John Frusciante Puts His Stamp on Stadium Arcadium
Last modified: 2:59:35 CET on 16 Jan, 2010 |
November 2006, Guitar Player (USA)
thanks to Caroline for typing it out
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Those given to cosmic speculation might easily conclude that John Frusciante was born to play guitar in the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Having followed the band from its inception, and having mastered all the songs in the Peppers' repertoire, Frusciante was a de facto understudy for guitarist Hillel Slovak, and the natural choice for Slovak's successor when he succumbed to heroin addiction in 1988. Following the runaway success of 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Frusciante became disillusioned with the rock star life, leading to a six-year hiatus from the band - but he returned just prior to the new millennium, and his guitar playing and songwriting are currently more inpired and compelling than ever.
Frusciante has a voracious musical appetite. One moment he's spinning vintage vinyl by John Lee Hooker and Cecil Taylor, the next he's extolling the virtues of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, and the next he's name checking artists as diverse as Funkadelic, Black Sabbath, Brian Eno, John McLaughlin, and Squarepusher - not to mention perennial favorites such as Hendrix, Clapton, and Beck. His living room walls and much of its floor are home to thousands of CDs and LPs.
Complementing Frusciante's passion for music are his love of recordings and his fascination with pure sound. "As a person whose job it is to make sounds, it's important for me not to overlook any of the various properties that sound possesses," he explains. "Studying modular synthesis has taught me how to approach music in a completely different way, and now I think in terms of giving sound width and dimension, rather than just in terms of what my fingers are doing. You don't have a chance to think that way when you're caught up in the actual playing. It's only in the studio that you can really explore that."
Although showcasing the vocal was producer Rick Rubin and the band's prime directive when recording and mixing the Chili Peppers' new double-disc, Stadium Arcadium [Warner Bros.], Frusciante's sonic watermark is evident throughout. "A big part of my concept for the record was to have the music be constantly revealing itself from the beginning to the end of the song," he explains. "Some songs build more than others, but they all have various elements that get added as the track goes on." Here, Frusciante reveals those elements in exhaustive detail.
Frusciante Stadium Pals
GUITARS: '55 and '62 Fender Stratocaster; '69 Les Paul Custom; Martin 0-15.
AMPS: Marshall Major and Silver Jubilee heads. Marshall 4*12 cabinets with stock Celestions.
EFFECTS: Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble, DS-A Distortion, DS-2 Turbo Distortion; Electro-Harmonix English Muff'n fuzz, Holy Grail Reverb, Big Muff Pi fuzz, POG Polyphonic Octave Generator, Electric Mistress Flanger; DOD 680 Analog Delay; Moog MF-105 MuRF, MF-105B Bass MuRF; MF-101 Low-Pass Filter, MF-103 Phaser; Ibanez WH-10 Wah; Dunlop DB-02 Dime Custom CryBaby.
STRINGS: D'Adario .010-.046
Why did you call the two discs on Stadium Arcadium Jupiter and Mars?
As we wrote more and more songs, we started toying with the idea of doing two separately released albums, but we ended up putting everything that we felt super good about on a double CD. Then it just seemed like a good idea to give each disc a name, so that people would thnk of the 28 songs as two 14-song albums, each with its own vibe, and not get overwhelmed. As far as Jupiter and Mars, we liked the idea of the planet of creative intelligence, Jupiter, having the force and the drive of Mars, the warrior, which is the planet of manifestation of what you feel is right from inside. Any creative person has to struggle against all the forces in the world, and inside themselves, especially, that are working against them. You've got to be kind of a warrior to be an artist, and to stand up and be the best you can be in the face of criticism and adversity.
Where and how was the album recorded?
The album was recorded at The Mansion in Laurel Canyon, thougha few overdubs were done at the band members' home studios, and at Rick Rubin's studio. We recorded to three synchronized 2-inch, 24-track machines, running at 30ips, and mixed to analog tape as well. [Enginner Ryan Hewitt notes that the console was a Neve 8068 with 31102 mic preamps, and that Neve 1057 and 1073 mic preamps were also used for some tracks.] The basic tracks, including, with everyone playing together in the same room. For a lot of it we even had our amps in the same room with the drums, and we allowed for bleed, as I was really into trying to capture some of the atmosphere of '60s recordings, and also have that extra push you get when you know you've got to nail the take because you're all in the same room.
What's your philosophy regarding perfection vs. imperfection when recording?
There's a fine line between good imperfections and bad imperfections. You might have played on the wrong fret, or played an open string you didn't mean to play, and if you're a really self-critical person, you might immediately want to fix that. But, it's important to listen to those things a second time, and get other people's opinions. For example, during the solo on "She's Only 18," I was on the wrong fret for a second, but I just kept the flow going, and the solo was awesome. Once you stop fighting with mistakes, you actually roll with them, wait for them, and welcome them. They're one of those things that the spirit of music likes. If there are no mistakes, a record has no vibe.
What microphones did you use to record your guitars?
I use a Shure SM57 positioned on axix a couple of inches from the cone. On some tracks the engineer, Ryan Hewitt, added a Royer R-121 ribbon mic, positionned about 15 feet away, in order to capture some of the room sound. We used a Telefunken Ela M 250 tube condenser mic on the acoustic guitars.
