John Frusciante

John Anthony Frusciante (IPA pronunciation: [fruˈʃɑnteɪ]) (born March 5, 1970) is the guitarist of the Californian band Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom he has performed on five studio recordings (Mother's Milk, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Californication, By the Way and Stadium Arcadium). He also maintains an active solo career, having released eight albums as well as collaborations with friends Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Josh Klinghoffer and Joe Lally of Fugazi under the name Ataxia.

Frusciante is known for his complex rhythms, which form a considerable part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers's sound. As a highly influential modern guitarist, John Frusciante ranks 18th in Rolling Stone's "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Childhood

Frusciante was born in Queens, New York. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was 12. He is of Italian-American descent and his father, John Frusciante, Sr., was a Juilliard-trained pianist, while his mother, Gail, was a vocalist who gave up her career to be a homemaker. Gail and some of her friends would go on to lend their voices to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' song, "Under the Bridge".

Frusciante's family relocated to Tucson, Arizona, and later Florida. After his parents separated, Frusciante and his mother moved to Santa Monica, California. Frusciante became an avid music fan, growing particularly fond of Punk rock. Some of the artists he listened to at this time, such as Jimi Hendrix, the Ramones, Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, would influence his later musical career.

Even as a teenager, Frusciante was confident that he was a guitar prodigy who would become a rock and roll star. He has claimed that "voices in his head" since childhood, which he often refers to as "spirits", told him that he was going to be a rock guitarist before he had a proper awareness of what a rock star was. He left high school at the age of 16, after taking a proficiency test with his parents' permission, and with their support, he moved into his own home to focus on sharpening his musical skills.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Frusciante first saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers in concert as a teenager and became a devoted fan, especially of the work of original guitarist Hillel Slovak. He learned every guitar and bass part from their first three albums. Slovak, however, died from a heroin overdose in 1988 and drummer Jack Irons left the band due to personal problems related to Slovak's death. Bassist Flea and singer Anthony Kiedis eventually regrouped to continue with the band.

Frusciante had become good friends with D. H. Peligro (drummer for the Dead Kennedys) around 1988, and they often jammed together. One day, Peligro invited Flea to jam with them. The chemistry between the future band mates bore fruit almost instantly, with Flea saying in the liner notes of a re-issue of Mother's Milk that might have been the day that he first played the slap bass riff to "Nobody Weird Like Me". Flea was impressed by Frusciante's skill, and since he was looking for a new guitarist (their current replacement for Hillel, Duane "Blackbird" McKnight, was not working out for the band) he called Anthony Kiedis over to watch Frusciante play. It was a unanimous decision: Frusciante was in. Frusciante was about to sign a contract with Thelonious Monster at the time (and had actually been playing with them for two weeks), but Flea and Kiedis immediately fired McKnight and hired Frusciante. Drummer Chad Smith would join the band two weeks prior to recording their first record together.

Around this time, Frusciante also auditioned for Frank Zappa's band but left before the final try-out because Zappa strictly prohibited illegal drug use among musicians in his band. In an interview, he said, "I realized that I wanted to be a rock star, do drugs and get girls, and that I wouldn't be able to do that if I was in Zappa's band."

When Frusciante was asked to join the Chili Peppers he was thrilled, claiming to have "boot marks five feet high on the wall in my room for months after that call."

Mother's Milk

Soon after, Frusciante recorded his first album with the Chili Peppers, Mother's Milk. Produced by Michael Beinhorn, the album didn't stray too far from the funk that dominated the band's three previous albums; Frusciante's playing on this album is heavily influenced by Slovak's playing. According to Anthony Kiedis' autobiography Scar Tissue, Frusciante and Beinhorn fought often about the tone of his guitar and double layering. Frusciante's personalized guitar style was not yet fully developed at the time of this album.

