MuchMusic Argentina transcript 1001
January 2001, MuchMusic (Argentina).
Thanks to Leni for the translation.
Interviewer: Welcome again to Argentina. We are all very happy that you are here again with Red Hot Chili Peppers.
John Frusciante: Thank you.
Interviewer: I’d like to ask you about the new album and I would also like to know if the title “To Record Only Water For Ten Days” has an special meaning.
John Frusciante: It was what I told to myself I had to do for myself to find the inside purity to make a record that had the feelings that I knew that John Frusciante could dump on a record, do you understand?. I had sensations and sounds in my head that I thought they might be for this record but I was not able to go to a recording studio or write them in a notebook. So what I did was imagine if my body were a recorder, how would be to record water for ten days. I had to wonder what it meant to me to record only water. I was a process that took two years because I was in a situation of imbalance that, it took two years to feel that when I made songs they were a pure representation of the fourth dimension, and that I felt really proud to bring that place to this place. For me, the title of the album simply means the purification of oneself.
Interviewer: You said that there was a John Frusciante and that now there is another John Frusciante. Do you miss something from the past?.
John Frusciante: No, I think I’m the best version of John Frusciante that could exist.
Interviewer: Do you think that you are a better guitarrist than before?
John Frusciante: I don’t know, I’m different, depends of your taste. If you like the harder style you would think that I was better. I’m not in the harder guitar style, I’m not being a guitar hero. I don’t like guitarrists who are heroes of the guitar. I prefer the guitarrists who get screwed but work hard.
Interviewer: For example?
John Frusciante: Bernard of Joy Division. Pat Mathew of Germs. Keith of Public Image. I don’t like guitarrists who all think that they are the big guitar heroes. I think I played like them before but now I think I play more like those people who don’t well what it’s doing. Because I like much more the sound, I like that sound. I think I sound much better now but I can understand that someone thinks that I was better in 1991.
Interviewer: I think that now you play with feeling… it’s better.
John Frusciante: I try to locate each note in a perfect place. Before it was all over the place.
Interviewer: You left the “virtuous” thing. I always wonder why when you play live, you never respect the melodies of the album. It’s amazing, but you never respect the riffs or the solos. You do different things on a same song.
John Frusciante: Because I like to read the air and this depends on every place where I’m playing. If Chad puts a note in a different place, that makes me that, twenty seconds later have to put that note in another place. Because I have to do a balance with what he does, with what happens in the air, and with what the audience is doing. All elements are involved when you’re on stage and you have to respond. I think it would be a shame to play every night the same thing. Because for me, every night is different. Playing the same thing would be silly. The feelings are very different each night. I have to play according to that.
Interviewer: What show do you remember that has been special about sensations in the air, like you say?
John Frusciante: I’m not good to remember cities, I’m pretty bad, Anthony is much better, I’m bad at it. I remember nights but I can not remember which city it was. But as I play different I don’t feel. Others come and tell me things like: “Today you were amazing” but I don’t realize. I think every night is unique, even though one night I don’t like, I don’t think that means much. I’m not worried to think about what I do because my opinion is neither as clear nor as defined as someone in the audience listening to me because he has the ear virgin. At the end of the show I’m in many places at the same time and I can not take the perspective of someone from the audience. I always give it more credence to those interpretations and feelings than mines.
Interviewer:You already have two albums and this new record is very different. I heard it five minutes ago and in my opinion there are more songs with a beginning and an end.
John Frusciante: In relation to other discs?. Yes, I believe it is a very intimate album. My other albums are intimate too but for this new record I wanted every note in a perfect place. Before, I made the songs and recorded them before having lyrics. Then improvised part of the lyrics. I recorded the songs before they were finished. Now I don’t do that, if I have an idea for a song, I consider it a gift from the cosmos, I consider it my responsibility to complete that song and record it in the best possible way. That is what I’ve done with these songs. When the ideas of the songs occurred to me, I wanted to be sure to finish each song, I wanted to be sure that the lyrics would make me feel proud in terms of words, how they sounded, and I recorded the songs in the best possible way.
Interviewer: I’d like to know if you could play without the Chili Peppers.
John Frusciante: No, I can’t imagine it. I was born to be in that band. There was a part that we went wrong and we didn’t want to be part of the others lives. But now we are in a moment that we need us a lot as persons. And being together in a band came after this, need someone as a friend. With the kind of chemistry that we have as a band is hard to imagine life without it. I am open to all sorts of things in my life but I know that I was born to be in the band. I don’t think that any musician could be in more that a band in his life where there is a real chemistry. And I think we are that kind of band.
