Rick Rubin on John Frusciante: “He lives and breathes music more than anyone I’ve ever seen”
Rick Rubin has the life that many music fans would pine for. He isn’t a classically trained musician who has put thousands of hours into an instrument or slaved over the art of songwriting. Instead, he is a music fan with a broad taste who knows how to apply it. As a result, he has had an incredibly successful music career working as a producer on various albums.
His approach to creativity is a significant contributing factor towards his success. He doesn’t see creativity as something that can be turned on and off. Instead, he views it as something that should be treated like a lifestyle. If you eat, sleep and breathe creativity, it will eventually start showing in your work.
Rubin writes about this in his book, aptly titled The Creative Act: A Way of Being. “Living life as an artist is a practice,” he says. “You are either engaging in the practice, or you’re not. It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying, ‘I’m not good at being a monk.’ You are either living as a monk, or you’re not.”
He continued, “We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output. The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world.” Because of this way of thinking, it’s hardly a surprise that Rubin holds those who live life through music in high regard. There is one artist, in particular, he associates with this lifestyle: Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante.
“He’s brimming with ideas,” said Rubin when asked about him, “And he lives and breathes music more than anyone I’ve ever seen in my life.”
The two worked together on a few different records, but the best work they ever did together was making the Red Hot Chili Peppers hit ‘Under The Bridge’. Rubin stumbled upon some of vocalist Anthony Kieidis’ poetry and convinced him to put it to music. He and the band worked together to come up with the basis for ‘Under The Bridge’ before a genius idea led to Frusciante bringing in his Mum to help with the outro.
Flea recalls, “John’s Mum came in with, I think, people from her church group and sang the background vocals.” Their work together led to a truly epic modern rock song that is held in high regard today and considered one of the band’s very best.
Though Frusciante and Rubin haven’t worked together on every project, it makes sense that they would work well together as their attitudes towards creativity align perfectly. They don’t just see songwriting as a job but as something that occupies every side of their life. Art is merely an afterthought; the truly exciting thing about being an artist is the way of life that comes with it.
