Flea: John probably the best guitarist in the world
In a short but insightful interview posted on MusicRadar, Flea discusses the new Red Hot Chili Peppers, the upcoming I’m With You studio album and, most importantly, he gives more insight to John’s legacy than in any other interview prior to this. Moreover, he calls John the best guitarist in the world, which Invisible Movement pretty much agrees on and I hope most of you do, too. Here are the most interesting bits from this interview.
Flea on John’s creative input in the Red Hots:
At the end of the last tour, things felt very strained. And I said, ‘Let’s just take two years off.’ Because things just felt unpleasant, and not too functional – even though I was very pleased with the art that we were making, I thought we needed to get away from one another. I also think that we had been pushed together so intensely by all the work we were doing for so many years. So we all got away from it for a long while, and did other things. But I still thought that if John left the band, there was no way we would go on without him because John was such a big part of this band and of our writing process. He wrote a lot of the principal parts of many of our biggest songs.
Flea on Klinghoffer/Frusciante difference:
John was a virtuoso guitar hero type of player and probably the best guitarist in the world. Josh is a completely different kind of musician, he plays a lot of different instruments. Josh is an all-around talent. He plays guitar, he sings, he plays drums – so he’s a real musical guy.
As we know, John does most of these things as well -apart from drums – so one would have to wonder who edited this interview to make it sound differently? Does it sound more appealing that way? Is it going to sell more records?
You can read the article in its entiety on MusicRadar. The whole interview with the band will be available in the August 2011 issue of Red Bulletin. I’m not sure if there’s more concerning John, so you might want to check that out yourself.
