Free Spirit
Divine intervention
Frusciante discusses the otherworldly elements of his creativity
When you're engaged in a conversation with John Frusciante, you can't help but wonder whether or not ther's anybody on the planet who's more comfortable in his own skin. It's apeaceful frame of mind highly conductive to creativity that Frusciante exudes, achieved through years of profund introspection. But this is no "spoiled rock star," enabled to lead a certain lifestyle due to his band's massive record sales. The well-documented "dark years" Frusciante spent away from the Red Hot Chili Peppers (1992 - 1997) more than prove his commitment to art.
When Frusciante discusses music - and art, in general - he often cites the contributions of spirits, the role of colors, and the necessity of staying pure. Here, the guitarist reveals the significance of his artistic vision - the essence of where he's coming from.
PURITY
"I used to always see things in the outside world as being 'the enemies of an artist.' I don't see it that way anymore. To me, everything an artist needs is inside of himself, and it really doesn't matter what's going on in the world. Nothing else matters. You don't need to have things perfect, you don't need to have a lot of money or a beautiful girl. If your job in life is to create, you can find inside yourself what you need to make beautiful art or beautiful music.
"But you might have to clean yourself out, spiritually or physically. You gotta constantly purify yourself, living in the city, around human beings. There might be people close to you who affect you inside yourself in such a corrupt way that it screws with your ability to do what you do. But if you make sure that the people who are close to you are good people who are there for you and love you, you can create your temple everywhere you go."
COLOR
"I feel that when I play the guitar, write songs or write lyrics, I'm writing in terms of shapes and colors as opposed to the actual geography of the guitar. This was a big breakthrough where, in my head, I sort of threw away a lot of unnecessary technically - and started thinking of music purely in terms of color and shape. It totally opened up my playing. That's pretty much where my style came from: the realization that music was colors ans shapes, and it wasn't something people were getting better and better at - like how computer technology gets better and better. That's not how guitar playing is. Music is something that is in the air, and it's something that, as you get better as a musician, you get better at being able to translate these things that are in other dimensions, that are shapes ans colors and that are real."
SPIRIT
"The subject of 'spirits' come up a lot when I talk about myself because I'm very influenced by that world, and I pretty much consider them largely respnosible for my music and lyrics. I consider myself only responsible for working hard at being able to make myself open to the feelings that they have to offer me, and the ideas that they've had to give me. I've lived my life in a certain way, so I've been able to hear their thoughts, and I know how the ones that are close to me feel about things. I try to do the best in my life to work for them. I mean, they're what have made my life meaningful, up to this point. I'm just trying to do everything I can to make life meaningful for them.
"Spirits tend to send messages to you as feelings. You may not know it's a spirit talking to you, but you feel a feeling, you write a song from it. You're taking somthing that already axisted in another dimension before it was in your haed. And when you turn it into a song, you've done something for the spirits by taking this thing that theu're a part of and making it something for everybody , or whoever gets the chance to hear it. So you've actually made their place that they live in bigger in thsi world, because most people wouldn't be able to haer or feel the same thing.
"When I say 'spirits,' I'm not necessarily talking about people who are living in an afterlife. They're inside people who are directly connected to the life we're living. You have spirits inside of you, and when you're hearing my music they're hearing it, too. That's the way I think of it."
