John Anthony Frusciante (pronounced ) (born March
5, 1970) is an American
guitarist, singer,
songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist
of the
alternative rock band
Red Hot Chili Peppers, with
whom he has recorded five studio albums. Frusciante also has an
active solo career, having released ten albums under his own name,
as well as two with
Josh
Klinghoffer and
Joe Lally, as
Ataxia. His solo recordings include elements
ranging from
experimental rock and
ambient music to
New Wave and
electronica. Influenced by guitarists of various
genres, Frusciante emphasizes melody and emotion in his guitar
playing, and favors vintage guitars and analog recording
techniques.
Frusciante joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers at eighteen, first
appearing on the band's 1989 album
Mother's Milk. The group's follow-up
album,
Blood Sugar Sex
Magik, was a breakthrough success. However, he was
overwhelmed by the band's new popularity and quit in 1992. He
became a recluse and entered a long period of
heroin addiction, during which he released his first
recordings:
Niandra Lades and
Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994) and
Smile from the Streets You
Hold (1997). In 1998, he successfully completed drug
rehabilitation and rejoined the Red Hot Chili Peppers for their
1999 album
Californication. Since then he
has continued to record with the band and has received critical
recognition for his guitar playing, ranking eighteenth on
Rolling Stone's list of "The
100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2003.
Biography
Early life
Frusciante
was born in Queens
, New York
on March 5,
1970. His father, John Sr., is a Juilliard
-trained pianist, and his
mother Gail was a promising vocalist who
gave up her career to be a stay-at-home mother. Frusciante's family
moved to Tucson
, Arizona
, and then
Florida
, where his father still serves as a Broward
County
judge. His parents separated, and he and his mother
moved to Santa
Monica
, California
.
A year
later, Frusciante and his mother moved to Mar
Vista
, Los
Angeles
with his new stepfather who, he says, "really
supported me and made me feel good about being an artist."
Like many young people in the area, he became intimately involved
in the L.A.
punk rock scene. At nine he
was infatuated with
The Germs, wearing out
several copies of their record
. By
ten, he had taught himself how to play most of
(GI)'s
songs in a tuning that allowed him to play every chord with a
single-finger
barre. Soon after,
Frusciante began taking guitar lessons from an instructor who
introduced him to the music of the
Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Frusciante began studying guitarists like
Jeff
Beck,
Jimmy Page and
Jimi Hendrix at eleven. After mastering the
blues scale, he discovered
Frank Zappa, whose work he would study for
hours. He dropped out of high school at sixteen with the permission
of his parents and completion of a proficiency test. With their
support, he moved to Los Angeles in order to develop his musical
proficiency.
He began taking classes at the Guitar
Institute of Technology
, but turned to punching in without actually
attending and left shortly thereafter.
1988–1992: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Frusciante first attended a Red Hot Chili Peppers performance at
fifteen and he rapidly became a devoted fan. He idolized guitarist
Hillel Slovak—familiarizing himself
with virtually all the guitar and bass parts from the Chili
Peppers' first three records. He became acquainted with Slovak; the
two spoke months before Slovak's death and Frusciante's subsequent
joining:
Frusciante became friends with former
Dead
Kennedys drummer
D. H. Peligro in
early 1988. They often jammed together, and Peligro invited his
friend
Flea (bassist of Red Hot
Chili Peppers) to join. Frusciante and Flea developed a musical
chemistry immediately, with Flea later acknowledging that might
have been the day he first played the bass riff to "
Nobody Weird Like Me". Around the same
time, Frusciante intended to audition for Frank Zappa's band, but
changed his mind before the final try-out as Zappa strictly
prohibited illegal drug use. Frusciante said, "I realized that I
wanted to be a rock star, do drugs and get girls, and that I
wouldn't be able to do that if I was in Zappa's band."
