Lost And Found
A ritual of evocation?
Yeah, I used to spin myself around so fast that everything around me became blurry. I spun as fast as a dancer, but without turning my head as they do. I got to do that for a long time without feeling sick. In this way I felt I was hastening my relationship with fate and saw that spirits that had helped me to achieve my life's work came back to me. In those 3 months even if I wasn't taking heavy drugs, I was smoking weed and drinking, but at some point I decided to quit everything and tried my best to be alive.
I thought you went to a rehabilitation clinic to get rid of heroin.
No, I didn't for physical problems, because after those 3 months of continuous dance I didn't have any addiction. I went to the clinic to start a new chapter of my life and because I didn't have money, I didn't have any other place to go to. Some people made me go in the hospital and it has been good for me. The first days they gave me some tablets because they thought I was still addicted, but I wasn't, so I didn't take them.
What's your greatest fear?
I don't fear anything.
You surely don't fear death. When you took drugs you were about to die many times.
I don't fear death, as a result everything in life that represents death doesn't scare me: the thought that someone could shoot me, the idea of being nothing, of losing someone who's close to me. Anyway things go, it's ok with me.
Where do we go when we die?
Everyone goes to a different place. There's a relationship between the image of yourself that you have in the moment you're dying, and what yourself is after the death. If you become the image of yourself, this could be terribly distorted and it could be everything: someone with huge elephant's ears, a monster, a robot. As for the place where we go, it depends on how much progress you did in this life, that is the use you made of your time to change, to grow, to learn. Someone who lives his life without making any effort to learn will find himself in a place where he'll get a hard reprimand. You get a hard reprimand even if death arrives when you're still running away from something instead of facing it. You can end up in a very bad place. You have to be honest with yourself and be able to face yourself. I believe in what Leonardo Da Vinci said: "Like a day spent well brings a night of serene rest, so a life spent well brings a serene death".
Back to premonitions, how did you know it was right to come back with the RHCP?
When I came back to the real world after the hospital, I felt what everybody who quits drugs feels. Every day things are very boring. I was myself again, but I used to spend days watching movies with my friend Toni, 3 or 4 hours a day. I didn't have anything to do, I was looking for something that made me start again. For a moment I thought of playing with Perry Farrell, then we didn't do anything. When I was in the hospital I already felt that I'd came back with the RHCP. Anthony [Kiedis] used to visit me and when we were together I felt his energy. We were fine together again, and that's the reason why I had to stay in a band. We didn't talk about the past, we were synchronized again. We lived vey different lives for a long time, and now we were at the same point. It's like when planets align. It wasn't an aware decision, it had to happen. After the movies period, I made some changes for myself. I moved in to a small apartment where I could be on my own, listen to my records, play. I began to write again. Everything started when I came back in the RHCP, because I had a reason to play guitar constantly. I didn't listen to music for personal pleasure anymore, but to develop and create a style for the album we were recording. I had a purpose again and as a side effect I found myself writing songs for me. Being with the RHCP has always been good for my creativity.
