Vpro 1994 transcript

Transcript of the 1994 Vpro interview
If you transcribed this, please email me so I can credit you.

It begins with Flea and Ant looking for John, they go through this door and upstairs. At the top of the stairs John has his pants hanging down and he’s showing his private parts to Flea.

It then goes onto little clips of John jamming with the Chilis, on stage, behind the scenes and in his room with his record collection giggling to the camera guy about this experience he had when walking into a record shop when he was in 7th grade and they all thought he was an amazing guy because he could play all these Jimi Hendrix songs (he looked so proud of himself while saying that…..very sweet)

John is completely stoned and looks horrifyingly ill and weak in this interview.

John is sitting in his room, obviously high on something. Beginning of the interview he’s distracted by something then laughs and says “I just slipped into another dimension there” and then the interviewer seems confused and says “oh…yeah….of course”
He tells the interviewer he first started writing songs at 9, he says “I was really mad at this guy, it was my last time ever playing sport Baseball and this guy was a real jerk, I sat in the outfield and made up this song about how I thought he should die. So I went home and filled up the tape with 45 minutes worth of songs and ever since I’ve been writing songs…lately I’ve been writing a lot….I write in notebooks, like I go through a notebook every couple of weeks - I just do writings of all kinds, I do movie scripts….just stuff off the top of my head…like mathematics….all sorts of things.”

Interviewer: “Do you remember any of the songs you wrote when you were nine, like the song about that guy……”

John: “umm…yeah, oh that one was called ‘Fuck You: To Jose’”(Spanish pronunciation) Interviewer begins giggling nervously as John looks ahead very seriously. Then the interviewer asks if he remembers how to play that song and John says no and then says “all my songs back then were played like this” and then plays something very out of tune on his guitar and says “I assumed I was playing in tune but I had no way of knowing - I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing”
John then offers to play a song he wrote when he was 14 I think, he murmurs quite a bit but his voice is still utterly beautiful if not a bit out of tune.

Next interview – this one is very upsetting. John looks like he hasn’t eaten in weeks, his eyes are practically bulging out, his teeth are rotting away but the most upsetting thing is what he says.

Interviewer: “Do you mind telling me a little bit about the point when you left the Chili Peppers? Why did you leave the band?”

John: “Umm….because…….there’s a bunch of reasons, for one thing, a year before I quit they knew I wanted to quit and me and Flea once took a drive through the park after the first two months of touring the American tour. I was just miserable and broke the band code of not bringing a girlfriend along on tour because I just couldn’t do it without her and I was happy whenever I was on stage looking at Flea or looking at Chad………but looking around and looking at all the shapes and sounds floating around……..but I wasn’t happy with any……..me and Flea took this drive after that tour and we were sitting there and he said ‘is there anything you like about being in the band?’ and I said no there’s nothing I like about being in the band at all” (John’s voice gets a little croaky here like he’s about to burst into tears) “……and Flea goes nothing?…….and I said nothing except for playing with you, I love you that’s why I’m in the band coz I love playing with you, and he was like hmmm……God that’s no reason to stay in the band if you’re not happy you should you know……but he says that then he forgets it and……you know…….then like for a year I was doing it and then they were surprised when I quit when they knew even back then that I wanted to quit…..you know…..but it’s just that we were so close to each other and it’s just marriage or something…..when someone says they wanna break up you don’t keep it in your mind all the time when you’re with them…….so I enjoyed Flea…but is that enough? Should I even do this anymore?”
John: When I joined the band I couldn’t believe that they wanted to be this other thing than they were….like I thought of them as huge stars but to them they weren’t famous yet and they hadn’t made it yet and they wanted to be as big as Aerosmith or whatever you know and I couldn’t……that was a shock but I just thought…..I was happy as hell so….but I hoped that we would stay at the level we were at in popularity (Begins to get a little teary) ….so the real shock came when I found out that this record that we had been recording, this music that me and Flea just gone nuts over for a few months was actually gonna be in record stores and there will be a bunch of people going out and buying it and putting it on and listening to that music that we made….it had never occurred to me literally, I’m serious…it never entered my head, it was never a thought that went through my head that said people are gonna buy and listen to it, a lot of people all over the world…..like when I first said it I said all over the country then I realized Jesus all over the world and I said it to Flea like five different ways and he was going, yeah!

It helps that I was totally located in the dimension that the music existed….as energy and not the place the music existed as words or as a thing to entertain people.
I was just really in a heavy place when we recorded the albums….like I heard ghosts on the whole record……it was just a fun place to be……like I heard ghosts on the whole record and I’d always say to people when we were playing it for them (whispers) can’t you hear those ghosts! Listen! and Flea goes (sarcastically) ‘John not everybody hears them…..just we hear them’

Interviewer: I remember seeing you in Amsterdam once and you were real live and you were happy….