Slovak died of a heroin overdose in 1988, and Red Hot Chili Peppers
drummer
Jack Irons, incapable of coping
with Slovak's death, left the group. Remaining members Flea and
vocalist
Anthony Kiedis regrouped,
determined to persevere. The pair added Peligro on drums and
DeWayne "Blackbyrd" McKnight, formerly of
P-Funk, on guitar. McKnight,
however, failed to connect musically within the group. Flea
proposed auditioning Frusciante, whose intimate knowledge of the
Chili Peppers' repertoire astonished him. Flea and Kiedis
auditioned him and agreed that he would be a suitable replacement
for McKnight, who was promptly fired. When Flea called Frusciante
with the news of his acceptance into the Chili Peppers, Frusciante
was elated; he ran through his house screaming with joy, and jumped
on a wall, leaving permanent boot marks. He was in the midst of
signing a contract with
Thelonious
Monster at the time—and had actually been playing with the act
for two weeks—but his unanticipated reception into the Chili
Peppers prompted him to change his plans.
However, Frusciante was not familiar with the funk genre of Red Hot
Chili Peppers' sound: "I wasn't really a funk player before I
joined the band. I learned everything I needed to know about how to
sound good with Flea by studying Hillel [Slovak's] playing and I
just took it sideways from there." Several weeks into the band's
new lineup, Peligro, whose performance was suffering due to extreme
drug abuse, was fired. Soon after,
Chad
Smith was added as the group's new drummer and the new lineup
began recording their first album, 1989's
Mother's Milk. Frusciante focused on
emulating Slovak's signature style, rather than imposing his own
personal style on the group. Producer
Michael Beinhorn disagreed, and wanted
Frusciante to play with an uncharacteristic
heavy metal tone, largely absent from the
band's three preceding records.Kiedis, Sloman, 2004. p. 249
Frusciante and Beinhorn fought frequently over guitar tone and
layering, and Beinhorn's idea ultimately prevailed as Frusciante
felt pressured by the producer's much greater knowledge of the
studio. Kiedis recalls that "[Beinhorn] wanted John to have a big,
crunching, almost metal-sounding guitar tone whereas before we
always had some interesting acid-rock guitar tones as well as a lot
of slinky, sexy, funky guitar tones."
The Chili Peppers collaborated with producer
Rick Rubin for their second record with
Frusciante,
Blood Sugar Sex
Magik.
Rubin felt that it was important to record
the album in an unorthodox setting, so he suggested an old Hollywood
Hills
mansion, and the band agreed. Frusciante,
Kiedis and Flea isolated themselves there for the duration of the
recording. Frusciante and Flea seldom went outside, and spent most
of their time smoking
marijuana.
Around this time, Frusciante started a side collaboration with Flea
and
Jane's Addiction drummer
Stephen Perkins called The Three
Amoebas. They recorded roughly ten to fifteen hours of material,
none of which has ever been released.
Blood Sugar Sex Magik was hugely successful upon its
release on September 24, 1991. It peaked at number three on the
Billboard charts, and went on to sell thirteen million
copies worldwide. The unexpected success instantly turned the Red
Hot Chili Peppers into rock stars. Frusciante was blindsided by his
newfound fame, and struggled to cope with it. Soon after the
album's release, he began to develop a dislike for the band's
popularity. Kiedis recalled that he and Frusciante used to get into
heated discussions backstage after concerts: "John would say,
'We're too popular. I don't need to be at this level of success. I
would just be proud to be playing this music in clubs like you guys
were doing two years ago.'" Frusciante later said that the band's
rise to popularity was "too high, too far, too soon. Everything
seemed to be happening at once and I just couldn't cope with it."
