While You Were Sleeping interview
The interview almost ended as it began. John Frusciante starts talking about the 6 records he’s putting out over the course of 6 months, and then he stops. “You guys are making me uncomfortable,” he tells the photographer and myself as he walks back to the car that drove him to the scenic overlook on Mullholland Dr.
“You’re not allowed to take any more pictures of me until I get my shirt,” he snaps at the photographer.
He’s suddenly shaken about the appearance of his forearms, which look dry and opaque and old-lady blue in spots where he scabbed them up with needles of smack and coke more than half a decade ago. It’s not pretty, but this is puzzling. Frusciante has always been open about his drug-addled past, not proud of it, and certainly not defeated by it. And who cares about scars when those arms and hands make music that’s both popular and admirable? What’s a scar when you’re a star? What’s a scar when you are a master of the guitar?
He relents and sits back on the bench.
“I thought you were staring,” he says.
I hadn’t even noticed, I tell him.
“I am insecure about it, but I shouldn’t be,” he admits, and we continue, talking about things that do matter, like music and the spirits.
You often speak of music as a beautiful way to help people overcome pain. Do you think you were compelled to release so much music at this time because of the state of the world right now?
That might be one of the reasons why something like this could happen right now. Energetically, I must have some kind of impetus coming from somewhere because, five years ago, I couldn’t even make any music at all. I was incapable of doing something that I could play back and feel good about, and now all this music has come out of me. Certain music, if it just reaches a few people, it could make a big difference in the future. I was told five years ago by a spirit that my music needed to be here so two other people could hear it. [Those two] were just little kids when I was being told the information, but they were eventually going to be something great. I’m really proud to play that role. I can’t think in terms of my music changing the world today because my music is not very popular. It just doesn’t reach that many people.
I guess my feeling that music’s main purpose is helping people [cope] with their pain has to do with the fact that, when I was in a lot of pain, musicians and my images of musicians and their music: that was what got me through the times; listening to music or thinking about them. I automatically feel a physical reaction just by thinking of people that I love who are musicians. I exercise now wearing a heart monitor, and if I think about watching Fugazi live, my heart slows down.
You once said that crappy music comes from crappy spirits. Can you elaborate?
I think everything everywhere is a reflection of spirits. I believe – to me – the world that spirits live in is a world that works in conjunction with people’s thoughts. The way we connect with spirits is through our thoughts. Their realm is very similar to a realm of thought. They are like personalities who were invented through thought. I believe that their world is constantly working as a sort of mirror of this world. But anything that is happening on a linear time frame is happening on a non-linear time frame up there. If you have negative thoughts, the negative spirits will want to be around you. If you have interesting thoughts and colorful thoughts, those spirits will be around you.
It’s important to get to the point where you don’t feel like spirits are using you, but to feel like you are in control of your own situation. There were times in my life when I was living in such fear all the time – I was scared of where a spirit was trying to push me. I was paranoid about it all the time. I eventually came to realize that if I just focus all my energy on music, if I just listen to the music that really makes me feel something, and if I just work as hard as I can to learn that music, to understand that music, and what makes it so beautiful to me – if I make my own life as creative as possible – then I don’t have to worry about spirits trying to fuck up my life.
So do you think that people need to learn structure or form to be great?
For me it’s always felt like, the more I learn, the more I develop my ability to take ideas that come from other dimensions and put them through music. Studying theory or learning a John Coltrane solo on guitar, or learning a Charles Mingus song on piano, that’s the stuff that helps me to be there for whenever music decides to come through me.
I do think if you look at musicians who have longevity, it’s very unusual that you will find someone who has not put in a lot of studying. You see rock musicians getting worse after a few albums and you see jazz musicians getting better even when they’re old men. I think rock musicians, a lot of times, especially if they make a really great first record, lose sight of progression. I see somebody like Sam Rivers, an old jazz musician-he’s 71 years old-and he plays as good as he ever did.
Do you think that you might have lost sight of progression when you quit the Red Hot Chili Peppers?
Oh yeah. I was finished. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t see how I could continue playing music again. There was a period of about seven months before I quit the band that I really wasn’t practicing the way I had been, and I really hadn’t been doing anything to exercise my mind. All I’d been doing was recording on a four-track and taking all kinds of drugs all the time; pot was the only thing I would take consistently at that time. There was lots of recreational drug use and not really any discipline to balance it out.
Was there any distinctive moment or time that you recall there was a turning point in your life?
It was my life going in a circle, and when the circle was complete, I joined the band again. The same goes for them. When you are in a band with people, you are very connected to them. Even when you are not around them, your lives are working in conjunction with one another. When I quit the Peppers, they had a whole circle that they had to go through, and both circles were completed at the same time.
Which is more fulfilling to you, playing to a massive crowd with the Chili Peppers, or putting out these solo albums?Hmm… Those are just two totally different things. I personally like recording more than I like playing live. I am a musician more than an entertainer. Being on stage and being entertaining to people is something I’ve grown into doing, but in my heart that’s not what I was born to be doing. If I can make people feel something on stage, it’s because of me, of how I’m playing. It’s not because I’m doing a certain dance step or I’m doing gyrations and sending them into a sexual frenzy.
—Mike Coyle
