This past Sunday, the Red Hot Chili Peppers made a completely unexpected announcement – longtime guitarist John Frusciante (who had already left the band twice) was returning to the Chili Peppers. Josh Klinghoffer, main guitarist for the past decade who served as backup guitarist during John’s second tenure, was out.
I literally jumped around my apartment when I saw the news and got confirmation that it was legit. Don’t get me wrong, Josh has more than earned his stripes (or should I say asterisk?), but the return of John Frusciante completely floors me. He’s by far my favorite guitarist, an endless source of inspiration, an otherworldly musical presence. The earth shakes when he attacks the guitar with his instinctual, primal connection to the instrument. There is nothing better than hearing John dig into those high-pitched guitar bends, lost in a trance, as Flea and Chad Smith back him up with a beautiful cacophony of driving bass and hard-hitting drums. You could pick any solo or jam from the Stadium Arcadium era shows, and you’ll find a guitarist and a band channeling the cosmos.
To be clear, I’m not bashing Josh, and I’ll describe further in this piece my love and admiration for him as a musician and as someone who ushered my favorite band through what could have been an incredibly difficult chapter. The band could have even called it quits when John left, especially if Josh didn’t fill the guitar spot. Josh stepped into a situation with a legendary guitarist having just left, and held it down. He’ll be much more than a footnote in the Chili Peppers’ history.
I first heard the Chili Peppers when my aspiring-rock star summer camp music teacher taught me and my fellow campers “Under the Bridge” when the song had just come out that previous fall. I was all of 6 years old. I distinctly remember my brother buying One Hot Minute in 1995 and listening to it incessantly with him. Californication came out the summer I turned 14, and I played that CD in my Discman until it was worn out. I was already in love with the raw funk/punk of 1989’s Mother’s Milk, John’s first album with the band, and the sonic masterpiece of 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik. At that point, I had been playing guitar for about four years, and John Frusciante was etched in my brain as one of the greats, up there with Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain.
As the story goes, John first left the band in 1992 feeling disengaged with their exploding fame, and after two brief stints from other guitarists, Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction made one great but uncharacteristic album with the band (One Hot Minute), and John came back in 1998, clean after years of heroin use.John left again, on seemingly better terms, in 2009, made some experimental music, produced some hip hop, and generally kept a low profile.
Josh stepped in and carried the band through another 10 years. Prior to his joining, the Chili Peppers had reached new heights in musicality and fame. Josh insured that momentum continued, and helped the band maintain and further cement its status as an iconic rock band. He was loyal to the legacies of original guitarist Hillel Slovak and John Frusciante, staying faithful to their riffs and solos where necessary, but often using them as jumping off points to inject his own flavor into classic Peppers material. He stepped up on backing vocals and even embraced singing short songs by himself at shows, a tradition John started. The Josh era even saw the return of One Hot Minute funk anthem “Aeroplane,” a setlist addition Peppers fans worldwide were ecstatic to hear live again. He played the Super Bowl and the freakin’ pyramids with the band, and became the youngest person inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Mission accomplished.
I witnessed the awesome power of Josh-era Chili Peppers live several times. At Bonnaroo in 2012, I rocked out with nearly 100,000 other attendees as the grungy opening of “Monarchy of Roses” gave way to the body-shaking rhythms of the bass and drums kicking into high gear. He channeled that sweet, sweet funk when they played Blood Sugar Sex Magik’s “If You Have to Ask,” which jammed its way into a high-energy jam on Funkadelic’s “Hardcore Jollies.” My brother and I scored 14th row tickets to the Chili Peppers’ Philly show in 2017, our seats not far from Josh’s rig. We were both blown away by his playing and spent the night in total awe, giddy with excitement to be that close to a Chilis guitarist.
He flailed around stage, he and Flea would jam until their instruments were touching or they were lying on the stage. He made beautiful, weird noises. I think most importantly, he brought his own sound to the Chili Peppers while honoring the band’s rich history.
One of the most beautiful things about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band I first saw in 1999 at the age of 13, is that every time they come back around, the crowd gets even more multigenerational. As a longtime fan, I sometimes forget that when they put out new material, it’s everywhere. It’s on the radio, it’s on TV, it’s in the atmosphere and seeps into the earth. There’s always teenagers, and there’s always kids whose parents brought them to experience the magic. So there’s a whole generation of people who grew up with Josh-era Chili Peppers. They’ll now have the opportunity to witness yet another era of John Frusciante, something I thought would never happen. And you know what? This new/old formation of the Peppers might just sound like a different band to them, a bit like they sounded to me when I’m With You, the first album they made with Josh, came out. And that’s OK. Maybe the way I describe my love for John is how they feel about Josh. That’s OK, and that’s valid.
The fanbase is divided, with many mourning the loss of Josh and questioning how and why it all played out. I’m not going to do that here. I would have been happy to embrace another album with Josh and go see whatever shows came within driving distance. Josh will certainly be missed, but for me, there’s a certain intangible quality to John Frusciante’s playing that strikes me at my core, that speaks to my soul. As the band ushers in yet another new era, I plan to greet it with an open mind and incredibly excited ears.
Marc Shapiro is a Baltimore-based photographer and writer. See more of his work on his Facebook page.