He also began to feel that destiny was leading him away from the
band. When the Chili Peppers began their world tour, he started to
hear voices in his head telling him "you won't make it during the
tour, you have to go now." Frusciante admitted to having once taken
great pleasure in
hedonism; however, "by
the age of twenty, I started doing it right and looking at it as an
artistic expression instead of a way of partying and screwing a
bunch of girls. To balance it out, I had to be extra-humble,
extra-anti-rock star." He refused to take the stage during a
performance at Tokyo's Club Quattro on May 7, 1992, telling his
bandmates that he was leaving the band. He was persuaded to
perform, but left for California the next morning; according to the
guitarist, "it was just impossible for me to stay in the band any
longer. It had come to the point where even though they wanted me
in the band, it felt like I was forced out of the band. Not by any
members in particular or management in particular, but just the
direction it was going."
1992–1997: Drug addiction
Frusciante developed serious drug habits while touring with the
band during the previous four years. He said that when he "found
out that Flea was stoned out of his mind at every show, that
inspired me to be a pothead". Not only was Frusciante smoking large
amounts of marijuana, but he began to use heroin and was on the
verge of full-scale addiction. Upon returning to California in the
summer of 1992, Frusciante entered a deep
depression, feeling that his life was over
and that he could no longer write music or play guitar. For a long
time, he focused on painting, producing 4-track recordings he had
made while recording
Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and writing
short stories and screenplays that dealt with a variety of motifs.
To cope with his worsening depression, Frusciante increased his
heroin use and spiraled into a life-threatening dependency. His use
of heroin to medicate his depression was a clear decision: "I was
very sad, and I was always happy when I was on drugs; therefore, I
should be on drugs all the time. I was never guilty—I was always
really proud to be an addict." Although he openly admitted to being
a "junkie", his thinking had been fundamentally warped by the
excessive drug use, believing drugs were the only way of "making
sure you stay in touch with beauty instead of letting the ugliness
of the world corrupt your soul."
Frusciante released his first solo album
Niandra Lades and
Usually Just a T-Shirt, on March 8, 1994.
Despite the common
belief that most of the tracks were recorded while he was strung
out on heroin in his home in the Hollywood Hills
, Frusciante has said that "That album was not
recorded when I was a heroin addict. It was released when I
was a heroin addict.”
The first half of
Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt
was recorded shortly after the completion of
Blood Sugar Sex
Magik; the second half between late 1991 and early 1992,
during the album's tour. "Running Away Into You" is the only track
recorded after he left the Chili Peppers. The album is a heavily
experimental
avant-garde composition
whose initial purpose was spiritual and emotional expression: "I
wrote [the record] because I was in a really big place in my
head—it was a huge, spiritual place telling me what to do. As long
as I'm obeying those forces, it's always going to be meaningful. I
could be playing guitar and I could say 'Play something that
sucks,' and if I'm in that place, it's gonna be great. And it has
nothing to do with me, except in ways that can't be understood."
Frusciante further asserted that the album was meant to be
experienced as a cohesive unit rather than separate entities or
songs.
Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt was
released on Rick Rubin's label
American Recordings.
Warner Bros., the Chili Peppers' label,
owned rights to the album because of the leaving-artist clause in
Frusciante's Chili Peppers contract. However, because he was
reclusive, the label gladly handed the rights over to Rubin, who
released the album at the urging of Frusciante's friends.
An article in the
New Times LA
described Frusciante as "a skeleton covered in thin skin" who at
the nadir of his addictions nearly died from a blood infection. His
arms became fiercely scarred from improperly shooting heroin and
cocaine, leaving permanent
abscesses. He spent the next three years holed up in
his Hollywood Hills home, the walls of which were badly damaged and
covered in graffiti. During this time, his friends
Johnny Depp and
Gibby
Haynes went to his house and filmed an unreleased documentary
short called
Stuff, depicting
the squalor in which he was living. The house was eventually
destroyed by a fire that claimed his vintage guitar collection
along with several recorded tapes of music and left him with
serious burns after he narrowly escaped.
