Pop quiz, kids: Listen to The Panic Channel single “Teahouse of the Spirits,” and let’s play Name That Rock God.
Seriously, tap into myspace.com/thepanicchannel – where you’ll see that the new band plays the Bluebird Theater on Saturday – and tell me that’s not Dave Grohl behind the mic on that alt-rock rager.
Or not.
While “Teahouse of the Spirits” is a polished Foo Fighters knock-off, and while Panic Channel singer Steve Isaacs shares that earnest howl with Grohl, the marquee name in this band is another Dave. That’s Dave Navarro, as in former-Jane’s Addiction, former-Red Hot Chili Peppers, current “Rock Star” television host Dave Navarro.
It’s not that Navarro wanted another project on his already-slammed slate. It just kind of happened.
“Steve Perkins, Chris Chaney and I were all jamming at Steve’s house in his garage – just jamming, for lack of a better word – and at one point we thought it would be optimal to bring a vocalist in,” Navarro said by telephone from Boston last week. “We didn’t intend to create a band, but before we knew it, we had a body of work and we had a band. It was a very natural process.”
Intentional or not, the plot sounds familiar. The idea of three seasoned rockers in search of a lead singer almost reminds you of “Rock Star: Supernova,” the upcoming second season of the reality TV show that will pair musicians Tommy Lee (Motley Crue), Jason Newstead (Metallica) and Gilby Clarke (Guns N’ Roses) with a lead singer later this summer.
“In a bizarre way, it echoes what’s going on in my personal life,” said Navarro, who will again host “Rock Star” with Brooke Burke. “There are similarities between what’s going on with them and what’s going on with us.”
Only Navarro and his buddies didn’t need reality TV to find a frontman.
“Larissa (Navarro’s friend and manager) asked me to jam with Dave and the guys, and it was amazing and unexpected,” said Isaacs, a longtime Jane’s Addiction fan. “Before we knew it we had a song. And when songs come that quickly, it’s a really positive sign. We went with it, got a rehearsal room, started writing more songs and after we heard a sound developing, we made it official, gave it a name and made a record.”
The Panic Channel, together since the summer of 2004, has a sound familiar to fans of modern rock radio. Like Audioslave before it, The Panic Channel seems to be making music that is tailor-made for alternative rock fans. Beyond the aforementioned Foo Fighters inflections in “Teahouse of the Spirits,” the band also has the ’80s-styled power ballad in “Why Cry” and more aimed at the FM dial.
Early reaction is strong, but it’s impossible yet to decipher between the excitement over the music and the fandom that constantly surrounds Navarro. The band’s viability will become clearer with the release of of its Capitol Records debut “(ONe)” on Aug. 15.
However the album is received, Navarro is enjoying himself immensely.
“I’m just having the time of my life doing this,” Navarro said. “What’s really exciting about it is that it’s been so long since I’ve just gone into a garage with a couple of friends with absolutely nothing and created an entire body of work and an album and taken it on the road.”
The band members are keeping themselves entertained by staging guerrilla performances throughout the country. For example, they played an acoustic midnight set on the conspiratorial grassy knoll in Dallas near where President Kennedy was assassinated.
“We got this idea to do these guerrilla acoustic performances, because we’re in so many great cities,” Isaacs said. “So when there’s time, we find a place with a story and a power and a mythology, and we play acoustically and videotape it and hopefully come home with a log of our record acoustic.
“We just come up with the idea a couple hours before, and then we bring candles, chalk and guitars.”
The chalk comes into play via the band’s spiritual side. The band’s icon, a “Star Trek”-looking design they call a sigil (literally: a symbol created for a specific magical purpose), is often chalked onto sidewalks and walls outside the venues. The band, while young, is trying to create a mythology, spirituality and iconography surrounding its music – and it seems to be working.
“Stephen Perkins is a very spiritual guy, and he channels that through his music,” said Isaacs. “And Dave, through all of his struggles and addictions in his life, has become a very spiritual guy in battling that and conquering that. And so nothing happens without a certain amount of humility and reverence to whatever the creative spirit is about.
“We’re paying respect to whatever it is that is helping write the songs, because when you’re really feeling the power of creativity, it’s not you. There’s something else there that’s helping.”
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
The Panic Channel
ROCK|Bluebird Theatre, 8 p.m. Saturday with Bullets & Octane|$15|ticketweb.com, 866-468-7621
