The 10 best riffs by John Frusciante
There was nothing to lose when John Frusciante was hired as the new guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1988. Founding member Hillel Slovak had just died of a heroin overdose, and replacement guitarist DeWayne ‘Blackbyrd’ McKnight wasn’t gelling with the rest of the band. Frusciante was a superfan who had befriended Slovak while attending nearly every Chili Peppers show in Los Angeles. That being said, he was only 18 and had virtually no professional experience, not to mention a complete blank spot when it came to the band’s preferred genre of punk-funk. Was this really going to work?
Needless to say, it all worked out in the end. Frusciante became the missing piece that helped elevate the Chili Peppers beyond their energetic, but relatively basic, attack on music. Frusciante added a real sense of melodicism that had been missing from the group, causing founding members Flea and Anthony Kiedis to reconsider their own styles to better fit Frusciante’s abilities. With that in mind, the Red Hot Chili Peppers entered a new era that would elevate them to one of the biggest bands in the world.
Over the years, Frusciante kept adding to his arsenal of techniques. Intricate acoustic playing, wild Eddie Hazel-influenced solos, bizarre Frank Zappa-like excursions, and spacious fretboard runs all found their way into the Chili Peppers’ music. However, the pressures of success eventually caused Frusciante to abandon the band at the height of their post-Blood Sugar Sex Magik fame. Descending into heroin addiction, Frusciante became a hermit who lived in squalor and recorded radically anti-commercial solo material.
After bottoming out on his addictions, Frusciante found his way back to the Chili Peppers in time to record 1999’s Californication. After a much healthier period of work, Frusciante left the band on good terms in 2009. After more than a decade of recording his own material, Frusciante made his second return back to the band in 2019, almost exactly a decade after his second departure. While the band has survived with and without him, the Red Hot Chili Peppers will always be complete with Frusciante on guitar.
Check out ten of John Frusciante’s best guitar riffs down below.
John Frusicante’s 10 best riffs:
10. ‘Give It Away’
There was an entire generation of alternative rock fans who never paid attention to the Red Hot Chili Peppers before 1991. The year grunge broke into the mainstream was also the year that the Chili Peppers released Blood Sugar Sex Magik, their breakthrough LP that catapulted them into stadiums (some of the band’s supporting acts on tour included Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and The Smashing Pumpkins, just to name a few).
When ‘Give It Away’ began taking off on MTV, millions of viewers got to see Frusciante rip the song’s signature riff while holding his guitar between his legs. It was an instantly iconic image for an instantly iconic riff that plays with string bends and funk rhythms that now sound like quintessential Chili Peppers.
9. ‘Knock Me Down’
Before he explored the sonic scope of what he could do, John Frusciante was just an 18-year-old newbie who was experiencing his first real time in a professional studio. Mother’s Milk featured some of Frusciante’s heaviest riffs, but he and producer Michael Beinhorn constantly fought over the guitar sound.
Most of the album sounds like fairly generic hair metal riffing, but one place where the slick distortion actually works well is on the single ‘Knock Me Down’. Launching with a fuzzy intro that breaks into a funk metal verse, ‘Knock Me Down’ was the earliest sign that Frusciante had a lot more to offer than the standard guitarist.
8. ‘Turn It Again’
It might seem strange to think, but Frusciante was getting funkier and funkier the longer he stayed in the Chili Peppers. Although he was admittedly ignorant of the genre before joining the band, Frusciante turned out to be a natural at slinky chicken scratch guitar. Stadium Arcadium is filled with this style, from ‘Hump de Bump’ to ‘Charlie’, and ’21st Century’.
But if you want Frusciante’s most infectious funk riff, you must go to the second disc’s end. Slipping and sliding all around the neck, Frusciante’s riff to ‘Turn It Again’ is a constantly-changing creature, filled with hammer-ons and different variations. If you need proof that Frusciante was always in the pocket, you can’t get much better than ‘Turn It Again’.
7. ‘Can’t Stop’
Speaking of the funk, Frusciante always seemed to have a dedication to simplicity. Even though he was technically one of the most gifted players of his generation, it seemed as though Frusciante was always looking to see how much he could get away with by stripping things away.
As ‘Can’t Stop’ builds to its climactic central riff, Frusciante alternates between two notes to add a palpable sense of tension. That’s all it takes: two notes. Once Frusciante reaches the riff proper, it’s all just following a descending scale. Most guitarists are too afraid to play something simple, but Frusciante knows that simplicity is often the most effective.
