Madman or Genius?

Have you ever heard of John Frusciante? The name might not ring a bell, but you’ve heard his guitar playing on the radio countless times before. Like most peoples’ first encounter to John Frusciante, mine was heard through the opening melodic licks of the mega-hit “Under the Bridge.” This little ditty was from a band that went by the name of “The Red Hot Chili Peppers”.

The guitar on “Under the Bridge” was so slick that it had me hooked right away. The more I listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers after that, the more I became fascinated with their guitar player, John Frusciante. Even though Frusciante didn’t have the popularity of their hyperenergetic bass player Flea, or their charismatic wild man, lead singer Anthony Kiedis, It was John Frusciante’s guitar work that stuck out from all that in a major way, and it was a major reason for the band’s success.

The more I followed John Frusciante, the more I would learn that he experienced both colossal highs and death-defying lows in both his musical career and personal life. Born in 1971 and raised in California, Frusciante dropped out of high school when guitar playing and rock music took hold of the guitar prodigy. Embracing both the unpredictable side of rock (Frank Zappa, Steve Vai, King Crimson, Funkadelic) and punk (The Germs, The Ramones, Black Flag), Frusciante created his own guitar style — combining both technical skill with a knack for penning funky, psychedelic riffs. The Red Hot Chili Peppers became an automatic fave when the young guitarist discovered them early in their career, and his dream to join the band came true in 1988, after striking up a friendship with the Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea (in the wake of founding guitarist Hillel Slovak’s death from a drug overdose). Interestingly, Frusciante was just seventeen years old and the Peppers would be his first band.

Frusciante’s first recording with the Peppers, 1989’s Mother’s Milk, resulted in their first gold record, with John’s amazing guitar playing serving as a catalyst for many of the songs. The group next released an even rawer record, 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik (One of the greatest albums ever, in my opinion). The album would catapult the band into the rock stratosphere, as it became a multi-platinum hit and made the little LA punk band one of the premier bands of the 90’s.

But all was not well in Pepperworld. Frusciante found it increasingly difficult to handle his newly found fame, and retreated into a haze of hard drugs and unpredictable behavior. At the height of Blood Sugar’s success, John abruptly quit the band while on tour in Japan. John Frusciante didn’t want to be famous; he didn’t relish his celebrity status and he hated what the band had become. When asked by the media what he said to tell the band on why he quit, he replied, “Just tell them I went crazy.” ‘Crazy’ is what John Frusciante had become, while also being quoted of saying “Voices in my head were getting louder, and the one discernable thing they were saying was for me to go” After he left, the spirit of the Peppers seemed to fade and so did the music (as evidenced by the lack of acclaim for One Hot Minute, the band’s 1995 follow-up to Blood Sugar).

Besides releasing two haunting obscure solo albums (1995’s Niandra Ladies and Usually Just A T-Shirt and ’97’s Smile From the Streets You Hold), little was heard from Frusciante since splitting from the Peppers in ’92. Then a disturbing article about John appeared in the L.A. Weekly, which painted Frusciante as a heroin abuser with a deathwish (the interviewer from LA Weekly was also shocked at his ghastly appearance).

The story that follows John Frusciante from here is UNREAL, jaw dropping, as well as fascinating! So interesting, that Johnny Depp filmed a small documentary on Frusciante’s life, two years after he quit the Chili Peppers. It’s a VH-1 movie in the making about a misunderstood madman/genius who pretty much died and came back to life.

I was personally drawn to writing this story because of the following story that was posted in LA WEEKLY. It surfaced in 1996, and picked up a few years after Frusciante quit The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

(this article is being inserted in text)

What came after this interview was considered a “miracle” and the ultimate rock’n’roll comeback story.

In 1997, Frusciante was finally persuaded to rehab, and he was finally able to kick the three-year habit that contributed to the loss of his Hollywood Hills home and the gradual deterioration of his body. John’s remaining teeth were removed and replaced by dentures in order to avoid a life-threatening infection. His right forearm appears badly burned, his face has changed, and his speech, though filled with interesting insights and word games, is slurred and erratic.

John shortly after treatment became obsessed with playing music again. Just a few months after getting his life back on track and facing the world again, he got back in contact with the rest of his ex-Pepper mates, whose then-current guitarist, Dave Navarro, had just split from the band. Flea discovered John’s remarkable recovery and asked John back to the band, and although there was still some tension between John and Anthony, Flea asked John if he would do them the honor. John, elated, said yes, and he still thinks of it today as one of the best decisions he made in his life. After a loose jam session (as well as a psychological evaluation) was deemed a success, The Red Hot Chili Peppers were back together, and I couldn’t have been more happier to hear the sweet sounds of John Frusciante’s guitar again.

