Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium

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No doubt: This is Frusciante´s record! From clean chords over effectloaded sounds and Full-Blast-Leads to jazzy chord-feel – and bandmate Flea is full of admiration: “John has got a very comprehensive idea of music. He´s an incredible musician, well-informed, very concentrated, very spiritual and emotional by making music. He dedicated his life to the music.” And John specifies his jazzy parts: “I haven´t been listening to Jazz a lot, because I think there will never be a better guitarist than John McLaughlin. His play has got everything. I´ve ever been fascinated by his energy, this powerful light which shines through his play. He´s a person who devoted hisself to meditation and inspired me to try it myself and helped me on this way with my connection with music.”

His newly stronger grown self-confidence is happily growing with every new record, may it be a solo-record or with the Peppers. But: This one shows Frusciante on the contrary to “By The Way” this time: “If there was time for a solo back then I everytime decided not to play it. The only parts I played on “By The Way” were parts I was able to sing to. I didn´t want to play stuff other guitarist play usually.” This time Frusciante is in a good playing-mood. There´s a big number of soli on this record so the fact that he set great store by playing all of them spontaneous is astonishing. “This is the first time, I make a record where I haven´t had the faintest idea what to play before the recording. On the other records I at least knew how the solo starts or how it ends- this time I had no idea. All soli were played live and spontaneous during the recording. Even those ones which sound composed are improvised. This gives some kind of excite to the song, a certain portion of dirt which I miss on other records.”

The artistic changes are of course just the results of the further development of the own personality: “It fits to the developments as a human I made in the last couple of years. I´ve really done a lot to open myself as a human. That’s a completely new way of life for me. And its hard for me. It´s easier said than done. It needs a lot of my energy to learn to be open like that. And what I´m playing now is really the best I´m able to play. I don´t want to hold anything back this time and set no limits to myself.”

And again it was by Frusciante to create this variety of sound. “There are details which are really worth to put the headphones on.”, means John. Teached by his many solo-records he reached his limit to use all qualities of a recording studio. “And it´s a good feeling to have done it nearly perfect this time.”, he says.

For that he gets compliments from Kiedis: “John shines on this record!” What Frusciante gives back to every concerned person: “Our music gets so much energy because everybody loves to listen to eachother. We work with the energy of eachother and it´s cool that they think the same about me.”

What is missing? You are looking in vain for a real ballad like “Under The Bridge” on this record. There are 2 or 3 songs in this direction - but still a bit too “uptempo” to reach this monumental atmosphere of the named song. But maybe one of the 4 songs nobody have heard yet is a real ballad-hit.

“Really a round record.” says drummer Chad Smith´ conclusion. Round fits good. Because maybe some parts of the double-record are a bit overloaded. But the first impression changes often after hearing it several times. The band themselves are so proud of this record so they would surely love to release all of the 38 recorded songs. But it´s better this way. Not? Well, the coming b-sides will show us.

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