John Anthony Frusciante is the guitarist of the Californian band Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom he has featured on five studio recordings (Mother's Milk, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Californication, By The Way, and Stadium Arcadium), two greatest hits packages (What Hits!? and Greatest Hits) and one live album (Live In Hyde Park). He also has an active solo career, having released eight albums as well as collaborations with friends Josh Klinghoffer of The Bicycle Thief and Joe Lally of Fugazi.

Sourced

• When you're talking to a fan, you're talking to somebody who's not talking to you. They're talking to a photograph, they're talking to their image of you, they're talking to a walking poster. And if you make the mistake of thinking, that they're talking to you... When they tell you that you're a genius, or that you're so fucking cool... Or whatever their fucking image is of you... Then if you believe it... Then you, the real human being dies. - 1997 on "The Blairing Out with Eric Blair Show"

• I love the spirits that are inside me, I don't give a fuck about this body. (London, 2001)

• If it wasn't for Anthony Kiedis, I wouldn't have written any of these songs for the really last two years. (New York, 2001)

• I don't care if what you think I am is really what I am. What you think I am is way more important than what i really am. (London, 2001)

• My songs I write them like I play them for one person and then when I see so many people going out to it, I feel so happy. You know how big you all are, everyone of you is like an hundred spirits to me. (London, 2001)

• Somebody who spends their days absorbed in this music that I've been making with the chili peppers and in my solo music that I make, I know that's having a good impact on them. Like I know it's coming from a completly healthy place. I know the spirits that helped me do it are wonderful parts of the universe (...) And I just know that's healthy for people. (Off The Map DVD, 2001)

• I never had to get a job or anything 'cause I ended up Joining the Chili Peppers like the day my dad told me he wouldn't give me anymore money. (BTM, 1999)

• I don't think that death is a big deal. I don't care if I die right now. (VPRO interview 1994)

• Bi-sexuality and drugs were the two things in life that I related to rock 'n' roll and my over-all image of it when I was about 9 or 10 years old when I got into punk rock. That was the whole world that I felt within me that wasn't going on around me at school. That made me feel like I had no reason to exist. (VPRO Interview, 1994)

• Everybody's parents make some sort of mistakes when developing a child's sexuality and their brain. What's considered smart to the world and parents is like memorizing things and doing good in school. And what I've come to find is what smart is, is being able to trip out. That's what smart is. Not just memorizing things a monkey can do that. So drugs just help that. (VPRO interview 1994)

• Your position and your relationship with music has to be one from the inside. (Off the Map 2000)

• William Burroughs always talks about the world is nothing but allies and enemies. And it's important to understand what things around you are the enemies and a lot of the time your worst enemy is your ego. (Funky Monks, 1991)

• Michael Stipe, I met him also as a person, and I don't give a fuck about him as a person because he seems to be totally full of himself. But my image of him is beautiful and I love him you know, not the human being, my image of him. (London, 2001)

• Lately, I just haven't been having sex 'cause I just don't enjoy it. I just stopped enjoying sex at one point so right now, I just concentrate on writing music for the album. (1991, a few weeks before the recording of BloodSugarSexMagik)

• When you're practicing and playing along with other music so much it's a natural bi-product of that that you're going to write songs. (KUHINJA Interview)

• I feel that for a musician to keep getting better has to keep changing. And if you're constantly always referring to the same things, to me it just grows stale. (KUHINJA Interview)

• I think my songs exist before I write them, in a place called the fourth dimension where sounds and shapes and colours are the land. (Kerrang interview, 2000)

• I think human beings have done nothing but destroy everything they touch since the beginning of man. I think they were basically designed to destroy themselves. (Fan Club interview 1989)

• Cigarettes are one of the greatest things ever invented. And to all you anti-smokers out there, if I ever became president I would make sure that you were put in the electric chair. (Jannus Landing interview 1989)

• I keep going through girls. Any girl that can ever do me good I get bored with very easily, and any girls that are mean, weird and evil people are the ones that keep me interested and end up destroying me. (Fan Club interview 1989)

• I've decided that I'm never going to learn how to drive a car, ever. I'm too much of an idiot and I'll probably crash. (Fan Club interview 1989)

• You see, one time I used to have this girlfriend named Amanda and we were always breaking up and she was crazy, she was just completely nuts. And this girl is so crazy that one time, she was on her period and we were playing strip card game, we were stripping, me and her and her friend and my friend Bill. We were all completely naked and then the loosing team had to eat/lick one part of the winning team body, that they said, and then she took her bloody tampon from the girl who was on the winning team, completely bloody, she had to lick the tampon. Not only did she lick a little bit of the tampon but she put it in her mouth and sucked it like if it was a cock. A really bloody brown tampon. It was awful. She's a nuts"(...)"You ask how I deal with all the girls who want to fuck me. These are the types of girls that keep showing up so that's why I don't have sex anymore, 'cause I don't have the energy to deal with these kinds of situations anymore because I want to deal with playing music. (VPRO, 1991)

