“I don’t feel like guitar playing went any further”: John Frusciante names the last person who changed guitar
While they’ve got legions of superfans who are willing to defend them no matter what, Red Hot Chili Peppers are also a band that receive an awful lot of stick for their contributions to music. Whether it’s their blend of funk and rock that people find insipid or the apparent narcissistic undertones of frontman Anthony Kiedis’ presence on stage, there are an awful lot of factors within the band that seem to effortlessly rub people up the wrong way.
What you can’t take away from them, however, is the fact that they’re all incredibly accomplished musicians. The music that they make might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you can always count on there being some stellar interplay between the members of the band, and this is why they’ve been able to establish themselves as mainstays in the modern rock scene.
As a bass player, Flea is almost as good as they come, with his punk and funk-indebted style often incorporating the occasionally ridiculed ‘slapping’ technique. Drummer Chad Smith is also ridiculously proficient at his instrument, having bolstered the rhythm section in the band since 1988 after stepping in the replace a long line of temporary members. Their longest-serving, and current guitarist, John Frusciante, is regularly hailed as one of rock music’s modern greats.
He himself would have taken a huge amount of influence from a broad range of players, including everyone from Jimi Hendrix and John McGeogh, and was even significantly impacted by seeing the man he replaced in the band, Hillel Slovak, in concert prior to his passing. At the same time, some more experimental acts were inspiring his playing style in his early years, with Yes’ Steve Howe and Frank Zappa also being among his idols.
However, as close as Frusciante may have stepped towards becoming regarded in the same light as these revolutionary players, it’s up for debate as to whether he has offered anything new towards the art of guitar playing. If you were to ask a diehard Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, they might try and convince you that he’s a demigod who has had a significant impact, but if you ask Frusciante himself, he’ll tell you there hasn’t been another great guitar innovator since before his time on stage.
In a 2002 interview with Guitar World, he claimed that a couple of legendary players who started their careers in the 1960s were major pioneers, but also highlighted the merits of another from the following decade as being the last person to truly innovate. “People like Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix have pretty much been my gods the whole time I was playing,” Frusciante claimed, before adding, “I also like Eddie Van Halen’s early guitar playing. But I don’t feel like guitar playing went any further after that – not in that technical or flashy direction.”
While there aren’t many who can claim to be on the same level of madcap brilliance as Eddie Van Halen, there have been countless other innovative guitarists to have existed since he first emerged in the 1970s. That being said, the ways in which he pushed his ways of playing his instrument on a technical level were a marvel to behold, and its hardly surprising that a young Frusciante would have been impressed by his skill and wanted to advance his own playing to a similar level.
