TG Awards 2006
Band of the Year
Winner: Red Hot Chili Peppers – 17%
Runners-up:
Avenged Sevenfold- 16%
Trivium: 14%
The Darkness: 12%
Bullet For My Valentine: 10%
Muse: 8%
Dragonforce: 8%
Black Label Society: 5%
Lostprophets: 4%
Cohen & Cambria: 3%
Everyone’s favourite funk rockers pipped Avenged at the post for the Best Band award, but as John Frusciante reveals, the recording of the Chilis’ latest album almost split them up for good…
TG: You’ve won Best Band in TG’s first Readers Awards ! So what do you think makes a band great?
John Frusciante: “I think when a band has a really chemistry it has to do with things that are totally beyond the control of the band. We’ve talked a lot about listening to each other, but if I’m honest I think it’s because we naturally balance each other out. We connect. Something about the relationship with our nervous systems and our brains, our subconscious and our souls, for whatever reason balances each other out.
No(one can think of four things at once – you’re mainly thinking about yourself, even when you’re playing with people. You got a piece of wood in your hands or a drum set in front of you, so I don’t think it’s that we pay special attention to each other.
“One thing I know – and this is a scientific example – each of us is one of the four different blood types. Chad’s O, I’m A/B, Anthony’s A and Flea’s B. That’s just one example. And I’m sure if science could explain matters of the soul you’d see we’re also four different kinds of souls. And it helps that Flea and Anthony had the attitude from the beginning that we were all equal.”
TG: What’s the key to maintaining a good working relationship with your bandmates?
JF: “Well, Stadium Arcadium was a really hard record for us to make, to be honest. Everybody was totally concerned with themselves and their preconceived idea of how the record should come out. And everyone was worried that someone would over-step and turn it into something other than how they thought it would be based upon rehearsal.
“We might have eve broken up by now, but at a certain point we opened up with each other and started trying to break down some of the walls we put up to protect ourselves over the years. That was really important. People who have walls up – they’re better off broken up. As much as I love the original Guns N’ Roses, I understand why they’re not a band now. As long as you have that ego, and those walls up, there’s no point in being in a band because it’s too painful. It’s fucking painful. It’s not like we totally get along. Sometimes it’s weird how much Flea and I contradict each other. It’s natural for people ti disagree; the point is to not to have to win – for both people to see both sides. Therefor, Flea and I are never mad at each other because we’re thankful the other person has shown us the other side. It’s important to do that in any line of work.
“In my opinion we’ve been really kicking ass onstage since then, way beyond what we did on the record in terms of being able to manifest an explosive energy as a foursome. And I think the reason for this is that we’ve broken down these walls and we’re really giving each other love and support now.”
Best Music Video
Winner: Dani California-Red Hot Chili Peppers – 23 %
Runners-up:
One Way Ticket – The Darkness: 16%
Bat Country – Avenged Sevenfold: 12%
I Want You So Hard – Eagles Of Death Metal: 11%
In This River – Black Label Society: 10%
Hard Rock Hallelujah – Lordi: 10%
I’m Not Okay (I Promise )- My Chemical Romance: 10%
Through The Fire & Flames – Dragonforce: 9%
The Pot – Tool: 1%
The lead single of Stadium Arcadium set the bar high with a solo that sounded like John Frusciante in his Blood Sugar hey day. Fortunately, the Chili’s matched that with a genius Technicolor video that saw them larking arounde dressed as their heroes, ranging from P-Funk to the Misfits, JF elaborates…
TG: Dani California has own our Best Video award. It looks like it was a lot of fun to make!
John Frusciante: “It was funny! One thing I noticed making it was guitars have gotten lower over time. In te 50s people wore them really high, in the late 60s even Hendrix, who we think of as looking really cool, was still wearing it high. Eventually wearing it low because synonymous with being cool, so that was something that gradually changed. Even though the video might seem like we’re poking fun, it was all done out of respect!”
Best Album
Winner: Stadium Arcadium-Red Hot Chili Peppers- 28%
Runners-up:
One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back-The Darkness: 18%
Black Holes & Revelations-Muse: 14%
Liberation Transmission-Lostprophets: 13%
Wolfmother – Wolfmother: 7%
Darklight – Him: 7%
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not – Arctic Monkeys: 5%
Billy Talent II – Billy Talent: 4%
December Underground – AFI: 3%
Broken Boy Soldiers – The Raconteurs: 2%
It’s been another humdinger of a year for guitar albums – so many to choose from ! But choose you did, and gave Mr Frusciante his second Reader Award of 2006. Naturally, he was quite chuffed…
TG: Congratulations! You’ve won our coveted Best Album award for Stadium Arcadium. How would you rank the album compared to your previous releases?
John Frusciante: “I personally like it better than the other albums because there’s more rhythmic movement, there’s more harmonic movement and there’s more freedom in terms of the guitar solos. For me, it’s our most rounded album and, sonically, there’s a dimension to it that the others don’t have. I used to think of Blood Sugar Sex Magik as being a really good album; when I listen to it now it’s cool, we’re playing together well, but there’s no dimension to it in terms of the sound itself. You can’t really listen to it, in terms of the sound, and expect it to hold your interest for 72 minutes. Now, with the experimentation I did in the studio with the different instruments that come in, Stadium Arcadium has the ability to carry you away in terms of its quality. So yeah, I feel really good about it. To me that dimension has been left off our other albums.”