• Music should be an expression of freedom and not an expresion of fascism. ("An Afternoon with John Frusciante" interview - 2001)

• I can't say that I'm crazy, you know, about watching this. I don't like the person who I was back at this time, and-and, uh... I think I had all my priorities in the wrong places and I think if I were to spend to much time playin guitar as I did picking out stupid shorts and stupid hats and stupid, you know, overcoats, I would've... I would've been able to write some good songs, you know? I can't watch this version of myself and be at all happy about it. I want to... I want to strangle myself when I see this video. I was 18 years old. 18-year-old that deserved to be slapped upside his head. (On "Higher Ground" video audio commentary - Red Hot Chili Peppers Greatest Videos)

• I guess this is the first time in a video that I ever showed my arms since my arms have been scarred, 'cause my arms are-are pretty badly scarred. I guess people are always wondering so I might as well say that, um, that the way that my arms got the way that they look, um, is was from abcesses, which came from shooting huge amounts of drugs. The results could have been a lot worse, so I'm happy to have the scars from a period of my life where I was living destructively, just as a... as a sign of what I've been through. And, uh, these days, I-I'm, you know, being healthy and taking care of my body is so important to me. But looking at it here, is seems like my arms have gotten better since then, so... That's nice to see. (On "Californication" video audio commentary - Red Hot Chili Peppers Greatest Videos)

• Pagers are my life--I try to get them in to our music as much as possible. (On "By The Way Documentary")

• Well, I don't even know how to drive in this life, so I'm pretty far from ever having the life of being a stuntdouble. I liked- I had an Evil Knievel doll when i was a kid, that's about it! (On "By The Way" Documentary)

• :HARP: What’s one thing you’d change about yourself?

JF: I really love being myself, I wouldn’t change places with anybody. I think anything that anybody wants to change about themselves, they should take a closer look, because it could just be a matter of looking at that flaw in a different way, rather than removing it.

• When I first stopped doing drugs, the hardest thing was to get back to being able to function as a person. Your mind and body becomes used to it, and you just feel like this real boring person when you stop. And there was about nine months where I didn’t even feel like I deserved to be called John Frusciante. So I would just dance. I had this pretty good size living room and all day long I would do these dances to all the music that I liked, whether it was Black Sabbath, or Robert Smith or something else. (Harp magazine, 2004)

• That's what I spend most of my time doing, breathing a lot. I like air. (Live At Abbey Road, 2007)

• I loved Jimmy Page since I was 7, he's the reason why I began to play. My favorite way to pratice is lean all his solos and I can play "Since I've Been Loving You" from the beginning to end. (Mucchio Selvaggio 2004 interview)

• I know that now i couldn't be happier than I am. Sex often distracts me from my job. I don't want to find myself in a relationship unless I can coordinate it with my job, without letting it influence my musical self. (Mucchio Selvaggio 2004 interview)

• Expression is when you're at one with nothingness, and you just beathe with your playing. (Guitar Player 1999 interview)

• Interviewer: When you quit drugs, did you feel like having sex again?

JF: Yes, I did. I go through phases. Now i'm very well without it. (Mucchio Selvaggio 2004 interview)

• Being addicted to heroin? I really value that period of time. (Kerrang Magazine may 2006 interview)

Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994)

• In your pussy I'm cumming
  And I love you, and always had to
  Thank God I found you
  • As Can Be
• The curtains were made for moving
  Cause you know sometimes your not always there
  • Curtains
• I've been in pain hope it doesn't show
  I've been insane well the time is slow
  • Been Insane
• You’re pushing me away to decay like the day that I loved
  • Untitled #3

To Record Only Water for Ten Days (2000)

• I fail to do
  What I'm trying
  I've been these walls
  And everyone who dies
  Hears other times
  • Remain

• All around they is to
  feel and watch you
  they make patterns
  to peel the sound
  • Moments Have You

• You don't throw your life away
  Going Inside
  You get to know
  who's watching you
  And besides
  you resides
  • Going Inside

• Dream that you died
  It takes you out of your mind
  The black walls of space
  Take me all the way
  • Wind Up Space

Shadows Collide with People (2004)

• You know this moment in time
  Is all my life
  Every day is each
  day that's passed
  Every person alive
  is everyone's who's died
  • Every Person

• I guide my fate
  And what it's good for
  There's no telling
  It's blood
  It's a flood
  • The Slaughter

• Dedicating all of before
  to now
  emphasizing these things
  that won't allow
  • Omission

• I have seen the world enough
  I've drowned in my thoughts alot
  I canceled heaven
  I concede
  • Wednesday's song

The Empyrean (2009)

• Well, I don't need protection
  One life begins, another dies
  Bad timing
  I won't last
  • Heaven

• I'm dreading the time that is not near
  As a man on a cross I have no fear
  I can't believe this words I'm saying
  You've got to feel your lines
  • Central

• A slave in the fields one night
  He's running along
  Gets far enough to be a free man
  And he's feeling so strong
  • Ah Yom

About John Frusciante

• I spent the afternoon yesterday with John and Chad at Chad’s home. We had a funky good time writing and going over a couple of songs for my [upcoming solo] album. John Frusciante is an absolute one-of-a-kind. His vision and depth amazes me, and like Chad, he is extremely beautiful. Look forward to creating my next adventure in the New Year.
  • Glenn Hughes (2005).