Frusciante released his second solo album,
Smile from the
Streets You Hold, in 1997. The album's first track, "Enter a
Uh", was largely characterized by cryptic lyrics and hysterical
screeches. Frusciante also coughs throughout the track, showcasing
his deteriorating health. By his own admission, the album was
released in order to get "drug money"; he withdrew it from the
market in 1999. Yet Frusciante has stated that he believes the
material on the record is of high quality and wishes to one day
re-release it.
1997–2002: Rehabilitation and return to the Chili Peppers
In late 1997, after more than five years of addiction to heroin,
Frusciante quit it
cold turkey.Kiedis,
Sloman, 2004. p. 407 However, months later he was still unable to
break addictions to
crack cocaine and
alcohol.
In January 1998, urged by longtime friend
Bob Forrest, Frusciante checked into Las
Encinas, a drug rehabilitation
clinic in Pasadena
, to begin a full recovery. Upon arrival, he
was diagnosed with a potentially lethal oral infection, which could
only be alleviated by removing all of his teeth and replacing them
with dentures. He also received skin grafts to help repair the
abscesses on his ravaged arms. About a month later, Frusciante
checked out of Las Encinas and reentered society.Kiedis, Sloman,
2004. p. 408
Fully recovered and once again healthy, Frusciante began living a
more spiritual,
ascetic lifestyle. He
changed his diet, becoming more health-conscious and eating mostly
unprocessed foods. Through regular practice of
vipassana and yoga, he discovered the effect
self-discipline has on the body. To maintain his increased
spiritual awareness and reduce distraction from his music,
Frusciante decided to
abstain from
sexual activity stating: "I'm very well without it." All of these
changes in his life have led him to a complete change in his
attitude toward drugs:
Despite his experience as an addict, Frusciante does not view his
drug use as a "dark period" in his life. He considers it a period
of rebirth, during which he found himself and cleared his mind.
Frusciante has since stopped practicing yoga, due its effects on
his back, but he still tries to meditate daily.
In early 1998, the Red Hot Chili Peppers fired guitarist
Dave Navarro and were on the verge of breaking
up. Flea told Kiedis, "the only way I could imagine carrying on
[with the Red Hot Chili Peppers] is if we got John back in the
band." With Frusciante free of his addictions and ailments, Kiedis
and Flea thought it was an appropriate time to invite him back.
When Flea visited him at his home and asked him to rejoin the band,
Frusciante began sobbing and said "nothing would make me happier in
the world." With Frusciante back on guitar, the Chili Peppers began
recording their next album,
Californication, released in
1999. Frusciante's return restored a key component of the Chili
Peppers' sound, as well as a healthy morale. He brought with him
his deep devotion to music, which had an impact on the band's
recording style during the album. Frusciante has frequently stated
that his work on
Californication was his favorite.
During the
Californication world tour, Frusciante
continued to write his own songs, many of which would be released
in 2001 on his third solo album
To Record Only Water for Ten
Days. The album was stylistically unlike his previous
records, less markedly
stream-of-consciousness or
avant-garde. However, the lyrics were
still very cryptic and its sound was notably stripped down. The
songwriting and production of
To Record Only Water for Ten
Days were more efficient and straightforward than on his
previous recordings. The album strayed from the alternative rock he
had just written with the Chili Peppers on
Californication, focusing more on
electronic and
New
Wave elements. Instead of focusing mostly on his guitar work,
Frusciante experimented with a variety of synthesizers, a
distinctive feature of the record.
In 2001, Frusciante began recording his fourth album with Red Hot
Chili Peppers,
By the Way; he
considered the time to be among the happiest in his life. He
relished the chance the album gave him to "keep writing better
songs". While working on
By the Way, he also composed most
of what would become
Shadows Collide with
People, as well as the songs created for the movie
The Brown Bunny. His goal
to improve his guitar playing on the album was largely driven by a
desire to emulate guitar players such as
Andy Partridge,
Johnny
Marr and
John McGeoch; or as he put
it, "people who used good chords". The album marked Frusciante's
shift to a more group-minded mentality within the Chili Peppers,
viewing the band as a cohesive unit rather than as four separate
entities.
