Getting Better All The Time
When Frusciante relates these experiences, it’s sometimes difficult to tell whether he’s speaking literally or metaphorically. Are the spirits forces within his psyche? Did he come so close to killing himself with dope that he gained access to a realm beyond this mortal life?
“I think John’s just more comfortable with the spirit world than most people,” says Kiedis. “He doesn’t question it so much. Somewhere along the way he realized that that exists, and he’s okay with it. He’s not a Doubting Thomas; he’s not that cynical. He’s got a very childlike quality. Although he has a very adultlike, scientific intelligence, his spirit is very sensitive and childlike. Which is a really good combination. I think we’re all equally as connected to that spirit realm. We’re just not as aware of that connection as John is. Maybe the way he describes it is a little challenging for some people. I think he kind of enjoys the fact that his way of verbalizing that connection is gonna throw some people off.”
“I think John is a very sane person,” says Flea. “And I think John’s connection to the spirit world is a very beautiful thing. It’s clear to me that spirits are everywhere all around us. They’re part of all our lives. For him to speak about it is important to him-a sign of John being aware of himself and what’s around him.”
Of all the Chili Peppers, it was Flea who remained on the closest terms with Frusciante during the six years he spent out of the band. Although the guitarist admits he “wasn’t thinking very clearly” for much of that time, “in my mind I didn’t think Flea and I were ever going to stop playing together,” he says. “He’d come over and jam from time to time. But when I became a drug addict, that just separated us. We still continued being friends. But two people can’t have any kind of consistent relationship when one of them is a junkie. We did drugs together once in a while, but he never was a drug addict. There’s a difference between someone who get’s high once every couple of months and someone who makes that their life. For me, it was my life. And for Flea it was a recreational thing. At a certain point he stopped doing it even recreationally. He got into a more spiritual kind of path. Me, I just went as close to the edge as I possibly could.”
Eventually, Frusciante found his own way out of drug addiction, a struggle he describes as a battle between good and bad spirits. “A lot of fighting had to be done to get where I am now. But I think me and the spirits that are on my side really won over.” The guitarist’s move back into the light is beautifully documented on his 2001 solo album, To Record Only Water For Ten Days, a focused, song-oriented set that in many ways set the stage for By The Way.
Today Frusciante is drug-free and healthy. He’s an avid practitioner of Ashtanga, a particularly strenuous style of yoga. “I’ve always been a person who’s had a lot of problems with the stress of the world,” he says. “Like I’m susceptible to motion tension. When I get in a car or airplane, it makes me tense. But since I started doing yoga, where you’re building muscle as well as relaxing yourself, I haven’t had such a problem with motion tension. I don’t do the actual meditation part of yoga. But I think that when I play guitar I’m probably employing a lot of the rudiments of meditation, because I’m completely focused on something that’s kind of abstract. I feel like there’s a stillness inside my mind, which is what you’re going after when you do something like meditation. So even though I don’t really go to yoga for that spiritual angle, it probably is helping me to be able to do that better.”
These days, Frusciante says, “most of my supernatural experiences are in the past. It’s a world I don’t really delve into that much anymore. But I believe that there are things we don’t see with our eyes that are making every moment what it is. And every person is made up of a bunch of people. And everybody who’s alive is everybody who died. I just think it’s all one big energy working together. I see the world as being very balanced-completely, perfectly balanced.”
Unlike his friend, Flea does meditate on a regular basis. “But for me meditation and yoga are more like a science than a religious path,” he says. “Most religions to me are like an exclusive country club. I’m not into that. I’ve read a lot of Buddhist books and stuff, but I’ve never been a Buddhist. I just like the idea of the Buddha. The same way I like the idea of Jesus. I like the idea of someone who is completely giving in their every breath. I just try to live my life like that every day. Try.”
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