• John Frusciante is definitely my favorite contemporary guitar player, and I asked him if he wanted to play on a David Bowie song, and he was like, ‘Fucking right.’
  • Danny Lohner (2003)

• There is no real story about how John came back, it was really fate and the way that energies went that he came back I don’t really mean to take credit for it. We all wanted him back. I was the one that maintained a friendship with him when he wasn’t in the band. But at the same time I didn’t see him that much. John got to a point in his life when he was ready and willing to come back into the band; we had run our course with Dave Navarro. And it seemed like the right thing. It was definitely a rebirth for all of us. His ability to focus and discipline himself and not question himself because of what he’s doing is beautiful and pure and to surrender himself completely to that is phenomenal. He is a phenomenal person and he is an amazing artist and I am grateful to play with him. He is the best.
  • Flea

• He lets the power of the whole universe flows through him everytime he touches his guitar.
  • Flea

• Sometimes when I look at John when I’m playing I just want to cry because there is so much love for music coming from his heart.
  • Flea

• John is such a pure artist. He doesn't care about the reward, he doesn't care about any of the things that come with rock stardom or being in a band or any of the things that someone might think would be the fringe benefits of being in a band. Those things are of absolutely no concern to him. He just lives for the process of making music and for the process of surrendering his body and his soul to the spirits and letting music flow through him. It's all he wants to do. And he's really dedicated his life to just doing that and to creating good feelings in the world by doing that.
  • Flea

• If John wasn’t a rock star, he’d be a vegetable.
  • Anthony Kiedis

• There are few people that can go to the spiritual places John does - and come back to tell you about it. He’s a good piece of magic.
  • Stephen Perkins

• Um, John, is very beautiful. You know, very, uh…he has a very, very strong sensuality.
  • Stéphane Sednaoui

• I didn’t see everyone, but of what I saw, I’m afraid I thought the Yanks pulverised us! The Chili Peppers and the Foos seemed to absolutely show everyone else up, in musicianship, work, polish and passion. I thought John Frusciante played SO dangerously - the best I’ve ever seen him play - The RHCP’s have deservedly conquered Britain’s hearts.
  • Brian May about Live Earth show. (2007)

• Later when I returned home John Frusciante from the Chili Peppers stopped by my house. We ended up talking for hours about many things and then we went to his house and listened to a ton of cool music. He is a very special person with a deep passion for music, the guitar and life. Although I did not get any work done today, after I left his house I felt as though I really needed the experience to balance myself out a bit after being buried in the studio for so long. It’s so rare that I get to just hang out with interesting people who I resonate both musically, personally and spiritually with. I discovered a gold mine in John. (2007)
  • Steve Vai

• John was just up there like he didn't give a fuck about anything. You can't be in a band and not care. It's gunna show. And it did. A lot of the shows were terrible.
  • Chad Smith (On John before he left the Red Hot chili Peppers)

• Plus, we’ve been a band for 11 years, and we’ve put out five records. That’s longer than the Beatles, longer than the Doors. [Laughs] Most classic-rock bands weren’t together for that long, though they often put out two records a year in those days. If today’s marketing structure was different, I’d prefer that, to be honest. Jazz guys used to put out four records a year! I think it’s sad that we have to saturate a market with marketing to try and sell a record so many times, instead of having more art coming from these artists. You look at Zappa or Miles Davis, these people who had so much music to give, or someone like John Frusciante, and all these records he’s been putting out. It would be great to be in a situation where that’s the norm, instead of the way it is now.
  • Serj Tankian

• The Peppers guitar player walked into our dressing room and mumbled something about it being a beautiful experience playing with us. I guess he was stoned.
  • Henry Rollins

• It's obvious that John is a chamán. That's exactly what he is. There is a lot of that in the way he plays the guitar. I'll tell you something: when he came to the studio to record the new songs with us, John would remain in front of the others, silent and without a guitar, to sense what was about to come. He would move his hands in the air to receive the energy. Then, five minutes before we begun recording the songs, almost without rehearsing, John would pick up his instrument and learn the solo, following a personal ritual. I don't think that anyone else can do something like that. To me, such a thing is a shamanistic quality.
  • Cedric Bixler

• There's no one like him. When he plays, you can't stop watching him, he hypnotizes you. He's incredible. He opens his mouth as if he's screaming, he closes his eyes and... it's like he's doing magic. I imagine those south american shamans during a trance, you know. Connecting to another dimension with nothing else but a guitar. I feel lucky to be where I am and to live this kind of experiences. Magic and music, alltogether. Few things could be better in this life.
  • Cedric Bixler

• I know I'm in the band and everything but, sometimes I just have to rock out to the John Frusciante experience.
  • Anthony Kiedis (19th April 2007 - Sydney concert)