The (Re)Birth of Tragedy
Spring 2005, Skyscraper (USA)
thanks to Pez for typing it out
click the thumbnail to see scans
John Frusciante may be best known as the guitarist for frat-boy jock-funksters The Red Hot Chili Peppers, but the musical prodigy and the charismatic performer has also slowly - almost secretly - proven to be a venerable, if mercurial, solo artist over the past decade. His first few solo albums, including Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt, which were packaged as a double album and released by Warner Bros. in 1994 (and reissued in 1999 and again in 2003), were frantic, garbled and obtuse testaments to his candle-burning-at-both-ends, bare artistic genius. At the time of those recordings, he had just quit the band,, determined to focus on his own music (and perhaps, more accurately, on feeding his massive heroin addiction).
Frusciante's delicate, expressive and downright somber guitar playing and his increasingly prominent and emotive vocal harmonies, are beyond a doubt the core of the Chili Peppers
surprisingly revived vitality upon his 1998 return to the group, after drugs nearly wiped him from the planet. Pitted against the Chili Peppers' socks'n'sausage party aesthetic, Frusciante imbues the band with a sullen, soaring soul - an accomplishment that would seem nearly impossible when taking the rest of the band at face value.
It's not simply that Frusciante is a great guitar player - because, really, who cares? The world is filled with skilled technicians in all forms of commerce and art - but it's that the guy actually plays with such verve and heart-wrenching desperation that makes him worthy of respect. While many of his solo songs seem cloying and formulaic, they're never without the charm of his musical and vocal Spence of urgency..
It might be that very sense of urgency in his music that inspired the unprecedented rash of releases throughout the summer and fall of 2004 - a new album every month for six months via the fledgling Warner Bros. offshoot Record Collection. It's truly a perfect example of addict behavior, but in this case, a creatively directed one.. Likewise, throughout these six releases - The will to Death, DC EP, Inside of Emptiness, A Sphere in the Heart of Silence, Curtains, and Automatic Writing, the last being a collaboration with Josh Klinghoffer and Fugazi's Joe Lally and released under the moniker Ataxia - you can hear the powerful force of a soul that has long ago resigned itself from this life. To me, every song Frusciante writes sounds like another phrase culled from a drawn-out suicide note. He achingly strums his guitar as if yearning for it to choke out his own breath. Some day, Frusciante will achieve his wish to exit our world. Until then, his albums serve as a chilling repast from the other side.
Let it be noted that this interview began on a sour note, as Frusciante is clearly not at ease with the process of talking about his music. From the outset, he misunderstood the opening question and took a defensive tack for much of the discussion. And throughout, his disdain for explaining himself beyond the means that he has already in liner notes to his solo albums is readily apparent. Perhaps most interesting, on another level, is his need to correlate himself with "underground" artists. The loud thud of each name drop throughout is indeed a telling testament to Frusciante's difficult perch as an artist who has also (twice!) sold his soul to rock'n'roll but still wants to remain true to his own sense of artistic credibility.
It seems apparent in the bios for your new albums that you've got your own ideas about what exactly makes this music work and what it's about. Would you care to elaborate on those ideas a bit?
Well, you know, it's music. It doesn't really matter what's said about it. It's music that I did, that I really love. When you've done something that you really love it doesn't matter what anybody says, or what I say about it... I don't think it adds anything to it. [Frusciante grows increasingly more hostile.] I'll answer your questions, but do I think the music has to have something said about it? No, the most I can think to say about it I wrote in the bio.
