the Stone Poneys

This article originally appeared in the April 1996 issue of SPIN. “Los Angeles is my favorite city in the world!” declares super foxy Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro, offering as proof of his conviction the city’s name tattooed on the back of his neck. “I would never live anywhere else.” Navarro, drummer Chad Smith, and I are wedged into Newsroom, a trendy Beverly Hills restaurant/coffee house/media mill where omnipresent TV monitors serve up the latest from the E! network with your rice-milk cappuccinos. “But I feel like the bad is taking over,” says Smith, an unadulterated rock dude and Detroit native who, Navarro says, wrote the book on that city’s infamous evening of arson known as Devil’s Night. “I wouldn’t want my kids growing up here,” admits Smith, who at age 33 s...