A lengthy interview with John on Resident Advisor
This seems to be a very exciting time to be a John Frusciante fan. Resident Advisor, the website that broke the news of the Trickfinger full release has graced us with another interview. Even though they talk about an enormous number of fansites and a cult of people who apparently have nothing else to do; it is a very insightful read.
The whole interview can be found here and some excerpts are below the image.
Some excerpts
Acid stuff was a start for me to learn to start thinking in numbers rather than physical movement. Numbers were already a big way I thought in terms of the guitar, but yeah, using numbers for rhythm was a different way of thinking for me. The acid stuff was the beginning of me learning to think in a completely different way, but it was about three years after that that I was able to do the really fast breakbeats with the Black Sabbath-y stuff. It seems like it was a good two years before I even got started using samples, really. I felt like I needed a few years of training under my belt understanding step programming before I was going to jump into chopping up breakbeats.
[…]Is the communal aspect of live performance something you’re interested in?
I’ve been to Autechre shows where people are dancing, but I’ve also been at shows where they’re sitting on the floor with their head in their hands. I have friends here in town who put on raves and stuff like that, but I’ve never been drawn to doing that. I guess because I played so much live music for a long time, it seems really foreign to me to go on stage and do that. Aaron and I tried to do it a couple times, and it was as if the universe was against it happening. Playing live is not something I have any interest in. I’ve definitely had my fill of it. Performing for me is just repugnant. I appreciate the idea of being on stage and people responding with their bodies. I like being a part of it from the audience perspective.
I think in general, the greatest, most important ideas that have ever occurred in mankind have come from individuals, people who are not worried about what people would think but had some kind of internal guidance from their imagination, and who made it their objective to do their will, regardless of the danger it might put them in, or regardless if people might want to kill them or disagree with them. I think it’s really important for people to trust their inner guidance and not let the outside world be their guide. To me, letting the outside world be your guide is like being a slave, and I think that who we really have to thank for any progress mankind has ever made have been leaders, people who were uncompromising and people who spent time cultivating their imaginations and weren’t afraid to be alone and weren’t afraid to be different.
