(Unknown)
2001, any more information would be appreciated
Frusciante’s third solo album, To Record Only Water For Ten Days, flows with sincerity and brilliance.
John admits it was a long journey to create the new album. “Three and a half years ago I had been trying to record music but hadn’t really written any songs in about four years. I was trying to record older songs of mine and I couldn’t do it. I always have these voices in my head, even at that time where I was feeling pretty empty, but occasionally voices would appear in my head and films would be shown to me in my head of the future. I asked them, ‘What do I have to do to be able to make the record that I know I could make? They (the voices) said, ‘Before you start writing this music you are going to have to imagine that, if your body was a tape recorder, what would it mean to record only water for ten days?’ I knew right then that was going to be the title of the record.”
The dynamic change and beautiful emergence in John’s singing voice over the last 10 years is one of the first things to hit you upon listening to the new album or hearing him perform since re-joining the Chili Peppers. “Three years ago, a voice told me in my head that I should try to stay within the limitations of Ian Curtis from Joy Division and Michael Stipe of R.E.M. In 1991 or 1992, I would do a lot of vibrato on my voice and I realized that to find myself as a singer I should leave that alone. My main intention is to sing the song with sincerity from my heart without any effects, doing it from as pure of a standpoint as I can. For me, I may think that David Bowie and Perry Farrell and Darby Crash are better singers than Ian Curtis and Michael Stipe, but they aren’t the singers who I have anything in common with though I still love them.”
John’s love for New Wave, a movement fathered in part by David Bowie and Iggy Pop, can be heard in the development and fullness of his new album with the addition of electronic drums/programming to the mix of interweaving guitar layers. “The first show in L.A. that I played with the Chili Peppers when I re-joined this time was a benefit for a play that was called Waiting For Iggy. The Chili Peppers did “1970,” “Search & Destroy” and “Loose” (all Stooges covers) and I covered “China Girl,” a song that Iggy Pop and David Bowie wrote in 1976 on the album The Idiot, and “Neighborhood Threat,” which is song they wrote together on Iggy’s album Lust For Life. I did those just acoustically and singing myself and I was proud!”
Another real man that is reflected in John’s music and groove comes from the father of Afro-beat and leader of the Africa 70, Fela Kuti. “Fela Kuti is one of these people who fought for what he believed in until he died. Whether or not he was going to win made little difference. He was a wonderful, beautiful person who did a lot of suffering to be able to create what he created and people should hear him.” The timeless music of the Velvet Underground is another source of inspiration that John loves deeply. “To me, their music is pure colorful feelings. If you make music that’s completely sincere and put it together with the sensibility of an artist, as opposed to someone that’s trying to fit into the sensibility of the pop world, that’s the music that’s timeless – the music that didn’t try to fit into the trends of the time.”
—Dan Ball