John: Oh, I wasn’t happy at all man

Interviewer: Why Not?

John: Because I didn’t wanna be there doing press at all….I had to leave three quarters of the way into it…I didn’t want to go and Flea was like ‘well you have to’ because him and Anthony would have gone but they made me go with Anthony and I was just…….I was just losing my mind. I feel that when you speak about things you’re diarrheaing all over them…you just ruin whatever you’re talking about and I felt like I was diarrheaing all over what was important to me…and I hated being told I was a rock star.
…So Anthony felt like he couldn’t joke around coz I was getting so serious because I was so angry about the whole press thing and the whole rock star thing and then he would have looked like he didn’t have any integrity if he would have just started off so it was a really bad combination…..and he was scared to say anything like he usually did which was his thing and so it was just awful

Interviewer: So he was trying to compensate for……..?

John: No he just imitated me (interviewer laughs) He would just imitate me so then if I say like ‘then go blah blah blah’ and then he says ‘whip out your cock and show it to my mother’….you know…it doesn’t go together

Interviewer: Ah…..I see (laughs)
John: If you’re a musician you’re either gonna become a cool person or you’re gonna become a good nothing….you’re gonna know how to be nothing and really understand it or you’re gonna be a bad nothing and just a piece of shit….there’s not really any in between if you’re a rock star…..one or the other

Interviewer: So what did you think when you heard the news of Kurt Cobain’s death?

John: I cried, I don’t know why….I don’t like his music or anything….you know it’s awful about his baby I just……I don’t want to talk about that…..I just don’t think he has very many guts……I just don’t see why he wouldn’t want to see his daughter grow up…you know…that he wouldn’t be excited enough about that to not think of himself……people just start thinking of themselves too much. I don’t think it’s so much that they become conscious of the world of video and the world of this and that and a world of fame, they just think of themselves and no matter who you are and whether you’re a rock star or a garbage man, if you’re thinking of yourself all the time you’re not gonna be very good at what you do. With a baby you can tell them funny jokes when they’re two and they’ll love it, you can teach them about how everyone’s an idiot and they’ll love it…..but you know…..it doesn’t occur to a lot of people how intense that is…..how beautiful it is (When he says this you can see a longing in his voice and expression) Everything I…..like my record is dedicated to Clara…..she’s the smartest person I’ve ever met (shows a clip of Clara playing with a massive cuddly toy of Ernie from sesame street which John bought for her)

Interviewer: What I was thinking about when I heard of Kurt Cobain’s death (John starts acting a little odd) coz you’ve experienced River Phoenix’s death and Hillel’s death, there’s a self-destructive thing that happens to people in this business or something……

John: Everybody dies………I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I think it’s more of a shame that he was born and then he died coz he didn’t like this life and he didn’t like this place and he’s in a better place now………I don’t think death is a big deal, I don’t care if I die right now….doesn’t mean I’m self-destructive, I really love life and I think thats the only way to love life.
It starts to separate the boys from the men when you see who’s got that inside of them and who doesn’t …..that’s when somebody becomes a good musician and the other person doesn’t it’s coz one is all concerned with the future and the past and one is just right here, right now, excited and calm…….and sad and doesn’t give a fuck….some people are sad and like ‘Oh no this leads to death!’
Interviewer: I still wanna ask you about that….about what I just said, that self-destructiveness because I once talked about Forrest right after he did that big show in Holland and he climbed up some….I don’t know….very high thing, almost fell and he survived…..it’s very crazy…..

John: Yeah I know, he was wearing my clothes

Interviewer: He was wearing your clothes?

John: That whole tour (interviewer laughs)

Then it shows a clip of Bob Forrest performing on stage and also being interviewed about death and he says how he’s not afraid of dieing. Then he says ‘Lets take for instance the real rock n’ rollers, would you like to end up like Paul McCartney? I’d rather be dead than be Paul McCartney I’ll tell you that or Phil Collins or any of that’. He said he idolised people like Keith Richards and wanted to be like them. At 13 all he wanted to do was shoot heroin.

Back to John interview

John: Ok, so you want me to say something soulful? Drugs. I’m a junkie and I love shooting up and that means I’m self-destructive and………is that good enough?

Interviewer: I don’t know, did you feel it was a true statement?

John: Yeah

At this point John sings a very beautiful song in my opinion, he’s a little clumsy on the guitar and his voice is out of tune but it all seems to flow somehow.