Mother's Milk was the Chili Peppers' first Gold Record, helped by their first hit single, a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground". The album contained the song "Knock Me Down", which exemplified the band's increasing musical sophistication. The lyrics were written by Kiedis as a warning against letting friends lose control of themselves, inspired by the overdose death of Slovak; the guitar piece was written by Frusciante when he was just 18. The album showed that Frusciante had extraordinary chemistry with the whole band, not just with Flea.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

The band collaborated with producer Rick Rubin to record their second album with Frusciante, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. During the recording, the band isolated itself from the outside world and, with the exception of drummer Chad Smith, the band lived in Rubin's house. For the duration of recording, while Anthony and Rick had made a few ventures into society, John and Flea remained shut-ins and John consumed massive amounts of marijuana. The monastic recording conditions are well-documented in the 1991 Gavin Bowden film "Funky Monks". This was also the first album the band recorded on their current label, Warner, who had bought them out of their previous contract with EMI.

Around this time, John also started a side collaboration with Flea and Jane's Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins called Three Amoebas. They recorded roughly 10-15 hours of music, though none of this material has been published.

Departure and solo career

After the massive success of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Frusciante started to intensely dislike the popularity and status of the band. While at age 18, he enjoyed the band's hedonistic rock star lifestyle, Frusciante had, by this time, changed his attitude: "But by the age of 20, I started doing it right and looking at it as artistic expression instead of a way of partying and screwing a bunch of girls. To balance it out, I had to be extra-humble, extra-anti-rock star." Frusciante later expressed that the band's rise to popularity was "too high, too far, too soon. Everything happened or better everything seemed to be happening at once and I just couldn't cope with it." Following a performance at Tokyo's Club Cuatro on May 7, 1992, Frusciante left the band.

By this time, he had developed steady drug habits as a result of touring with the band in the past 4 years, as both Kiedis and Flea had addictions of their own. Performing with them as a teenager, Frusciante was inspired to take drugs as he looked to the others as his role models, saying in an interview, "The kids who smoked pot just seemed like burnouts to me. I was practicing ten to fifteen hours a day. But I never felt like I was expressing myself. When I found out Flea was stoned out of his mind at every show, that inspired me to be a pothead."

Upon leaving the band, Frusciante fell into a deep depression, unable to write music. For a time, he focused on painting and producing various 4-track recordings he had made during his time with the Chili Peppers. By shooting heroin, he felt able to progress with his life, more emotionally and spiritually connected to his music once again, and subsequently spiralled into a life-threatening four-year addiction.

In 2002, he remarked, “When I originally decided to become a drug addict, it was a clear decision. I was very sad, and I was always happy when I was on drugs; therefore, I should be on drugs all the time. I was never guilty — I was always really proud to be an addict.”

An infamous article published by the New Times LA in 1996 described in wrenching detail the decrepit state Frusciante's life had fallen into. Frusciante was described as "a skeleton covered in thin skin." At the height of his addictions, Frusciante was literally on the verge of death, having almost died earlier in the year due to a blood infection. His arms became scarred from improperly shooting heroin and cocaine into his arms, leaving permanent abscesses. The walls of his Hollywood Hills home were broken down and covered in graffiti, before an accidental fire would later burn the house down.

During this time, actor Johnny Depp and Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers ventured to Frusciante's house and filmed an unreleased documentary short called Stuff depicting the squalor in which Frusciante was living.

Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt

Frusciante began recording his first solo album, Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt, in 1992, prior to leaving the band. It was eventually released in March of 1994 under the American Recordings label. He was deeply involved in the production, performing and recording almost all of the instruments and vocals.

The album was a great departure from his previous work and would mark the beginning of the lo-fi, experimental sounds that Frusciante would continue to pursue for much of his solo career. Many tracks were filled with psychedelic layered guitars and strange effects, such as backward instrumental recordings and the speeding up or slowing down of his vocal tracks. Frusciante's singing on the album was very raw, emotional, and often unintelligible.

The two titles referred to the first and second halves of the record, composed as a double album, because each had a significantly different sound. Niandra Lades was closer to his earlier songwriting but produced much more sparsely than any of his work with the Chili Peppers. Idiosyncratic songs such as "Your Pussy's Glued to a Building on Fire" and "Running Away into You" exemplified the contrast. Niandra also included a cover of Bad Brains' "Big Takeover". Usually Just a T-Shirt was composed of more abstract pieces consisting of many instrumentals, few of which followed traditional song structures. Every song on this side is untitled.