By the Way was released in the U.S. on July 9,
2002.
2002–2007: 2004 recordings and Stadium Arcadium
Frusciante wrote and recorded a plethora of songs during and after
the
By the Way tour. In February 2004, he started a side
project with
Joe Lally of
Fugazi and
Josh
Klinghoffer, called
Ataxia. The
group was together for about two weeks, during which they recorded
about ninety minutes of material. After two days in the recording
studio, they played two shows at the
Knitting Factory in Hollywood, and spent
two more days in the studio before disbanding. Later that year,
five songs provided by Frusciante appeared on
The Brown Bunny
soundtrack.
Frusciante released his fourth full-length solo album
Shadows Collide with People
on February 24, 2004. This featured guest appearances from some of
his friends, including Klinghoffer, and Chili Peppers bandmates
Smith and Flea. In June 2004, he announced that he would be
releasing six records over six months:
The Will to Death, Ataxia's
Automatic
Writing,
DC EP,
Inside of Emptiness,
A Sphere in the Heart of
Silence and
Curtains. With the release of
Curtains Frusciante debuted his only music video of 2004,
for the track "The Past Recedes". He wanted to produce these
records quickly and inexpensively on analog tape, avoiding modern
studio and computer-assisted recording processes.
In early 2005, Frusciante entered the studio to work on his fifth
studio album with the Chili Peppers,
Stadium Arcadium. His guitar playing
is dominant throughout the album, and he provides backing vocals on
most of the tracks. Although usually following a "less is more"
style of guitar playing, he began using a full twenty-four track
mixer for maximum effect. In the arrangements, he incorporates a
wide array of sounds and playing styles, from the funk-influenced
Blood Sugar Sex Magik to the more melodic
By the
Way. He also changed his approach to his playing, opting to
contribute solos and allow songs to be formed from jam sessions.
Several reviews have stressed that the influence of Hendrix is
evident in his solos on the album, with Frusciante himself backing
this up. He also expanded the use of guitar effects throughout the
album, and used various other instruments such as the
synthesizer and
mellotron. He worked continuously with Rubin
over-dubbing guitar progressions, changing harmonies and using all
his technical resources.
Frusciante began a series of collaborations with friend
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and his band
The Mars Volta, by contributing
vocals and electronic instrumentation to their album
De-Loused in the
Comatorium. He also contributed guitar solos on their 2005
album
Frances the Mute. In
2006, he helped The Mars Volta complete their third album
Amputechture by playing guitar
on seven of its eight tracks. In return, Rodriguez-Lopez has played
on several of Frusciante's solo albums, as well as made a guest
appearance on
Stadium Arcadium.
2006-2009: "The Empyrean"
Frusciante's tenth solo album,
The
Empyrean, was released on January 20, 2009 through
Record Collection. The record—a
concept album—was in production
between December 2006 and March 2008.
The Empyrean
features an array of musicians including Frusciante's fellow
bandmate Flea, friends
Josh
Klinghoffer and former
Smiths
guitarist
Johnny Marr, as well as guest
musicians including Sonus Quartet and New Dimension Singers.
Frusciante is "really happy with [the record] and I've listened to
it a lot for the psychedelic experience it provides," suggesting
the album "be played as loud as possible and it is suited to dark
living rooms late at night."
2007–2009: Red Hot Chili Peppers hiatus
After Ataxia released their second and final studio album,
AW II, on May 29, 2007, Frusciante
began a period of dormancy in respects to his solo career.
Following the
Stadium Arcadium tour (early May 2006 to
late August 2007), the Red Hot Chili Peppers agreed to a hiatus of
indefinite length. In early 2008, Anthony Kiedis finally confirmed
this, citing exhaustion from constant work since
Californication as the main reason.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers returned to the studio in October to
record their follow-up album to 2006's
Stadium Arcadium which, according to
drummer
Chad Smith, will be released in
late 2010.
