Dan Navarro carries on
Whether he’s writing songs, singing jingles or voicing characters in popular gaming videos, Dan Navarro is a case study in how to build a diverse career. Best known for his songwriting and performance work with the late Eric Lowen in the folk-pop duo Lowen & Navarro, he’s never been afraid of taking chances.
“When the red light is on, I’ll take a swing,” says Navarro, calling from his home in Los Angeles. “In acting or recording music, that light means the recording is going. Some people freeze up when they see that. But I just go for it.”
Navarro had a long run with his artistic partner Lowen, first as a songwriting team then later as a recording and touring act. Lowen died in 2012 of complications from ALS, a neurological disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Together the two wrote songs covered by a long list of artists including the Bangles, Dave Edmunds and Dionne Warwick. Most notably, they penned Pat Benatar’s 1984 hit “We Belong.”
After Lowen’s death, Navarro launched a solo career. He’s putting the finishing touches on his album “Shed My Skin,” planned for release in early 2018 on his own label, Red Hen Records.
“It has taken me nearly five years to make the new record,” he notes. “At 65 years old and 30 years into my career, it’s my first solo studio album of original material recorded under my own name.”
Musical talent runs in his family. His cousin is Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Navarro’s eclectic career includes voice work in film (“The Book of Life,” “The Lorax”), television (“Family Guy,” “American Dad!”) and video games (“Uncharted 4”).
“My movie work — which is what I call the voice-over, commercials and games — is my day job,” he says. “It provides me with a pension and health insurance. It’s the security aspect of what I do and it supports my gigging.”
He has learned firsthand about the enthusiasm of the gaming community. After one music performance, Navarro was chatting with an audience member.
“I mentioned that I had done the voices for two characters in the action role-playing video game ‘Fallout 4,’” he says. “The man was so excited he started jumping up and down. It’s a gas to see what projects affect people.”
Q: Who are your chief influences when it comes to songwriting?
A: My songwriting idols are Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell. I come from the semiconfessional, put it all out there school. If you use your individual experiences and you do it right, they are universal. Those three songwriters showed me that in spades. They aren’t writing bland, innocuous songs. They are writing incisive stories. Dylan has written some of the angriest songs I’ve ever heard, and they work.
Q: You had a number of day jobs in your early years before you were able to do music full time. What were some of the notable ones?
A: I went to work for Tower Records as a clerk, which was just about the coolest thing I could be doing in 1975. I also worked at a restaurant for singing waiters — the Great American Food and Beverage Co. There were three of them in Los Angeles and they were well-known at the time. The actress Katey Sagal worked there. There were a lot of musicians on their way up and on their way down. Working there was a way to have a day job and still be musical. The toughest part was that it was also the center of our social lives. As such, it was easy to play the part of a musician but not really do the work. It could’ve been a deadend job, except that’s where I met Eric Lowen in 1979. Everything changed when I met the person I would have a 30-year relationship with.
Q: You and Eric wrote the Pat Benatar hit “We Belong.” How did that song come about?
A: In 1983, I was working at an ad agency and Eric was doing odd jobs and painting houses. He called me up and said, “Let’s write a song for no reason. Let’s just do it.” At the time he wasn’t much of a songwriter — he’d only written four songs in his life. We wrote “We Belong” in 90 minutes. We had no way of knowing what it would turn into, but we knew we had done something light years better than we had ever done before. It was the perfect storm of timing, emotion, frustration and trust.
Q. How did the song come to Pat Benatar’s attention?
A. Eric took it around to publishers. Everyone turned it down, including the guy who eventually accepted it. I don’t know if it was an accident or not, but it wound up in a box of tapes that went to Pat Benatar. As she was going through the box, she pulled that tape out, listened to “We Belong” and said, “I want this one.” It was like a lottery pingpong ball. When the song came out, it hit the charts at No. 45 and went Top 5 for three weeks. It has now gotten credit for 4 million U.S. radio plays. The magnitude is beyond me. I’m just a guy who sits around the house, plays guitar and sings. I got really lucky. I can’t be anything but eternally grateful. Pat Benatar’s choice to record that song changed my life permanently. Thank you, Pat.
Q: When you and Eric formed Lowen & Navarro in the late 1980s, what were your expectations for the duo?
A: When we put out our first record, I was 37 and Eric was 38. We thought if we could play together until we were 40, we’d be ahead of the game. The duo lasted 22 years. We often joked that our partnership lasted longer than all three of our marriages put together. It was a really special relationship.
Q: Eric was diagnosed with ALS in 2004 and passed away eight years later. What was that time like for Lowen & Navarro as a duo?
A: It was the long goodbye. I had experience with ALS. My ex-wife’s father’s girlfriend was diagnosed with it and had lived five months, so I’d been through it. Eric had suspected he was ill for about a year, especially as the symptoms deepened. The diagnosis was devastating to him. We didn’t know how long he would live. We knew he would die of it, so we just went off great guns — Eric said he wanted to keep going until the wheels came off. It turned into five years on the road with him ill, three of them in a power wheelchair. It was profound. We kept going and going. By the time he retired, he couldn’t sing. He was in danger of dying on the road from breathing issues. That’s when we pulled the plug on the duo. We went out with a farewell show, one of the most tearful experiences I can remember. He was my best buddy.
Q: What advice would you give to an aspiring singer-songwriter?
A: Show up. Give it your best. Be willing to fail. Swing away again.