Frusciante claims that his music is a gift from spirits that frequently spoke to him. He has said about these spirits, "I was so happy that someone was visiting I’d make food for them. When they were gone, I’d cry."

Smile From the Streets You Hold

Frusciante's 1997 solo album Smile From the Streets You Hold was released in order to get "drug money", according to Frusciante himself and was later withdrawn from the market. It was written and recorded largely in the style of Niandra Lades: lo-fi, with uneven, gossamer, layered guitar work and rough, impassioned vocals that are often unintelligible. The late River Phoenix appears on the album providing vocals for the two songs "Well, I've Been" and "Height Down", while also playing guitar on the latter. Frusciante has promised he will one day re-release the record.

Return

By 1997, Frusciante had decided to quit his drug addictions cold turkey, later entering a rehabilitation facility and beginning his full recovery. Part of his physical recuperation involved removing and replacing all of his teeth with dentures to avoid a lethal infection.

In the years following, he also began to live a more spiritual, ascetic lifestyle, changing his diet and practicing yoga. His attitude on taking drugs completely changed: "I don't need to take drugs. I feel so much more high all the time right now because of the type of momentum that a person can get going when you really dedicate yourself to something that you really love. I don't even consider doing them, they're completely silly. Between my dedication to trying to constantly be a better musician and eating my health foods and doing yoga, I feel so much more high than I did for the last few years of doing drugs."

Despite his harrowing experience as an addict, Frusciante has cited in several interviews that he does not view this time as a "dark period" in his life. “I don’t look at it like that. That was the period that I learned, when I got my mind straight about everything that I needed to know. I really value that period of time,” he said in one 2006 interview.

Musically, with the following albums he also began to move away from his guitar virtuoso influences, emphasizing new wave sounds, chord changes and tones over his previous stylistic work on hard rock and heavy metal solos. During Californication, Frusciante was influenced by musicians and bands he had been listening to at the time, including Matthew Ashman from Bow Wow Wow, New Order's Bernard Sumner and the work of the 80s band The Cure. For By the Way, he mentioned his desire to emulate guitar players such as The Durutti Column's Vini Reilly, Johnny Marr, John McGeoch, and XTC's Andy Partridge, or as he put it, "people with good chords."

Californication and By the Way

Free of his addictions and ailments, Frusciante was asked to re-join the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Flea was not enjoying the band without John, so he contacted him to ask if he would be interested in joining the band again. The band welcomed the guitarist back into the fold with open arms. Frusciante's recovery, along with the support of Flea and Smith, inspired Kiedis to attempt to kick his own drug problems. In 1999, Californication was released with Frusciante back on guitar. The album was a sonic celebration of life and rebirth ("Scar Tissue"), and also an exploration of Hollywood superficiality.

The band recorded a follow-up album in 2002, entitled By the Way. Frusciante was a significant influence on the techniques employed on the album and styles heard, which one can see by comparing By the Way's manner to even their previous album. It has a poignant sense to it and contains more textured, worked, revamped (all of which Frusciante is known for) and melodic tunes rather than short, rap-driven verses to power the recording.

To Record Only Water for Ten Days

During the Californication world tour John wrote his own songs, which would be released on another solo album called To Record Only Water for Ten Days (2001). This album was not nearly as stream-of-consciousness and avant-garde as his previous solo albums, but his lyrics were still very cryptic and the sound of the album was notably sparse and stripped down.

TROWFTD sounded significantly different from his previous solo work as well as his RHCP output. The songwriting and production was more efficient and straight-forward compared to Niandra LaDes and Smile, and in terms of genre, the songs strayed from the rock pop he had just written with the Chili Peppers on Californication, taking on a more New Wave quality. Instead of focusing mostly on his guitar work, John became interested in synthesizer sounds and textures, and his synth is a prime feature of this record.

Frusciante began his To Record Only Water for Ten Days tour on January 27, 2001, with a performance at The Borderline in London. The tour concluded on June 10 with a short show at The Ruby in Los Angeles, and all 16 concerts featured only John on acoustic guitar with minimal effects, with DeFacto as supporting act, marking the start of a long friendship with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.

21 unreleased songs were posted on John Frusciante's official website as a demo album, From the Sounds Inside. These songs are taken from the To Record Only Water era of Frusciante's solo career and are different, sometimes unmastered, versions of songs on the album.

