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July 2006, Total Guitar (UK)thanks to Kane Taylor, for typing it outclick the thumbnail to see scans

In the first of a special two-part interview, John Frusciante discussesHendrix, drugs, Ricky Gervais, meditation and why he's fallen in love withguitar solos again. Words: Phil Ascott. Portraits: Ross Halfin

“Congestion ahead. Delays are expected.” It’s 3.18pm on Good Friday and,from the passenger seat of our car TG is surveying the endless stream of stationary vehicles snaking their way into the distance. We’re braving theM6 motorway, heading north for Easter sojourn with the in laws. It’s alaborious process at the best of times (we’re referring of course to drivingup the M6, not visiting the in laws), but this time the holiday trafficcombined with a full premiership football schedule, has turned one of Britain’s longest car parks. The sound of our mobile phone ringing briefly distracts us from the tediumof tarmac. Scrabbling around, TG locates our vibrating friend and notes amystery London number is on the line:“Hello?”“Hi it’s John Frusciante here.”“Oh, er, Hi John….”Rewind 24 hours , and we are waiting in room 105 of the world famousClaridge’s Hotel, a luxury five- star establishment right in the heart of London’s West End. The hotel room is the epitome of glamour: spacious,decked out with antique Art Deco furniture with copious bowl of freshexotic fruits dotted around and a bathroom so long you could hold a bowlstournament in it. John Frusciante is fashionably late. Our allotted hour’s interview was dueto start at 1pm but John is still upstairs wharfing down his breakfast, so werecline on an opulent chaise longe, grab a grape and wait. 10 minuteslater Frusciante appears shuffles slightly awkwardly across the room andgreets us warmly. His long unkempt hair, unshaven, rugged features andsimple jeans, t-shirt and lumber shirt attire seems out of place in thesesumptuous surroundings. With his tattoos and heavily scarred arms hiddenfrom view, he looks unremarkable – seemingly more likely to produce a BigIssue from up his sleeve than the kind of diamond encrusted watch hecould so easily afford – yet perversely, Frusciante is perhaps the mostremarkable guitarist Total Guitar has ever met.His incredible life story to date has been told often, but bears repeating. Aprodigious young musician, he joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers aged just18 years old and his impact on the band was immediate. As the creativeforce behind 1991’s brilliant Blood Sugar Sex Magik album, Frusciantetransformed the band from slightly embarrassing sex obsessed funk-metallers to global rock giants in three short years. Then at the height of their popularity he quit the band in a haze of heroin. Drugs were to rule hislife for the next five years, first heroin, then crack cocaine. As Frusciantebattled with the “beings of higher intelligence” or “spirits” he’d had in hishead since childhood, he lost his teeth, his skin (the burns on his arms aconsequence of setting fire to himself while freebasing) his house (burntdown) and by overdosing regularly almost his life.

With the Chilis floundering after and unsuccessful phase with DaveNavarro on guitar, it was bassist Flea who was instrumental in bringingFrusciante out of his addiction and back into the band. His reinstatementonce again bore immediate fruits. The banks next studio albumCalifornication, sold 15 million copies, while an astonishing one in 35 UK households own a copy of 2002’s By The Way.But its not just Frusciante’s musical Midas touch that’s remarkable. He’s afascinating man to spend time with. Despite the scheduled one-hour slot,the enigmatic guitarist eventually spends nearly three hours in ourcompany and rarely have we encountered a guitarist so deeply studied,progressive and passionate about his art. Every facet of his existence ischannelled towards his music: whether its an in-depth study of every formof composition from classical to the electronic avant-garde, dissectingpioneering, foreign cinema and British comedy, or practising Buddhistmeditation, a technique that has replaced drug intake as the guiding forcein Frusciante’s life.Often his conversation has convoluted as he grapples for the ideal wordsto explain his complex creations and persona, yet it is clear Frusciante isdeeply intelligent; a pioneering perfectionist who functions on a level mostmusicians aspire to yet few achieve. A perfectionism that leads him tointerrupt TG’S journey to clarify some of the finer points of our previousday’s conversation, and what led him to the sonic heights that dominatethe Red Hot Chili Pepper’s monster, new double album, Stadium Arcadium.Next month John describes some of the practice techniques, chord theory,instrumentation and studio trickery that went into making one of the mostanticipated guitar albums of the year.While the first part of this in-depth interview, he discusses meditation,soloing, drugs, Jimi Hendrix and his early years in one of the world’sbiggest rock bands…

