Two Sides To Every Story
Frusciante also cites Vini Reilly (of obscure post-punk Manchester outfit the Durutti Column) and Siouxie & the Banshees guitarists John McGeoch and John Valentine Carruthers as influences this time around. Yet one of the guitarists he listened to throughout the making of By the Way who had a significant effect on his playing was Michael Rother of ’70s Krautrock duo Neu ! “He made these wonderful solo albums that are brilliant,” Frusciante gushes. “He piles on a ton of guitars, doing harmonies with each other, with beautiful, simple melodies and chord changes.”
Frusciante’s aforementioned keyboard fixation led him to seek out even more left-field role models.
“On this album, it was important for me that my solos not come from the rudiments of the guitar heroes that I grew up on.” he begins. “So rather than use people as my models who are actually my favorite guitarists, like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, I wanted to try an experiment for this record: to use synthesizer players and try to incorporate ideas that I was hearing on electronic records as melodies in my solos. So I’d figure out Autechre or Aphex Twin or Kraftwerk melodies. I was listening a lot to early electronic music, like the Human League’s first two records, OMD’s first two records, and Heaven 17. Those really were my whole model for the type of soloing that I do on this record. I’m doing bends and slides and things that one does in a solo, but I’m trying not to phrase things in that blues sort of way. It wasvery important to me on this record to be very disciplined about not showing up at the studio and playing my automatic blues riffs. That’s what I’ve got to do to keep things interesting for myself. I’ve got to set limitations for myself.”
Considering that many Chili Peppers songs develop from jam sessions, such a structured approach seems at odds with the freewheeling band’s entire pjilosophy. “But that’s what gives the jamming some kind of direction to it,” Frusciante stresses. “The other guys definitely just walk in and play whatever they feel like playing, but I feel it’s kind of my responsibility within the group to create some kind of limitation and be conscious of where I’d like it to go stylistically. I have a picture in my head, and I don’t go along with us doing things that don’t fit into that picture.” So how does he communicate this picture to his bandmates ? Answers Frusciante: “I don’t need to ! They understand that I have my own ideas for how I want my playing to be.”
Such unspoken undertanding is rare among band members, but Frusciante, Flea, Kiedis, and drummer Chad Smith share such powerful chemistry that their jams yielded a total of 28 possible songs for By The Way. Frusciante describes their communication as “very telepathic. Whenever I feel like somthing should happen, they just do it; nobody ever has to tell anybody. Everything just constantly falls into place every time we play together. It’s a great feeling. I’m so lucky to be in a band with people as good as Chad and Flea, because their styles lock perfectly with mine. See, there’s a thing about hearing the spaces in music, which is kind of what you don’t have when you play with someone you’ve never played with before. To you, what’s inside the spaces is implied in the notes you’re playing. But somebody else couls hear completely different accents in those spaces than what you’re hearing, because spaces are technically up for grabs. But for some reason, with Chad and Flea and me, if I play something that has a lot of space in it, they will always come in with the perfect accents. That’s a magical thing, which I guess just comes from playing together for a long time.”
Frusciante cliks so naturally and intuitively with his fellow Peppers, it must almost feel like he never left the band in the first place …right ? “Oh no, it feels very much like I felt !” he maintains. “But I feel closer and more tight with hem than I ever did back then, and I know that the only way that could have happened was for me to have left. I also have a clarity now in my brain about what my role is as a musician, and what I’m capable of. Like, I used to take so many things for granted when it came to technique, but now I appreciate every little ounce of technique that I have. When I was 21, I thought the whole thing was to throw away your technique; when I rejoined the band and I hadn’t played for five years and my technique was gone, I worked my head off to make it bach up to par with what it had been before. And now that I have it back, I don’t take it for granted. I’m not going to misuse it and start playing scales all over the place on our records. But the fcat that I can look at the fretboard and see where all the notes are - that when I hear Flea play a bassline, automatically these notes just come alive for me all across the fretboard - I am so thankful that have that.”
Surely countless RHCP fans - not to mention Flea, iedis, and Smith, his musical soulmates that have welcomed Frusciante back into the fold - are thankful as wel. Legend has it that a teenaged Frusciante once attended an audition for Frank Zappa’s band but chickened out at the last minute. And while Zappa surely would have appreciated the boy wonder’s staggering talent, it’s a genuine struggle to imagine Frusciante being a full-time member of any group other than the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Together, the four of them just have that certain magik.
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