Sons of the City

Frusciante recorded two records with the Chili Peppers during his initial go-round, the second of those, BloodSugarSexMagik, being the album that launched them into mainstream stardom. This sudden ascent to mass popularity left the acutely sensitive Frusciante increasingly unhappy and disillusioned. “By the time we were recording on BloodSugar,” he recalls, “it was very clear to me that I could make the world beautiful if I controlled my environment. But that if you rushed me into the middle of a traffic jam or put some ugly billboard in front of me, anything that wasn’t pleasant to me, I had no idea how to protect myself against it.” This discomfort also translated to fellow band members, whom he believed were too eager to sell themselves out for fame and fortune. “I felt like they thought to be successful they had to pretend to be something, to make funny faces and jump around and be silly and make weird jokes, because that‘s what was going to make them successful.”

At the time, Frusciante felt the band should model themselves after underground heroes like Black Flag, the Velvet Underground and the Butthole Surfers, and not concern themselves with selling vast amounts of records. Accordingly, he began trying to subvert the process, refusing to do interviews and changing the way he played during their live shows. “He was almost like the fan in some ways,” Smith says. “Like, ’I used to like them, but now everybody likes them, so I don‘t like them anymore.’ But we didn‘t really change. It’s just a mentality, that rebelling-against-being-popular thing. As soon as the record started to take off, he would just do the opposite of whatever he thought he was supposed to do. If it was time for a lead, he‘d unplug his guitar. If it was time for a rhythm break, he’d just go completely off.” On tour in Japan, Frusciante abruptly quit the band and flew home to Hollywood.

After leaving the Chili Peppers, Frusciante dedicated himself full time to a bout of heroin addiction that left even the most jaded in Hollywood aghast. With infection spreading throughout his arms and teeth rotting out of his head, many assumed the end was looming. Yet somehow he managed to linger in this isolated and somnambulistic state for six bleak years before finally being hospitalized. Drug free and on the mend, Frusciante was eventually asked to rejoin the band. “He comes over to Flea‘s garage, and I didn’t know what to think,” Smith recalls. “But once we started playing, it was just kind of like putting on an old shoe. It just felt good.”

His arms scarred from skin grafts and his grill replaced, Frusciante now seems finally at peace with the uncertainties that fueled his initial departure. Sitting on a couch surrounded by an enormous and eclectic record collection, Frusciante explains how he has finally come to accept life as a famous rock star. He tells of how, when all alone in the depths of his addiction, images he had of artists like Jean-Michael Basquiat, David Bowie and Leonardo da Vinci kept him alive. “And it matters very little whether these people were in tune with me on some subconscious level or were pure fantasy,” he says. “The fact is, they kept me alive and they made my life feel like it was worth living. They made me feel like I had a friend. And this time when I joined the band, I was so thankful for being kept alive all those years by my images of people, that I was just like, oh great, let‘s send out images to some other people. To me what’s important is the image that some kid in Montana has of me. If I make that person feel good, if I mean something to that person, it‘s just as real or more real than what I actually am.”

Frusciante now eats healthy, practices yoga and plays or composes music nonstop, seeming to have transferred his addiction from narcotics to the creative process. “I’m not saying that I‘ve done all this with a purpose in mind when I was just destroying myself,” he says. “It took a lot of suffering and a lot of confusion and a lot of searching. But I feel like I’ve been doing a good job for the last four years. I came back with a completely fresh perspective. I wasn‘t drugged and I wasn’t off balance. I was starting from a brand-new place, and there‘s a lot to be said for that. There have been other people who have gone away and then come back and seen the world or music from a brand-new perspective and then done the best stuff that they’ve ever done. Not only musicians, but also people like Mohammed and Buddha and Jesus Christ. They all led sort of normal lives, then disappeared for a while and then came back, and that‘s when they had all their fresh ideas and stuff that they’re known for.”