
When total guitar spent the better part of two hours talking with John Frusciante, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ returning guitar hero, we not only heard his story about making an explosive new album, Unlimited lovebut also explored his evolution as a guitarist and what you can learn from his journey.
Frusciante is a one-of-a-kind guitarist. From joining LA’s funk-rock institution at the age of 18, to overcoming his preconceptions, finding his voice and ultimately writing some of the most iconic guitar parts of the past four decades, he has a wealth of wisdom to share.
But as he reveals here, it’s not just about the guitarist. The ability to listen, feel and complement the band are crucial steps in every guitarist’s quest to become the player they want to be.
Read on as John shares seven tips that will change the way you approach the guitar, not only technically, but also philosophically…
1. Never stop pushing yourself
“The first two years I was in the Chili Peppers, I wasn’t really on the right track. I thought I could be like Flea where, back then, he practiced half an hour a day, or some days didn’t play at all.
“And every time he picked up his bass, something great came out of it. And so when I joined the band, I was like, ‘I could be like that!’ And it turns out that I can’t be like that – if I did that, nothing original would come out of me, I wouldn’t feel good about what I did, I wouldn’t have fun on stage , I can’t be able to write songs and live up to his level of creativity.
“For me to be equal to Flea, I have to work 20 times harder: I have to play with other people’s music all the time, I have to write a lot more ideas than I show anyone. I have to strive to understand things that I don’t understand and may never understand.
2. Stay true to who you are
“When I was 18 and in my early 19s, I was trying to be awesome, because I could play fancy stuff or because I could be intense.
“It never went away, but I figured out pretty quickly that I couldn’t rely on that ability to be intense and I couldn’t rely on my technique – music really doesn’t mean anything to people unless you don’t really give anything to put yourself in there and put yourself out in a vulnerable way. Not trying to show people, “Hey, look at me, I’m fine”, but to give people a piece of your heart.
“It was a change that happened right after we left the tour to [1989 album] Breastmilk. I just decided, if I keep doing this, I’ll never be happy with what I’m doing, so I have to let go of my ideas of what’s good and I just have to try to be myself and figure out what it’s all about. is – and stop trying to be what I think people want me to be, or what I think Chilis are meant to be. I have to try to understand: ‘Who am I?’ »
3. Don’t seek to impress
“Usually when I put all those ideas of trying to be ‘good’ or trying to impress people aside, one thing that I can’t explain from my soul started coming out of my game. – and people started to like my game a lot more at this point; I started to mean something to people.
“It was one of those weird puzzles, because I had given up caring about it at the time: I figured I’d just be myself, come what may; I’m going to stop trying to be impressive. And that’s actually what made people really care about what I was doing.
4. Keep it simple and your bandmates will shine
“When I started pulling all these teenage ideas out of my head, and started really simplifying and trying to play more with my heart rather than trying to dazzle people with my fingers, Flea started to sound a lot better.
“I realized that by going to rehearsal, and instead of playing, just giving feedback, or holding a note for a long time. I noticed that made Flea great! I also saw how it affected the chemistry in the group; it made everyone better, because I gave them that canvas to paint on, instead of trying to get in front of other people to do my painting.
“I was like, ‘I’m going to let them do the painting and I’m just going to give them an atmosphere to do this,’ and I saw that had a really good effect on everyone.”
5. A guitarist’s true ability lies in how he interacts with the band
“Too often people assume that a guitarist’s value comes from his ability to draw attention to himself. And there are plenty of great guitarists who are good at drawing attention to themselves.
“But for me, the main thing that these people have – that other people who don’t draw attention to themselves like Bernard Sumner in Joy Division, or Syd Barrett, or Johnny Thunders or Matthew Ashman in Bow Wow Wow or John McGeoch in Siouxsie and the Banshees – for me what they have in common with Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads and Jimi Hendrix is that they knew how to be part of a band and make everyone world sounds better. They knew how to be team players.
“Yes, Eddie Van Halen had a flashy style, but he was a great rhythm guitarist, and he made those drums sound great. He made this bass sound great. He made the singer great. For me, it doesn’t matter how technical you are; a guitarist’s real talent is to make the rest of the band sound good.
A rock band is not four separate people in their own bubble; a rock band is three, four or five people who together create a sound
“And so for some people, it’s just who you are as a soul. For some people that means doing a lot of flashy stuff as well as doing the guitar parts for the song. For some people, that means not playing solo at all. For some people, that means doing a very simple sort of solo.
“I feel like, for me, that’s where I measure a guitarist’s talent: in how they help the rest of the band create a sound together. A rock band is not four separate people in their own bubble; a rock band is three, four or five people who together create a sound.
“And each person’s skill can be judged by what that sound is – not by what they individually do or what it sounds like, or whether it’s physically difficult for aspiring musicians to do. realized that when I was about 19, 20, and I always felt that way.
6. Master your momentum
“Accents and non-accents are, I think, the most important thing about having an expressive sound as a guitarist. It’s the thing you have no control over when you start playing, and you find yourself ask, ‘What makes these people on these records sound so much better than me, and me playing the same?’
“It’s your accents and non-accents and then everything else. My practice routine has a lot to do with playing scales in different ways that alternate between accents and non-accents. I’m still extremely aware of that – I’m really focused on this whole idea of volume that comes from hitting notes louder and faster, or softer and slower.
7. Turn off your mind and feel the chemistry
“When you close your brain [while jamming]that’s when you notice funny things happen – like, Flea and I will be playing the exact same riff at the same time without either of us having played it before.
“It’s definitely best to turn off your brain and listen and feel the feelings that everyone is giving you. It’s definitely important to listen to everyone, but you also have to have fun listening to what’s coming out of your mind. instrument. And that’s another thing that I love about commentaries: that you don’t know what’s going to happen next. So you listen to what’s coming out of the speaker, and then you play it.
“Sometimes with guitarists, especially when they’re very concerned about whether what’s going to come out of them is good or not, they tend to place themselves before the notes that come out. And I know it’s a natural thing to do, the way our minds are locked in the present moment.
“But if you can let go and listen to what happened like it just happened and respond to it, no matter how slow you have to be to do it, I feel like that’s the most productive angle to listen to, and it’s definitely the most fun angle to listen to.
“Because if you’re worried about what’s going to happen before it happens, you might completely miss the boat, but if you listen to what just happened and pay attention to how it relates to other things that happen, it becomes a regenerative process.
Play a few notes and wait five seconds before playing more notes
“In the same way that feedback is something that, while it passes through you, comes back to you, I have the impression that it can be so with any type of playing: play a few notes and wait five seconds before playing. no more notes.
“Listen to the feeling of how it affected the other instruments, then play whatever comes out of your mind without thinking about it at the right time.
“That’s one of the main ways my whole mental state shifted in that moment when I felt like I was finding my own style: before that, I was stuck at that moment right before you don’t play everything you’re going to play. And after that, I found myself more localized in that moment after you played something.