The band would go on to make on Californication soon after. It is their best-selling album to date, and most of this is because of Frusciante’s writing skills and his complete passion for creating music and art.

(Frusciante’s own words on how everything went down)

“Once I actually stopped taking the drugs I was taking and started living a very simple sort of life …
I had this tiny little guest house I lived in. I had just enough room for my records and very little else. I just sat there every waking moment, practicing all the time. After six months I felt like I was good enough to be making little demo recordings and stuff. I had joined the Chili Peppers. If it wasn’t for joining the Chili Peppers I would have never put that amount of time into practicing. The only reason that I make music now is because Flea and Anthony had the belief in me that they had when I rejoined the band.

Because I’d play with other people around that time, like Perry Farrell, but he couldn’t see it as the future. He had no belief in me. He just knew what I was at one time, and what I was now, which was significantly less than what I had been. Whereas Flea and Anthony saw what I could be. They had a vision. I don’t even know that they knew what I could be. To them, they just thought I was great right then. They just thought the sound of us playing together is the greatest thing in the world. It’s just a chemistry that’s there. I don’t think they were thinking, “Oh, in five months he’ll be good.” They were thinking, ‘This is the greatest thing in the world right now.’

The feeling that that gave me, to actually have these people believe in me … because nobody believed in me. I could see it in the way people would look at me. I was a loser. Flea and Anthony, to them, I was a winner. Playing with them every day inspired me. I was just playing along with records every day. I started as if I hadn’t played guitar before. It was like I had lived another life, and I was starting life again, only I had the ability to learn everything about how to do and how not to do things from this past life. I really was starting from a fresh point. From point A again.

When I was 18, there was a point A. When I joined the Chili Peppers I had the ability to do anything. I had total freedom to do anything. I misused that freedom. I didn’t do things right. For the first couple of years, I really fucked off and wasn’t disciplined at all. Didn’t focus on music at all. So by the time I was 20 and I wasn’t actually focusing on music, I was totally off balance.

This time, I was starting from a fresh place. Whether I was a failure, or whether I was a loser, I believed in myself and I knew the right way to do things. I’d thought about things enough. I’d spent enough time regretting things enough to know the right way to do shit. Whether it was practicing guitar, or whether it was how to treat your friends or whether it was how to settle an argument between you and a friend or how to love somebody. I finally had the stuff under my belt, so this time I was going to start again. Because forever it just felt like I was trying to crawl out of a dirt hole. It felt like all my drug addiction and all the bad behavior of my youth had just put me down in a hole, and I could not get out.

I just wanted to get out and get into life. …
It’s been a good path since then, because I’ve grown and changed and gotten better at a pretty even level. I’ve stayed disciplined the whole time, and I don’t ever lose sight of the fact that in the equation of what makes the music that I make, I’m a very small part of it.
It’s the music that I listen to. It’s pain. It’s the friends that I have, whether they’re human beings or spirits. That’s where the music comes from. I’m just going on from that line. I was really blessed to be able to start from that fresh point and to have friends who believed in me. It would have been impossible without them. “Those times in my life during which I stayed far behind my potential and this is what I’m trying to catch up with now: those three or four years in which I could have been creative ­ but I wasn’t due to my inner problems. Already I’ve got tons of music which I’ve not published anywhere. It’s all about the music”

Today, John Frusciante is completely clean, and more focused than ever. No drugs, no alcohol, no junk food- Just music! Frusciante uses his downtime to execute another ambitious campaign of his: (Six solo albums in six months) “I live to make music and I treat it like nine to five job. For anybody who thinks that I’m just rushing through it or going too fast or something, I’m not,” says Frusciante. “I just know the songs really well. If I’m going to sing a song, I don’t sing it twenty times, I just sing it once. If I need to fix a line or two, I fix ’em. To me, a band, especially a rock band, should be good enough where you should just be able to go in and play the song. Every artist could make an album every month if they wanted. It’s all about your work ethic.”

John has since dedicated every ounce of his being to music, art, and creativity in general. He is The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ secret weapon and guiding force throughout the years (and perhaps the reason for their huge success) and he will always be regarded as a man wholly dedicated to music. His story of struggle and triumph has inspired me personally, and John’s music has become the soundtrack to my everyday music listening.

John Frusciante…now you know.

—Chad Zumock

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