Chad Smith in an interview in November was asked, "So the Chilis
have finally returned to work, following the 2006 double-set
Stadium Arcadium. Did guitarist John Frusciante, who in recent
interviews seemed to express antipathy towards doing so, take some
persuading?", in response to the question Smith replied, "Well… at
this time I can’t talk about that. I have been told to stay away
from the John questions." This has caused fans to speculate whether
John Frusciante will actually return to work on the new
album.
Musical style
Frusciante's musical style has evolved. Although he previously received moderate recognition for his guitar work, it was not until recently that music critics and guitarists alike began to fully recognize it: in October of 2003, he was ranked eighteenth in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarist of All Time". Frusciante attributes this recent recognition to his shift in focus, stating that he chose an approach based on rhythmic patterns inspired by the complexity of material Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen produced. On earlier records, however, much of his output was influenced by various underground punk and New Wave musicians. In general, his sound is also defined by an affinity for vintage guitars. All the guitars that he owns, records, and tours with were made before 1970. Frusciante will use the specific guitar that he finds appropriate for a certain song. All of the guitars he owned before quitting the band were destroyed when his house burned down in 1996. The first guitar he bought after rejoining the Chili Peppers was a 1967 red Fender Jaguar. His most-often used guitar, however, is a 1962 Sunburst Fender Stratocaster which he has played on every album since joining the Chili Peppers, and their ensuing tours. Frusciante's most prized instrument is a 1957 Gretsch White Falcon, which he used twice per show during the By the Way tour. He has since stopped using it, saying there was "no room for it". Virtually all of Frusciante's acoustic work is played with a 1950s Martin 0-15.
Frusciante uses a variety of vocal styles on his solo albums,
ranging from the distressed screeches on
Niandra Lades and
Usually Just a T-Shirt and
Smile from the Streets You
Hold to more conventional styles on later records. With the
Chili Peppers, Frusciante provides backing vocals in a
falsetto tenor, a style he started on
Blood
Sugar Sex Magik. He thoroughly enjoys his role in the Chili
Peppers as backup singer, and says that backing vocals are a "real
art form". Despite his commitment to the Chili Peppers, he feels
very strongly that his solo material and his contributions to the
band should remain separate. When he returned to the Chili Peppers
in 1999, Kiedis wanted the band to record "Living in Hell", a song
Frusciante had written several years before. Frusciante refused,
feeling that the creative freedom he needs for his solo projects
could conflict with his role in the band.
Technique
Frusciante's guitar playing employs melody and emotion rather than
virtuosity. Although virtuoso influences can be heard throughout
his career, he has said that he often minimizes this. He feels that
in general, guitar mastery has not evolved much since the 1960s and
considers the greatest players of that decade unsurpassed. When he
was growing up in the 1980s, many mainstream guitarists focused on
speed. Because of this, he thinks that the skills of many defiant
New Wave and punk guitarists were largely overlooked. Therefore he
accentuates the melodically-driven technique of players such as
Matthew Ashman of
Bow Wow Wow and
Bernard Sumner of
Joy
Division as much as possible because he thinks that their style
has been overlooked and consequently underexplored. Despite this,
he considers himself a fan of technique-driven guitarists like
Randy Rhoads and
Steve Vai, but represses an urge to emulate their
style: "People believe that by playing faster and creating new
playing techniques you can progress forward, but then they realize
that emotionally they don't progress at all. They transmit nothing
to the people listening and they stay at where Hendrix was three
decades ago. Something like that happened to Vai in the 80s."
Believing that focusing only on "clean tones" is negative ,
Frusciante developed an interest in playing with what he calls a
"grimy" sound. As a result, he considers it beneficial to
"mistreat" his guitar and employ various forms of distortion when
soloing. He also tries to break as many "stylistic boundaries" as
he can, in order to expand his musical horizons. He thinks that
much of the output from today's guitarists is unoriginal, and that
many of his contemporaries "follow the rules with no risk".