Stadium Arcadium was recorded at the same studio where yourecorded 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik album. What as thereasoning behind that?

It just seemed like the perfect idea because I live about one minute awayand Anthony and Chad live about 10 minutes away. Flea’s about an houraway in Malaga, but because of the way it’s set up he could sleep at thestudio. Flea made it his home for the weekends so it was just practical inthat way. Also the studio we normally use Cello Studios closed down.

Did recording in the house bring back any memories?

Not really. It seems like a different place now to what it was then. I like itbetter now. Its cosier, a little more warm and homely. The other guys havea different impression than me, but that’s how it seemed to me. I loved itboth times but before it seemed more cold and chilling

How different was the recording process to when you recorded allthose years ago?

Well back then I didn’t do many overdubs. Blood Sugar was naked. At thetime that was the concept I wanted especially because on Mothers Milk,

Michael Beinhorn had really pushed us. He had me quadrupling guitars, soit was years before I ever doubled anything again because I had such aweird experience on Mothers Milk. I did a lot of doubling on this album andit came out really good, but I hadn’t done doubling since Mother’s Milk. The template for Stadium Arcadium was to have and album like BlackSabbath’s Master Of Reality where the guitars are in stereo, hard left, hardright, and its just the simple powerchord and sounds so thick as you’d everwant it to sound.

Do you ever look back to the Funky Monks film that was made atthe time of Blood Sugar? How do you feel about watching yourself back then?

I have all the respect in the world for my guitar playing back then,especially as that was a point when I’d broken out of being in a particularplace. When I was a teenager I loved Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and SteveVai, and I was balancing out those three guitarists styles in my playing. Ididn’t have my own identity and I didn’t know what my musical voice wasgoing to be. Around the time we started writing Blood Sugar, I finally putaside those guitarists’ styles and I forgot about what’s technically good. Ithought, for example, that Keith Richards makes music that connects withso many people and he plays in such a simple way, so why don’t I pick avariety of people along those lines who play simple but do something thatmakes a beautiful sound that affects people emotionally? For me that wasa new way of thinking that to a while adjusting to. So by the time werecorded Blood Sugar, I still felt as though I was doing a balancing act andI didn’t really feel comfortable with what I was doing, which is probably agood thing. The same thing happened when we were making this record. Ifelt as though it could just as easily be bad as it could be good.

In what way weren’t you comfortable recording StadiumArcadium?

I felt like I was skating on thin ice or walking a tightrope. It seems that a lotof the things that are good have a quality about them. The only album Iremember feeling totally and completely confident on 100 percent was By The Way, and I wasn’t actually challenging myself on that album. I knewexactly what I was doing to do in the studio, so it’s easy to feel powerfuland confident when you have over-practised and you’re playing belowyour level of technique. On Blood Sugar I was being very careful to notthink and to play from somewhere else other than my brain activity to playguitar. I would shut off my brain and let my fingers just go and listen to thebass and the drums, and not really listen to myself except the soundcoming back from my own guitar.I started it with the keen feeling that there were beings of higherintelligence controlling what I was doing, and I didn’t know how to talkabout it or explain it. I called them “spirits”. It was very clear to me thatthe music was coming from somewhere other than me. But if you shut off your brain you will notice that the music exists beyond anything that weperceive with our five senses, and we don’t really understand how it is thatmusic exists in the air and comes through as a vehicle. But it does. And onthis album, meditation for six months prior to us going into the studio had