Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro took his idolatry of Jimi Hendrix too far - when the rock god inspired him to take heroin.

However, the BEEN CAUGHT STEALING musician - fiance of former Baywatch stunner CARMEN ELECTRA - made the most of his drug-fuelled years, and credits his debauchery with making him the man he is.

Navarro explains, "I found out that Jimi Hendrix did a lot of heroin, so I started doing a lot of heroin. And one day I woke up and I was like, 'Jimi Hendrix must have been bummed! God! He must have been bummed out man, this sucks!'

"But it was messy in such a beautiful way.

"There's nothing I would change about the past, and there was some decadence that we tapped into that's just life experience, it's responsible for who we are today and if we hadn't got through those things we wouldn't be where we are today.

"And, frankly, some of those messy times were good f***in' fun!"

But, Dave, who also played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, concedes, "You stop killing yourself, you're gonna be more of a positive person."

06/08/2003 17:14