Frusciante's approach to album composition has changed. On his
early recordings, he welcomed sonic imperfections, noting that
"even on [
To Record Only Water for Ten Days] there are
off-pitch vocals and out-of-tune guitars." However, on later albums
such as
Shadows Collide With People, he pursued the
opposite: "I just wanted everything to be perfect—I didn't want
anything off pitch, or off time, or any unintentional this or
that." Frusciante views songwriting as taking time, and does not
force it: "If a song wants to come to me, I'm always ready to
receive it, but I don't work at it." Much of his solo material is
first written on an acoustic or unamplified electric guitar. He
cultivates an atmosphere conducive to songwriting by constantly
listening to the music of others and absorbing its creative
influence. He also prefers to record his albums on analog tapes and
other relatively primitive equipment. This preference stems from
his belief that older equipment can actually speed up the recording
process, and that modern computerized recording technology gives
only an illusion of efficiency. Frusciante tries to streamline the
recording process as much as possible, because he thinks "music
comes alive when [you] are creating it fast". He also enjoys the
challenge of having to record something in very few takes, and
believes that when musicians are unable to handle the pressure of
having to record something quickly they often get frustrated or
bogged down by perfectionism.
Influences
Although Hendrix was arguably Frusciante's most profound influence,
he was also inspired by
glam rock artists
David Bowie and
T.Rex as well as avant-garde acts like
Captain Beefheart,
The Residents,
The Velvet Underground,
Neu!,
Frank Zappa and
Kraftwerk. He credits his inspiration for
learning guitar to
Greg Ginn,
Pat Smear and
Joe
Strummer, among others. As an adolescent, he began focusing on
Hendrix and
Led Zeppelin, as well as
other bands like
Public Image
Ltd.,
Siouxsie & the
Banshees and
The Smiths. During the
recording of
Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Captain Beefheart and
the acoustic, one-man blues of
Leadbelly
and
Robert Johnson, were
among the most noteworthy influences. On
Californication
and
By the Way, Frusciante derived the technique of
creating tonal texture through chord patterns from
post-punk guitarist
Vini
Reilly of
The Durutti Column,
and bands such as
Fugazi and
The Cure. He originally intended
By the
Way to be made up of "these punky, rough songs", drawing
inspiration from early punk artists such as The Germs and
The Damned. However, this was discouraged
by producer Rick Rubin, and he instead built upon
Californication's melodically-driven style. During the
recording of
Stadium Arcadium, he moved away from his New
Wave influences and concentrated on emulating flashier guitar
players such as Hendrix and Van Halen. With his recent solo work,
he has cited
electronic music—in
which the guitar is often completely absent—as an influence. His
electronic music influences include
Depeche
Mode,
New Order,
The Human League,
Ekkehard Ehlers,
Peter Rehberg and
Christian Fennesz. His interests are
constantly changing, as he believes that without change he will no
longer have any interest in playing: "I'm always drawing
inspiration from different kinds of music and playing guitar along
with records, and I go into each new album project with a
preconceived idea of what styles I want to combine."
Influence
Famous portuguese guitar player Daniel Delgado has called him "the
greatest guitar player in the world" and cited him as his guitar
idol and also his biggest influence, naming the song "Under The
Bridge" as the song that made him want to become a guitarist.
