A FRUSC NEW TAKE
I DON’T KNOW if I can say this about everyone, but — thinking back to all the John Frusciante interviews I’ve read in GW over the decades, I’ve noticed that he always seems to come up with inspiring little pearls of wisdom and inspiration. But the thing is, he says them in a way that implies he didn’t actually try to “come up” with anything. A lot like his totally natural rhythm playing and inspired soloing, the thoughts are just “there.”
In our latest interview, which starts on page 42 (according to this month’s understated cover), I’m drawn to this one:
“I got to such a point of unhappiness that I said, ‘I’m just going to throw away all these things I’m trying to do. I’m going to stop trying to grab people’s attention. I’m going to take my ego out of it entirely.’ I decided I was just going to use my guitar to try to support the other people in my band. So I simplified what I was doing. And at the same time, I was also putting a hundred times the amount of personal expression and soul into it than I had before.”
It reminds me of Picasso’s stylistic evolution — how a painter who created highly detailed works “in the style of his time” was able to strip it all away, simplify it and, in the process, invent a bold new style. Maybe Frusciante’s a cubist!
And then there’s one of my favorite Frusciante quotes of all time, from the April 2009 issue; the last line gets me every time:
“I try not to put pressure on myself and the instrument. I don’t walk up to a guitar and think I’m going to play something brilliant. I practice so much and study so much... eventually, ideas happen. Take hip-hop, for example: they take little bits of music and put them together and slice ’em up and re-organize them, and there you go — there’s your ideas. Remember, there’s an endless supply of creativity in the universe; it’s never going to run out. Explore the possibilities and don’t make too much of an agenda about blowing people away.”
AND WHILE I’M AT IT: Allow me to draw your attention to Chris Gill’s new back-page column, Power Tools. Grab your circular saws and rotary hammers and meet me on page 110!