show you, let me show you a couple guitars. Wanna see a couple?

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah. Let’s see.

Rick:  You were talk about beating up a guitar. This is a 1946 Gibson J-45.

Navarone Garibaldi: Wow.

Rick: It’s a little beaten up, but it’s got this beautiful sound. Here’s another, this is a 1931 Gibson L-00.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah. That’s really cool.

Rick: When you get into the studio, I assume you’ve been in the studio several times. What was it like when you first got into the studio compared to what you do now? Are you more technical? Do you go, “No, no, that’s not what I want?” And you feel like you’re more in command? I mean, you’ve gotta guide people so they know what your vision is for the songs.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah. I mean, I feel like freaking recording has changed so much in the past couple years. You know when I first started going to the studio, it was like an experience. You go in, we rented a nice, like a recording studio. We would go to Westlake (California) to some great studios that had history to them and other artists you liked had been there. And you rented it out for a week or a month and you had your ideas and you went and hammered them out.

And now I feel like all the studios are just in producers’ garages. And so it’s a whole different thing. I mean, I don’t really like it as much as I used to. You know, it’s fun doing it all on Pro Tools, but I enjoy live recording and the whole band plays the song. And now it’s just kinda all just okay; the drummer’s gonna go Tuesday, bass player comes in Wednesday.So if I could, I would really go back to the old way of doing that.

Rick: Yeah, so it can be so different. And some of the producers are just playing on their laptops.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So, where we practice right now, we practice at Sound City. And that’s not what it used to be, you know, that used to be a whole factory for creating music. And now it’s just a few separate people having separate rooms and they do their own thing in each room.

Rick: Are they like contractors? So they’re contracting out the space and they put in their gear?

Navarone Garibldi: Yeah, yeah. I think so.

Rick: The only issue with that is how do you get your mixes right. If you’re playing live, unless you have somebody who’s really set up your sound upfront. So do you have an engineer that you think you can rely on?

Navarone Garibaldi; I’m sure if we were to do it that way again, we would probably need to call on him. Dying breed, you know? [Laughs] I gotta take one onto the road knows your sound. And that’s kinda all things that we’re getting solidified now, before we get on the road soon. Actually, the one in Europe that we booked with, he actually comes on the road with us.

Rick: Oh, that’s good. And so he’ll be there, making sure it all goes smooth. So your new song it’s “Acid Plane,” right? How did that song come about? And what was your production experience, for you and the band? Was that live, or how did that work?

Navarone Garibaldi: I was on an airplane coming back from Switzerland. And it was a pretty life-changing experience. We flew over the Aurora Borealis, and so like, oh, cool, cool. The sky was turning crazy colors, and I was seeing glaciers and all that below. And kinda came up with the idea that there’s a nuclear fallout that happens while you’re on the plane and when you land, the only people that survived are the people that were in flight while the fallout on earth happened. And so, everybody lands and the only people that were on planes survive.  They have their own little colonies. Where they land. I don’t know, so we we actually just filmed a music video for that.

Rick: Have you done anything that “gives back,” like doing free concerts?

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, we’ve done that. We did a blood drive with the San Diego Chargers. I mean, pretty much any opportunity, we’ll do fundraisers. We’re open to doing any kind of charity work for sure.

Rick: You had an issue with your dad, and it sounds to me would’ve been pretty traumatic for you. And you would have to go, “How do I deal with this and move forward?” And, you went to Brazil to meet your family.

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, I did. And that was amazing. I mean, I don’t really even really have an issue, like no issue talking about it. I just discovered them when I was with my family in Brazil, and I was 30 and stopped communicating with my father, but actually I just discovered I have a sister from my dad.  I’ve been trying to coordinate meeting up with her, but that’s nice. Hasn’t worked out yet.

Rick: Nice. Is she in Brazil?

Navarone Garibaldi: No, she’s here in the U.S.. But, she’s in a different state.

Rick: Oh, okay well, I expect that will happen at some point. You’ve got your nieces that you’re very close to, I understand

Navarone Garibaldi: Then Riley and then the twins.

Rick:  So, you have that kind of family support, and with your mom, that we all need. What other projects do you have going on, that are percolating? Are you  a writer? Have you thought about getting into acting or anything along the lines of other art forms?

Navarone Garibaldi: Yeah, I’m writing an autobiography at the moment. But, you know, things just keep on happening. I’m like, “Oh man, I can’t finish right now. “[Laughs]

All these things that need to happen are starting to happen. And so that’s one thing I’m working on. I’ve done some acting. I actually was in the Lynyrd Skynyrd  movie that Artimus Pyle did. It’s called, A Street Survivor, the true story of the Lynryd Skynyrd plane crash. I play Gary Rossington.

Rick: Oh, did you? I’ll have to check that out. Wow, that must have been interesting. Was it hard to get into character?

Navarone: [Laughs] No, he was a musician, so t was pretty easy. I mean, the guys that they put in the cast were all dead on lookalikes for all of the characters. And I mean, that was pretty cool. The shooting experience was a little bit tiring. They wanted us there at seven in the morning and long hours, and pretty much you get there at 7:00 a.m. and one of the days, literally I got there at 7:00 AM and I shot my scene at literally 6:50 pm! And they were done shooting literally and in the last 10 minutes of the day. I had to be in makeup all day long.

Rick: Did you like it, once it was finished?

Navarone Garibaldi: I did. I actually am, and really thought turned out pretty good.

Rick: That’s an interesting side of the entertainment business. And it’s so much different than what we see on television or movies. You don’t see all that background stuff. So, do you prefer performing? There’s, let me change this question. Do  you prefer the songwriting where you get a song and you’re like, “Yeah, that’s good.” Or do you prefer performing the song to an audience that kind of gets it?

Navarone Garibaldi: Oh, for sure. If the audience gets it, there’s nothing, I mean, there’s nothing like having an audience sing along to your song. You know? That’s what it’s all about! [Laughs]

Rick: Is there anything else that you’d like to cover at this point that we haven’t?

Navarone Garibaldi: Hmm. You know, just that it’s a whole different world when I was with Spotify and all that, with a whole different ballgame. I don’t really know exactly how to work it yet, you know? With streaming numbers and we’re still trying to sell CDs [Laughs], you know? We’v got LPs and will be coming out with some vinyl. So, that’s exciting.

Rick:  I think it’s important to still have merchandise.

Navarone Garibaldi: Of course, yeah.

Rick: You know, I was watching an Elliot Smith video and he’s got a cheap Yamaha and he’s sitting on his toilet and its got 8 million views. So, I think if you have a good song there are ways to get your music out there, on your website, and then maybe market it.

Navarone Garibaldi: [Laughs] Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean there are different ways to do it where it’s affordable.

Rick: Have any shout outs to anybody who’s been supportive or a good mentor, who supports you not only in bad times, but they support you all the time?

Navarone Garibaldi: Just Kyle Hamood, my bandmate. He’s been there throughout this whole thing and I’m happy to have the band. And my mom’s always been supportive, of course. That’s great.

Rick: It sounds like you’re in a good place.

Garibaldi Navarone: Yeah, thank you.

Rick: Alright, I wanna thank you for doing this.

Navarone Garibaldi: Excellent. Amazing. Thank you so much, Rick.