Interviewer: (Says a name of a David Bowie book which I just can’t hear clearly enough and asks John if he reads it)

John: Well I just look at the pictures, I don’t read it (takes out the book) I’ve just always loved looking at pictures of David Bowie. The only stuff I would read was when I was 17 and I would buy coke on the streets everyday and everyday I was starving coz I didn’t have any money but I would manage and days that I couldn’t manage I would……I would like……since I really wanted to do coke, I would just look up all the sections in the Bowie biography that I had….in the index which is cocaine and then just look up all the parts about cocaine and read them so I would feel like I was on coke. (Flicks through his book) But, yeah I just really look at the pictures (shows a page with a picture of Bowie and Iggy Pop. The interviewer doesn’t seem to interested about what John is showing him and is eager to move onto the next question. You can’t see the interviewer in the frame but he must have been smiling or something because John asks in a very serious and threatening tone ‘Do you think something’s funny?’, refering to the picture and then he says “Joke”.)

Interviewer: Why did you want to be on coke so badly then?

John: Coz it’s great……coz it made me feel great……and plus, I just thought it was cool, I just thought David Bowie did his coolest stuff when he was on a lot of coke and that feeling and that image is just the whole reason why I got into rock n’ roll in the first place….like, bisexuality and drugs were the two things in life that I related to rock n’ roll in my overall image of it when I was about 9 or 10 years old when I got into punk rock. That was the whole world that I felt within me that wasn’t going on around me at school that made me feel like I had no reason to exist….that in rock n’ roll that was part of everyday living and that gave me a reason to live, to actually feel like I did have a place where other people felt the same feelings for life that I did (thank God for rock n’ roll!) …..and so when I was 17 I had never really done any drugs in my whole life and moved to Hollywood and decided that instead of practicing guitar 10 to 15 hours a day which is what I’ve been doing for 5 years, I was just gonna live life and do cocaine and wear make-up everyday….I wore make-up everyday then and just…you know….I would be wearing full make-up and pink pants….and I met some guy who thought I was queer (? I think he says queer but the film gets a bit muffled) I would argue with guys I didn’t even know, just like that.
Interviewer: But have you ever wondered about this drug thing…what it is in people or in somebody like you or others, there’s many others, that they have to have added something to their body that changes them and alters them.

John: Every second alters you, every single thing you’ve ever seen alters you, everything you eat alters you. I think a parent yelling at you is an extreme way of altering yourself. I think somebody kicking you in the thighs is your……the one you look up to as being the role model of masculinity I think that alters you.

Interviewer: Are you referring to your own parents?

John: No, not necessarily. I’m referring to everybody’s. Everybody’s parents make some sort of mistakes and have some sort of sense of carelessness when it comes to developing their child’s sexuality…..and their brain, like, what’s considered smart to the world and parents is like memorising things and doing good in school and what I’ve come to find is what smart is, is being able to trip out….you know….that’s using more parts of your brain, that’s your subconscious at work, that’s lining up thoughts that are…..and doing really intense things to your whole existence here and in all your other lives that are going on simultaneously……that’s what smart is, not just memorising something, a monkey can do that…so drugs just help that. I did it my whole life for……Kiss was the first time I really tripped out on music where it just really took me to a magical place and drugs are just….go along with that. I don’t think of it as any sort of heavy alteration that hurts you, it ‘s like, if I snort a lot of coke, like (sarcastically-) ‘Oh God that was terrible! I wish I hadn’t done that in front of you, oh awful…are you ok?, I think I’m gonna be Ok’

Interviewer: Ok, but now you just said you’re shooting up, you’re using heroin, I mean what about that, that’s something pretty heavy isn’t it?

John: (Shrugs) People say so, I don’t know what that means really. I don’t think of it as being any sort of naughty thing or anything.

Interviewer: What does it mean to you?

John: It’s just a way of making sure you stay in touch with beauty instead of letting the ugliness of the world corrupt your soul.

Interviewer: And you don’t care if it destroys your body, or doesn’t it?

John: I don’t destroy my body, I feel great. If I didn’t feel great I’d change the way I live, I’d start running or something, I feel great. I have lots of energy, I’m writing all the time, writing music all the time, developing my brain, widening my appreciation of art of all kinds and being a nicer person…..always working on being a nicer person.

Interviewer: And so it’s not a habit that you would want to stop?

John: No, even if addiction didn’t exist I’d still do it exactly the way I’ve done it.

Shows little clips of John playing the songs he’s recorded onto tape, he sounds tortured and in anguish.

John: The reason I released the record is because there’s not that much good music around nowadays, that was how my friends convinced me……it’s like, there’s no good music around really now….so, like the kids are….even though they’re excited about the music that’s out, I just think they’re settling for something that doesn’t have the same vibe as Da Vinci. Like, to me the really good music like Jane’s Addiction and Jimi Hendrix and just things of that calibre has the same vibe as Da Vinci in my head, like there’s something in it that ties together all artists from all times and no bands around now really have it….you know….and this music does so I released it.”