John Frusciante

John Anthony Frusciante (pronounced ) (born March 5, 1970) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the former guitarist of the rock ^{Rock music} band Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom he recorded five studio albums. Frusciante 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 ^{Ataxia (band)} . His solo recordings include elements ranging from experimental rock and ambient music to New Wave ^{New Wave music} 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 *** Magik (1991), 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 ^{Californication (album)} , recording two more albums with the band before departing again in 2009. Frusciante has received critical recognition for his guitar playing, ranking eighteenth on Rolling Stone's ^{Rolling Stone} list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2003.

 
1970-1987: Childhood and early life

Frusciante was born in Queens ^{Queens, New York} , New York on March 5, 1970. His father, John Sr., is a Juilliard ^{Juilliard School} -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 ^{Tucson, Arizona} , Arizona, and then Florida, where his father still serves as a Broward County ^{Broward County, Florida} judge. His parents separated, and he and his mother moved to Santa Monica ^{Santa Monica, California} , California.

Frusciante began studying guitarists like Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix at eleven. After mastering the blues scale ^{Hexatonic scale} , he discovered Frank Zappa, whose work he would study for hours. He began taking classes at the Guitar Institute of Technology ^{Musicians Institute} , but turned to punching in without actually attending and left shortly thereafter.


Frusciante became friends with former Dead Kennedys drummer D. H. Peligro in early 1988. They often jammed together, and Peligro invited his friend Flea ^{Flea (musician)} (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." 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 ^{heavy metal music} tone, largely absent from the band's three preceding records. 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.

(left) performing as the Red Hot Chili Peppers during the Blood Sugar *** Magik tour in 1991
The Chili Peppers collaborated with producer Rick Rubin for their second record with Frusciante, Blood Sugar *** 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 ^{cannabis (drug)} . 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. 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;


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 ^{depression (mood)} , feeling that his life was over and that he could no longer write music or play guitar. 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 *** Magik; the second half between late 1991 and early 1992, during the album's tour. Frusciante further asserted that the album was meant to be experienced as a cohesive unit rather than separate entities or songs.

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. During this time, his friends Johnny Depp and Gibby Haynes went to his house and filmed an unreleased documentary short called Stuff ^{Stuff (film)} , depicting the squalor in which he was living.

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. However, months later he was still unable to break addictions to crack cocaine and alcohol.

Fully recovered and once again healthy, Frusciante began living a more spiritual, ascetic ^asceticism lifestyle. He changed his diet, becoming more health-conscious and eating mostly unprocessed foods.

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. 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." The songwriting and production of To Record Only Water for Ten Days were more efficient and straightforward than on his previous recordings. In addition to his guitar work, Frusciante experimented with a variety of synthesizers, a distinctive feature of the record. 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". 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.


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 ^{Automatic Writing (album)} , DC EP, Inside of Emptiness, A Sphere in the Heart of Silence and Curtains ^{Curtains (album)} . 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 Reading, England in July 2006
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 *** 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. 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.


2007–present: Red Hot Chili Peppers departure, The Empyrean and further collaborations

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.

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.
Along with Speed Dealer Moms, Frusciante also provided guitar for Swahili Blonde, a project of percussionist/vocalist Nicole Turley.cast The film is set to debut at the 2010 Rotterdam Film Festival in February.Frusciante's musical style has evolved over the course of his career. 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 2003, he was ranked eighteenth in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarist of All Time". On earlier records, however, much of his output was influenced by various underground punk and New Wave musicians. 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. 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".

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 provided backing vocals in a falsetto tenor, a style he started on Blood Sugar *** Magik. He thoroughly enjoyed his role in the Chili Peppers as backup singer, and said that backing vocals are a "real art form". Despite his commitment to the Chili Peppers, he felt that his work with the band should remain separate from his solo projects. When he returned to the Chili Peppers in 1998, 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 would conflict with his role in the band. He feels that in general, guitar mastery has not evolved much since the 1960s and considers the greatest players of that decade unsurpassed. 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." 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. 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 ^{Fugazi (band)} and The Cure. 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."