The Will To Live. John Frusciante: singer, guitarist, soloist & Red Hot Chili Pepper
Last modified: 21:58:42 CET on 31 Jul, 2009 |
Gitarre & Bass (Germany)
Many thanks to Sabrina Samwald for translation.
Click the thumbnail for scans.
He’s one of the most important but at the same time least acknowledged guitarists of our time: John Frusciante. His time as songwriter for the Red Hot Chili Peppers brought the young musician from New York the stardom which almost cost him his life in the middle of the 90s. After several years in the swampland of drug addiction he accomplished his return to release the very successful records “Californication”, “By The Way” and “Stadium Arcadium”. On January 27th, John Frusciante celebrated furthermore his 11th solo release since 1994 with “The Empyrean”. Another reason to introduce the life and work of this exceptional musician.
Knock Me Down
It’s June 30th, 1988, 1pm. A haunting silence dominates this hot afternoon at the Forest Lawn Cemetery [translator’s note: Hillel was buried at Mount Sinai Memorial Park, or am I mistaken?] in Los Angeles, California. The warm summer breeze blows through the treetops of the palm trees [I don’t want to criticize the author of the article again but there are no palm trees there] and you can hear the ever pulsating life of the heart of Hollywood only from afar. At the Jewish cemetery on the contrary you can’t feel any turbulences of the metropolis: Too deep goes the pain of the many attendant mourners when at this time the body of a young man with the name of Hillel Slovak is entombed. He was 26 years old when his demons defeated him.
At this time Anthony Kiedis is on his way to Mexico. In a small beach hut he wants to gain back his consciousness. He wants to become clean. Arrange his ideas. Digest the shock. When the message reached him a few days ago that his friend and fellow musician Slovak died due to an overdose of heroin and that he was found dead by an acquaintance in his flat the shock paralyzed every single one of his muscles. How come that his brother by soul [I can’t think of a better translation] lets him down like that? Just now, when the two of them seemed to start a musical crusade from California over the rest of the world with their band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and their third album, “The Uplift Mofo Party Plan”. Several days Kiedis partitions himself and tries to find explanations for the death of his guitarist, being aware that it could’ve been him just as well.
But the early death of the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers did by no means come suddenly. After releasing “The Uplift Mofo Party Plan” in 1987 directed by producer Michael Beinhorn, following “The Red Hot Chili Peppers” and “Freaky Styley”, the band gains more and more popularity even outside of their hometown Los Angeles, but looses their guitarist Slovak more and more to the heroin, which possessed the majority of the band at that time. In a band meeting only a few days after Slovak’s funeral the future of the Red Hot Chili Peppers will be decided.
While drummer Jack Irons – close to experiencing a nervous breakdown – quits the band, singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Michael “Flea” Balzary decide to keep the Chili Peppers alive in memory of Slovak and to look for a worthy replacement. Also a quite economic decision, considering that the record label EMI at this point already scented the superregional interest in the funk sensation from Hollywood. And because good advice can also come cheap, they knock at grandmaster George Clinton’s door, who recommends Darren Peligro and guitarist De Wayne “Blackbird” McKnight to the remaining Peppers. Only a few sessions are enough before they realize: The magic that always kept the Red Hot Chili Peppers together will never work in this formation.
I’m Around
John Anthony Frusciante is 15 years old, when he sees the Red Hot Chili Peppers play at the sold-out Variety Arts Center in Los Angeles for the first time. Before he moves to Santa Monica (near Los Angeles) with his divorced mother Gail and immerges in the scene at Sunset Strip there, the - until then - combined family lives some time in New York, Arizona and Florida.
Frusciante is an uprooted loner and hasn’t many friends at that time. As an outlet he uses a cheap classical concert guitar with a sunburst finishing, which had been given to him by his music loving parents when he was six. The guitar becomes his best friend together with some scratched vinyl records and a radio with integrated cassette recorder. He spends his days and nights – only interrupted by occasional skateboarding – mainly in his room, improvising to songs by Zappa, Hendrix, Captain Beefheart and The Germs – sometimes up to 15 hours a day. After his graduation from high school, he turns away from his home and moves into his first own flat. Even though he spends more and more nights out in L.A., he still devotes his life to the music and busies himself, besides with rock and punk idols of his time, also with solemn progressive rock bands like King Crimson and Yes. The young John Frusciante hasn’t played in a fixed formation yet and slowly starts to look out for jam partners. He buys an Ibanez RG 250 DX as equipment – a powerstrat with two single coils and a humbucker.
His juvenile dreams of a wild rock star life full of drugs start to shape when he’s just 18. He cancels an audition for Frank Zappa because he’s afraid that that could be the end of his regular drug consumption. He decides to continue improvising with his newest acquaintance from the Sunset Strip, Darren Peligro, instead– after all the new drummer of his favorite band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Every now and then he also has instrumental jams with Peppers bassist Flea, in which amongst others “Pretty Little Ditty” is created, which will later appear on “Mother’s Milk”.
All along starts an increasingly deep friendship between the 18-year-old freak and his musical hero. At that time it doesn’t even enter the equation to give the job of Slovak’s successor to Frusciante instead of McKnight: The manic New Yorker friend with the Mohawk haircut and the many stickers on his guitar is misjudged for being too young and inexperienced.