Discography
| Date of release |
Title |
Record label |
| March 8, 1994 |
Niandra
Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt |
American Recordings |
| August 26, 1997 |
Smile from the
Streets You Hold |
Birdman Records |
| 2001 |
From the Sounds
Inside |
Internet-Only release
to fans |
| February 13, 2001 |
To Record Only
Water for Ten Days |
Warner Music Group |
| March 5, 2001 |
Going Inside |
Warner Music Group |
| February 24, 2004 |
Shadows Collide with
People |
Warner Bros. Records |
| June 22, 2004 |
The Will to
Death |
Record Collection |
| September 14, 2004 |
DC EP |
Record Collection |
| October 26, 2004 |
Inside of
Emptiness |
Record Collection |
| November 23, 2004 |
A Sphere in the
Heart of Silence |
Record Collection |
| February 1, 2005 |
Curtains |
Record Collection |
| January 20, 2009 |
The Empyrean |
Record Collection |
References
Notes
- Rotondigic, James (November, 1997). "Till I Reach the Higher
Ground". Guitar Player.
- Mother's Milk 2003 reissue liner notes
- Kiedis, Sloman, 2004. p. 234
- Kiedis, Sloman, 2004. p. 239
- Forsythe, Tom. (February 1991) "Laughing All the Way".
Guitar Magazine.
- Apter, 2004. p. 181
- Kiedis, Sloman, 2004. p. 242
- Kiedis, Sloman, 2004. pp. 239–241
- Kiedis, Sloman, 2004. p. 284
- Dalley, Helen (August 2002). "John Frusciante" Total
Guitar. Retrieved on August 27, 2007.
- Billboard 200 Billboard.com. Retrieved on
2007-07-04
- Kiedis, Sloman, 2004. p. 229
- "The Chili Peppers Rise Again". Rolling Stone.
Retrieved on 2007-08-08
- Broxvoort, Brian (1994). "John Frusciante Goes Over a Bridge."
Rockinfreakapotamus.
- Kennealy, Tim (July 1995). "Chilly Pepper". High Times.
- Sullivan, Kate (August 2002). "Interview with Flea, Anthony and
John". Spin.
- VPRO Interview with John Frusciante (1994).
-
[http:http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2004/10/01/john-frusciante-perfect-from-now-on/
Interview with John Frusciante (2004).
- Di Perna, Alan (July, 2006). "Guided by Voices". Guitar
World.
- "Water Music". Rock Sound #21
- Bryant, Tom. (May 3, 2006) "War Ensemble."
Kerrang!
- Kiedis, Sloman, 2004. p. 404
- Guitar World Acoustic, February/March 2004.
- The Brown Bunny soundtrack liner notes.
- Shadows Collide with People liner notes
- Devenish, Colin. (June 29, 2004) " Frusciante Prepares a Feast". Rolling
Stone, Retrieved on August 27, 2007.
- Payne, John. (July 29, 2004) " Changing Channels: John Frusciante's Brave New
Frequencies". LA Weekly, Retrieved on August 27,
2007.
- Walker, James. Dani
California review www.purpleradio.co.uk. Retrieved on
2007-06-25
- Stadium Arcadium bonus DVD footage
- De-Loused in the Comatorium liner notes
- Frances the Mute liner notes
- Amputechture liner notes
- Curtains liner notes
- Stadium Arcadium liner notes
-
http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/chad-smith-ive-been-told-to-stay-away-from-questions-about-john-frusciante/
- Making of "Can't Stop" music video. Red Hot Chili Peppers
Greatest Hits.
- Ascott, Phil (June, 2003). "Universally Speaking".
Guitarist.
- "Interview with John Frusciante". Guitar Xtreme, June
2006.
- Kerrang! Issue #21; pp. 76–82
- Di Perna, Alan. (April, 2005). "Basic Instinct". Guitar
World Acoustic.
- Hernandez, Raoul (November 28, 2004). "Me and My Friends".
Austin Chronicle.
- Tingen, Paul. (July, 2004). "John Frusciante's Creative
Explosion". Electronic Musician.
- Page, Scarlet (July, 2004). "Red Hot Chili Peppers: The LA
Punks Who Defied Death, Grunge And A Burning Crack Den".
Mojo.
- Mitchell, Ed. "Robert Johnson - King of the Delta Blues
Singers". Total Guitar. February 2006. p. 66
- Apter, 2004. p. 329
External links