6. ‘Otherside’
John Frusciante was only one of four members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Fans that focused on him exclusively missed one of his biggest contributions to the band: he fits in perfectly with the other musicians. Whether he’s harmonising guitars with Flea on the intro to ‘By the Way’ or harmonising voices with Kiedis on the chorus to ‘Around the World’, Fruscinte was locked in with the band at all times.
No song better reflects this than ‘Otherside’. Frusciante’s guitar is in constant conversation with Flea’s bass, bumping into each other and crossing over in wonderfully strange ways. Frusciante is incredibly sparse on ‘Otherside’, apart from when his voice jumps out from the background and takes over the song.
5. ‘I Could Have Lied’
The Chili Peppers’ reputation as punk-funk party animals was challenged throughout the 17 tracks of Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Sure, there were songs like ‘Suck My Kiss’ and ‘Sir Psycho Sexy’. But there was also the psychedelic swirl of ‘Breaking the Girl’, the delicateness of ‘Under the Bridge’, and the wild quasi-jazz of ‘They’re Red Hot’.
But if you really want a look into the Chili Peppers’ evolving musical style, ‘I Could Have Lied’ has you covered. Foreshadowing the softer and more introspective sound explored on albums like Californication and By the Way, ‘I Could Have Lied’ sees Frusciante trade in his razor-sharp electric riff for an intricate finger-picked motif on the acoustic guitar. Beauty was suddenly a very-real part of the Chili Peppers experience.
4. ‘Under the Bridge’
Known now as the opening riff that inspired a million terrible attempts at guitar stores around the world. But just in case you’re not a player yourself, you have to understand how difficult the opening guitar passage to ‘Under the Bridge’ is. The chords might look simple, but the shapes that Frusciante picks out are a major strain on the hands. Still, you can’t change them because those shapes are necessary for the descending pattern that drives the entire part.
Perhaps the most admirable element of Frusciante’s playing style is that he makes the difficult seem easy. While ‘Under the Bridge’ is one of the most iconic songs that the Red Hot Chili Peppers ever recorded, it takes some real skill to eventually make it to the verses. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and pick up the guitar and see how long it takes you to perfect the ‘Under the Bridge’ intro.
3. ‘Scar Tissue’
Taking a page out of Paul McCartney’s book, ‘Scar Tissue’ is Frusciante at his most ‘Blackbird’. Achingly beautiful and shockingly simple, Frusciante lays down the perfect bed for the rest of the band to ease up on the volume. The Chili Peppers always had a secret weapon in their repertoires: the stirring ballad.
While ‘Under the Bridge’ is their defining example, and ‘My Friends’ is an underrated non-Frusciante Chili Peppers ballad, ‘Scar Tissue’ just might be the most enduring track that the band has ever produced. While they’re known for bringing energy and excitement, the Chili Peppers are often at their best when they slow things down.
2. ‘My Smile is a Rifle’
It’s understandable that most of Frusciante’s best-known work is with the Chili Peppers. But the guitarist has one of the most impressive and underrated solo discographies in the history of rock music. With guitar freakouts with Omar Rodríguez-López, four wacky electronic albums as Trickfinger, and 13 solo albums, all varying in style and genre. Everyone loves the Chili Peppers, but if you really want to appreciate Frusciante’s full scope of artistic ability, you need to dive into his solo work.
The most notorious of those albums is his first, Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt. Recorded at the height of his heroin addiction and isolation, the album is so lo-fi and haunting that it can sometimes be frightening to listen to. But it’s also fractured and beautiful, showing off some of Frusciante’s most delicate work. ‘My Smile is a Rifle’ isn’t a “riff”, per se: it’s just a wonderfully composed guitar piece that ranks among Frusciante’s best recordings.
1. ‘Snow (Hey Oh)’
It took John Frusciante nearly 20 years to combine all of his disparate voices. The frenetic punk, the flashy funk player, the intimate acoustic student, and the delicate melodic guitarist had all had their moments to shine, but more often than not, Frusciante was either sticking to one style or creating some heady whiplash by alternating between different modes. By 2006, it looked like Frusciante was finally ready to put all of those different people into one identity.
‘Snow’ is the culmination of everything that Frusciante is amazing at. It’s highly melodic, deceptively difficult, highly intricate, and absolutely perfect as a riff. It’s the kind of riff that stadium audiences go ballistic for, but also one that can be appreciated by the music student trying to master the nuances of it. Mixing pop appeal, guitar hero trickiness, and an atypical approach to the fretboard, ‘Snow’ is probably the best illustration of what makes John Frusciante such a singular guitar player.
