Spin magazine, August 2002
He's been throuh a lot snce Californication, and it's all there in the lyrics: "There's loss," he says, "but also joy and love and that little burst of euphoria when the whole world makes sense for about 30 seconds." Kiedis' ex-girlfriend, clothing designer Yohanna Logan, inspired many of those epiphanies. (THey broke up during the making of the album; he wanted kids, and she didn't.) So did his dear friend/mentor/fellow smack survivor, Gloria Scott, who died of a cancer around the same time. The song "Venice Queen" is written for her.
"I'm good at losing," Kiedis says. "It's one of my specialities."
At that moment, Frusciante appears at the French doors of the hotel suite. His hair is shiny, and he's wearng a '70s-style tracksuit.
"What's up, Johnny? asks Kiedis. "How are you? You hungry?"
"No," Frusciante replies quietly.
"Did you get my message, John?"
"No, I can't check my machine."
"I had a feeling," says Kiedis. "I thought you would've called me back. I was so excited about our rehearsal yesterday. I was feeling so good to have heard you play; and was worried from our earlier conversation that you didn't realize how much I appreciated everything."
According to his bandmates, Kiedis' communication skills have improved remarkably in recent years-as have everyone's. "I feel like a new band," Kiedis says. "When we get together to rehearse, we could write music together all day long-good music."
"Anthony's changed like crazy," Frusciante says later. "He realizes the power he has to hurt people or to nurture them. Before, you never knew - one day he was your friend, the next day he wasn't."
If you were to think of John Frusciante as a vegetable, chili pepper would not come to mind. Beet, perhaps. Strange and sweet, grows in the dark, bleeds easily. During the MTV concert, Frusciante cut the tip of his finger bending a string. When the band road manager put some disinfectant on it later, Frusciante emitted a long, loud waaaaaaaaaa. Apparently, he has a low pain therehold. This man, who ravaged his body with needles, this living Lazarus, held up his finger as if he just needed someone to kiss it.
In a group of damaged people, Frusciante, 32, stands out as the most damaged of all. But he also has the most intense spiritual life: He speaks often of a guardian spirit and says that when he was closest to death during his heroin addiction, he was visited regularly by figures from the other side. "I was so happy someone was visiting, I'd make food for them," he says. "When they were gone, I'd cry."
After quitting the band on the Blood Sugar tour, Frusciante returned to L.A. and recorded a solo album while diving into heroin addiction with frightful determination. "Whe I originally decided to become a drug addict, it was a clear decision," he says. "I was very sad, and I was always happy when I was on drugs; therefore, I [thought I] should be on drugs all the time. I was never guilty-I was always really proud to be an addict."
Frusciante ventured close to the edge. But whether he knew it or not, he didn't descend into the void alone-he took little bits of Flea and Kiedis with him. None of them will get over the experience anytime soon, if ever.
"You just don't do what John did-and live," Flea says, awed. It's not only that their bandmate is back-but that his talent seems more staggering than ever. "John is the greatest musician in the world," adds Flea. Says Kiedis: "The artistic center of his brain is pretty much all of his brain."
That's clear as I talk to Frusciante on the hotel's private patio under the blinding sunlight.
