Perfect From Now On
October 2004, Magnet Magazine (USA)
thanks to Caroline for typing it out
click the thumbnail to see the scans
Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante is learning to make brilliant mistakes on his own albums. Lots of them.
It will take you roughly 15 minutes to read this interview with John Frusciante. In that time, the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist and his frequent collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Josh Klinghoffer, might record basic tracks for six or seven songs and add percussion overdubs. Maybe that's stretching it a bit, but such an exaggeration illustrates that, when left to his own devices, Frusciante works quickly and quite often. Half of dozen releases are scheduled to be out by year's end on the Record Collection label, all of which were recorded, mixed and mastered in a six-month period beginning late last year.
The first release was Frusciante's fifth solo disc, The Will To Death, which came out in June. Tracked in a handful of mad-dash sessions, the album is purposefully raw without sounding rushed. A psychedelic-rock record that's heavy on mood and melody. Death leaves plenty of open spaces foe the slow-motion beauty of Frusciante's expressive guitar work. Also arriving under Frusciante's own name this year are the D.C. EP (recorded with Ian MacKaye and Fugazi's tech/second drummer Jerry Busher) and the full-lengths Inside Of Emptiness and A Sphere In The Heart Of Silence. You have to wonder where he finds the time.
"I've rejected a lot of these things you're supposed to do when you're an adult," explains Frusciante. "I have that opportunity because I make a living as a musician. I don't watch the news. I don't read the newspaper. I don't follow politics. I don't invest my money. For me, life is listening to music, watching movies, reading books and playing with my musical equipment, which for me are like toys."
"I've never seen anybody with such a strong creative will," says Klinghoffer, who's worked with PJ Harvey, among others. "I can be rather opinionated, and there are very few people that I'll waver my opinion to; it's because I believe in what John wants to accomplish."
With his avant-rock project Ataxia - featuring Klinghoffer and Fugazi bassist Joe Lally - Frusciante issued the largely improvised Automatic Writing in August. A second Ataxia disc (culled from the same sessions) and a boxed set compiling all of Frusciante's solo albums are planned for next year.
"The whole thing happened so fast that it's really beyond me," says Lally of Ataxia. "I'd never done stuff like that. To have a few practices, take it into the studio, then go do a show, I wasn't even sure where it stood musically. I was so used to years of playing with three guys where we just slaved over the songs. It's ideal for John because it's not normally what would happen with the Chili Peppers. I just tried to hold on for the ride."
At his home in Los Angeles, Frusciante is back in Chili Peppers mode. The band recently completed a European tour and is at work on a next record. Frusciante would just as soon not revisit his mid-'90s exile from the Chili Peppers and the storied bout with heroin addiction that followed. When asked about the circumstances surrounding the four-track shock-therapy vibes of his solo debut, 1994's Niandra LaDes And Usually Just a T-Shirt, Frusciante immediately sounds pained, hissing, "That album was not recorded when I was a heroin addict. It was released when I was a heroin addict."
Creating music - whether touring the globe with musical soulmates Anthony Kiedis, Flea and Chad Smith in a modern-rock juggernaut or doing records on the cheap and on the fly with friends like Klinghoffer and Lally - is what makes Frusciante happiest. You can hear it in his hyper cadence when he discusses it. He sounds like a precocious six-year-old on a sugar bender.
