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There is a spectre that stands across the stage from John. A man who is, in all likelihood, the most famous bass player on the planet. So what is really like trading parts with the everextrovert, outgoing spotlight-hogger that is Flea ? First up, John puts us straight by telling us that Flea is, in fact 'quiet', 'small' and 'humble'. Very much the antithesis of his stage persona.
"In the band, everybody is an equal. Me and Flea especially have a deep connection in the way we play - we like a lot of the same music which is a big part of it, I think. And there's no drummer who could be better than Chad. Maybe 'cos I've played with him for such a long time, and he's the guy I was playing with when I found myself as a guitar player, I'm so comfortable playing with him. I always know exactly what to play over it. It just comes so naturally."
'Coming naturally' is exactly how John describes the process of writing and recording his solo efforts. He recently released his third album, To Record Only Water For Ten Days, a similarly lo-fi affair to his last two, but with a happier, new-found, respect for life. Written while touring with the Chilis between November 1999 and April 2000, John recorded it on an eight-track, and is the only musician on the album.
"I get the idea for a song and I can have it completely finished in in two hours," he says. "They just come to me, and as soon as they do. I don't stop writing, or singing into the tape recorder until the song is finished." His speedy working means he's already working on number four. "There's a lot of harmonies and stuff - me and Josh (the drummer he's now working with) are really good at singing harmonies. I think we're doing a really new thing here - it's almost Beatles-like harmonies. Also Velvet Underground and Depeche Mode."
John appears happier now as a musician than he has ever been. He is more confident, and has finally, as he sees it, "found his way". The way, however, is a far cry from what were quite unsure beginnings.
"I was 11 years old when I first picked up the guitar. After hearing the Germs... I mean, I know I always wanted to play guitar - voices in my head were telling me: 'You're gonna be a guitarist.' But I didn't really believe it. When you're a little kid and you lokk at Led Zeppelin, Kiss or whatever, it all seems so, like another world. When you imagine yourself being in the place of one of those people, it's crazy but when I discovered punk rock and new wave, I realised I could do it. I felt spiritually we were made up of the same thing, and it made me see from what perspective and viewpoint I was gonna come from."
No surprise then, that the first thing John learnt to play was the Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks album: "I learnt the whole thing to convince my Dad that I was dedicated to the guitar. And I loved Black Flag... the song Revenge (from the Decline of Western Civilisation soundtrack) - the live version - that was the first time I ever tried to learn a solo. It wasn't a very successful attempt 'cos I was very haphazard," he laughs. "And there's a lot of noisy feedback so you can't just learn the solo by playing all the notes."
John describes the effect the Germs' (later to become onetime Foo Fighters guitarist) Pat Smear had on the boy Frusciante.
"He was the main guitarist I was inspired by because, at the recording of the Germs first show that I heard on the radio, it sounded like they'd only been playing their instruments for a month. And that's how long they had. But it was the spirit of going into it that was beautiful. It was more beautiful than any music I'd ever heard. It made the style that he would later unleash on the world in the shape of Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Despite the playing on the album still sounding fresh and funky ten years down the road, the guitarist confesses that he wasn't completely happy.
"That time was a sort of balancing act, of the show-off style I had when I was a teenager, in between 15 and 18 when it was my sole purpose as a musician to show everybody how good I was. I was real flashy. But then I realised that that kind of guitar playing was lame and full of shit, and what mattered were the colours and the shapes and sounds that you created as a musician, and not what you were physically doing... This kind of balancing act worked really well for a couple of years, but then I just felt like I was left with nothing." Which is another of the reasons John quit playing for a while. These days, he's got a style that's very much his own, and doesn't feel the need to demonstrate how fast he can move his fingers up and down the fretboard.
