His Guitar Just Wouldn’t Let Go

The Hollywood Hills home of Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante has been the site of prolific musical activity lately, but the Moderne-style house also has reminders of a time when the musician flirted with oblivion.

An impressive collection of framed Andy Warhol movie posters alludes to days when his main activity was sitting in a drugged stupor watching Warhol and Bogart films.

And as he now sits on his living room sofa, Frusciante, 34, makes no effort to conceal arms whose smooth, scarred surface makes him look like a burn victim — testimony to years of indiscriminate injection.

“I used to O.D. on cocaine all the time on my own and get myself out of it,” he recalls. “It was like a game for me, it was fun. That was how I got my kicks, from getting as close as I could to dying without actually dying.”

“John’s a very extreme person in what he does,” says Flea, bassist and co-founder of the Chili Peppers. “He never half-steps with anything.”

Rock musicians’ fascination with the abyss has become a familiar story, but few have gone so far out and bounced back so strongly as Frusciante.

He’s been back in the Chili Peppers for seven years after quitting for five, the band is at the top of its game, and he’s ensconced as an A-list guitar hero (he’s one of the elect on the cover of Guitar World magazine’s 25th anniversary issue). He has just wrapped up a series of six solo albums that, remarkably, he’s releasing in a seven-month span.

Frusciante’s lost years mark one of the most turbulent stretches in the history of a band that has made a byword of turbulence. Ironically, he came aboard in 1988 as a stabilizing force, a teenage fan of the rowdy, popular but erratic L.A. band who got to join his idols and help transform them into a group with credibility and a substantial body of work. His pure, soulful style helped turn the band from a manic, funk-based act into an often pensive unit with depth and texture. His second album with the band, 1991’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” was a commercial and artistic breakthrough, in part due to his co-writing role with singer Anthony Kiedis on the image-changing hit ballad “Under the Bridge.” It was a dream come true for Frusciante, who was born in New York but grew up primarily in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.

Then he threw it away.

“There was a lot of things going on at that time,” says Frusciante. “Anthony and I were getting along less and less. Basically we got real successful and his response to the success was to bask in it, to hold on to it for everything it’s worth. And my attitude was to resist, to back off…. I think it’s a healthy way to respond to success.”

He also felt that touring threatened the creative routine he had developed at home. So Frusciante abruptly quit the band during a tour of Japan and went off to indulge his demons.

Frusciante lived on royalty checks during his half-decade on drugs, but eventually the money and the creativity dried up. When he finally went into detox in 1998, he was surprised to find his old bandmates, who had made one album with Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, eager to reconcile, even though his musicianship had deteriorated.

“It didn’t matter that my fingers were very weak and my guitar playing didn’t sound the way it used to sound, and that I couldn’t think as quickly musically,” he says. “They didn’t see any of that stuff. They saw in me what I was capable of, and for that I’ll always feel indebted to them…. It’s the best thing anybody ever did for me.”

Now he’s clear-eyed and in control.

“I’ve seen John go through a lot of phases in his life,” says Flea. “Right now he’s is in my favorite phase that he’s ever been in. He’s beautiful with his relationship to music, he’s become a much more kind and giving and caring and understanding person. I just think he’s in a really great space right now.”

Frusciante couldn’t be in a much better situation. The Chili Peppers are about to record a new album, hoping for a spring release. He has a progressive-rock instrumental band with Flea and Omar Rodriguez of the Mars Volta as an outlet. There have been two successful Chili Peppers albums since he rejoined, “Californication” and “By the Way.” And when the band took a six-month break in late 2003, it was a chance to do even more work.

“I’m not somebody who’s really big on going on vacations or things like that,” says Frusciante. “For me it’s about playing music all the time and about studying music all the time. Listening to music all the time…. ”

During the break, the guitarist found himself with about 70 songs he’d accumulated over three years. Instead of discarding the bulk of them or taking years to release them, he began recording quickly, and before he knew it he had his series ready to go. He was shooting for six albums in six months, but a printing error on the cover delayed the December release of “Curtains.” It now comes out Jan. 25.

Released on the Santa Monica-based Record Collection label, the albums — “The Will to Death,” “Automatic Writing,” “DC EP,” “Inside of Emptiness,” “A Sphere in the Heart of Silence” and “Curtains” — reflect his diverse taste, from raw, cathartic rock songs to progressive instrumental explorations to electronically enhanced experimentation to the acoustic sound of the finale.

“I always have to try to go in an extreme from what I’ve last done,” he says. “Even in that six-month period, to me each record is completely different from the next….

“Basically I just keep changing. I like to keep contradicting myself, whether it’s in the style of music I’m playing or in writing lyrics. It’s games of contradiction that keep me interested in what I’m doing.”

Frusciante didn’t want to do any marketing, figuring the records would find their natural audience, but he’s been surprised by how little attention they’ve received in specialty publications that generally revere his work. He thinks it might be a case of too much too fast.

“I’d definitely like to dispel any notion that there’s very little effort going into it or that I’m doing some kind of throwaway albums or something. It’s just the way my life is structured that I have to release them that quickly. My only option is to do a lot of albums during a short period of time when I can.”

But he stops when he hears himself complaining.

“It’s all positive to me, because in general where my life is at is really positive. I have a few really good friends, I love being in my band, I love being given the opportunity to make the music I’ve made.

“It’s such a blessing to me. I didn’t have anything five years ago…. I had no freedom at all before, and now I have nothing but freedom.”

—Richard Cromelin, Times Staff Writer