In 2001, John also contributed to the first of what would be many musical collaborations with friend Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume One.

2004 recordings

Beginning in 2004 and concluding in early 2005, Frusciante began an ambitious project, releasing seven albums within a twelve month period. Following the release of his fourth full-length solo album, in June, Frusciante officially announced that he would be releasing six new records over the span of six months. Each album would be recorded in different styles and genres, and be released through the label Record Collection.

The following seven albums of Frusciante's most fruitful musical period represent an array of rock music that often incorporates instruments, tempo changes, and electronic sounds uncommon to traditional Western rock. Many of these tracks were recorded live, as with the albums following Shadows. Frusciante wanted to produce these records quickly and inexpensively on analog tape, shunning modern studio and computer-assisted recording proceses.

In February 2004, John released Shadows Collide With People which featured guest appearances from some of Frusciante's closest friends, including Josh Klinghoffer from The Bicycle Thief, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez from The Mars Volta, and RHCP bandmates Chad Smith and Flea. It is his most polished sounding album to date. He later released demo versions of almost all the tracks through his official website, and a selection of the tracks which were recorded in his living room and featured only vocals and acoustic guitar.

The Will to Death was released at the end of June 2004. The album intentionally lacked the meticulous editing and high production cost of Shadows Collide with People, as John wanted the album to be "imperfect" compared to his highly produced Shadows.

Automatic Writing was released at the end of August 2004. It is record of five long jams with hypnotic bass lines and experimental guitar parts. The album was under the name of Ataxia. Ataxia includes Frusciante on guitar, Josh Klinghoffer on drums and Joe Lally (bassist of Fugazi) on bass, with all three contributing to the vocals. Automatic Writing and is apparently the first half of recordings the trio did together under the name Ataxia. The second half of the Ataxia session, as well as an electronic record that was a collaboration with Josh Klinghoffer once again, are currently in the mixing phase and are yet to be released.

DC EP was released in September 2004. It included just four tracks and totaled less than 15 minutes. The record was produced by Fugazi's Ian MacKaye. Frusciante was accompanied on this album by Jerry Busher on drums.

Inside of Emptiness was the fourth of the six albums. Recorded in just 6 days (8-13 March) this album adopted a heavier feel than previous Frusciante releases. John himself said that one of the solos was accomplished by "beating the fuck out of his guitar". Frusciante was once again accompanied by Klinghoffer and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez makes another appearance. The album was released in late October 2004.

The final album of 2004 was A Sphere In The Heart Of Silence. Klinghoffer shared equally in the production of this album, and the record was released under the name "John Frusciante and Josh Klinghoffer". Recorded in April (9-11, 14-15), the fifth album in the series was not released until November.

Curtains completed Frusciante's productive journey. Officially released February 1, 2005, the album was recorded in May 2004 (8-14, 19-23), so it can still be considered a part of Frusciante's prolific year. The album is mostly acoustic, recorded in Frusciante's living room, and has the most commercial appeal of the albums in his series of six. It was also the most critically well-received. Accompanying Frusciante on this album were Carla Azar (from Autolux) on drums and Ken Wilde on upright bass. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez made another contribution, adding lead guitar on two tracks, 'Lever Pulled' and 'Anne', where he and John play two dual guitar solos.

Each of the Record Collection albums' artwork was designed by Lola Montes and each was engineered by Ryan Hewitt.

John was also kept busy with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2004 as they embarked upon a summer tour in Europe. The band played in stadium-sized venues in their biggest tour to date. The band unveiled three new songs on this tour: "Leverage of Space", "Rolling Sly Stone" and "Mini-Epic". A live album called Live in Hyde Park was released, compiling live tracks from the band's Hyde Park shows in London. Two of the new songs, "Leverage of Space" and "Rolling Sly Stone", were included.

He also performed in Los Angeles together with guitarist Michael Rother of Neu! and Kraftwerk fame. Playing with Rother was like a dream come true for Frusciante, who has been a great fan of the guitarist for many years.

Frusciante revealed in March that he has plans to make a remastered version of the internet album, From the Sounds Inside and also to make all of his copies of Smile from The Streets You Hold, which he has sitting in a warehouse, available to the fans by selling them through his official website, stating: "I recently listened to 'Smile' again and really loved it, it's really a wonderful album and it should be out there, people should be able to listen to it".

On the 23rd of April, Frusciante participated in the All Tomorrow's Parties festival curated by Vincent Gallo, who Frusciante is quite close with. He played an acoustic set of songs ranging from Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt to Curtains.

Frusciante was also featured on The Mars Volta's Frances the Mute playing solos on the song "L'Via L'Viaquez".

Stadium Arcadium

In 2005, Frusciante entered the studio with the rest of the Chili Peppers to work on their 9th studio album: Stadium Arcadium. The recording commenced on 16 March , and the album was released in the United States on May 9 of 2006.

Frusciante's guitar playing is dominant throughout the album, and he provides backing vocals on the majority of the tracks as well. As revealed on the album's bonus DVD, Frusciante, who usually is a "less is more" style of guitarist, has gone all out on the album using a full 28 track mixer to display the full range of his guitar arsenal. In the arrangements, he uses a wide range of sounds and playing styles ranging from the Blood Sugar Sex Magik days all the way up to By the Way. Several reviews have stressed that Frusciante's influence from Hendrix is evident on his solos on this album, with Frusciante himself backing up this view in the UK guitar magazine Total Guitar. In addition to his guitar playing, Frusciante expanded his use of effects throughout the album, giving all 28 tracks a rich and textured feel to them. His different pedals range from the Electro-Harmonix English Muff'n fuzz to the Holy Grail Reverb, each one lending itself to specific verses, interludes, or guitar solos. In the studio, Frusciante and album producer Rick Rubin worked tirelessly on over-dubbing guitar parts, tinkering with harmonies, frequencies, envelope filters, and nearly everything in the sonic effect arsenal to create the multi-layered tracks we hear on the album today.

Future

From 2006 to 2007, Frusciante will be touring with the rest of his bandmates in the Red Hot Chili Peppers in support of Stadium Arcadium. He will also be featured on two of the songs on the new Glenn Hughes (of Deep Purple fame) album, Music for the Divine, along with Chad Smith who will be playing the drums. He will also be featured along with Flea on one track, "Hard Life", on the debut album by Perry Farrell's new group, Satellite Party.

Frusciante appears with The Mars Volta on their new album Amputechture. Band leaders Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have been quoted saying that Frusciante had a much larger role in The Mars Volta on this CD. He also tracked all of the guitar work for the next record by The Mars Volta during the creative process, which allowed Omar to work more as a producer for the album.

Frusciante played alongside Flea, Ikey Owens, Josh Klinghoffer, etc. on Bob Forrest's debut record made up equally of cover songs and original tracks. The album, Modern Folk and Blues - Wednesday, was released on September 19, 2006, and includes Bob playing "The Dying Song" featuring John, who wrote the song, on guitar and backing vocals.

Frusciante has finished working on the second Ataxia album, but a release date is unknown. The German fansite johnfrusciante.de is reporting its release date as February, 2007.

Josh Klinghoffer is working on the drums for 17 songs John has written for his next solo record, the follow up to Curtains which he stated might be out in 2006, though this was stated in early spring. He spoke of it having a more orchestral and classical feel, perhaps implementing new instruments or playing piano as he has done in the past. There are also more electronic songs written with Josh Klinghoffer as a sequel to A Sphere in the Heart of Silence, which will be worked on whenever they find time during the Stadium Arcadium tour.

Other upcoming contributions include:

• A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume Two
• Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II
• The Diary of Ic Explura – A new project featuring Toni Oswald and Josh Klingoffer.

Discography

Main article: John Frusciante discography

External links

• www.johnfrusciante.com - John Frusciante's official site
• www.myspace.com/johnfrusciantemusic/ - Official Myspace page
• www.jftab.com - RHCP/John Frusciante guitar tablature archive/forum
• www.invisible-movement.net - John Frusciante fansite
• Synthesis Magazine review
• [1] - John Frusciante fansite
• Romanian Fansite
• Spanish Fansite
• Dutch Fansite
• John Frusciante's Guitar Rig