Red Hot Chili Peppers - John Frusciante

Before the big breakthrough: the Eighties between hard knocks and drugs

The story of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is full of “befores” and “afters”, watersheds more or less obvious in a career that began in 1983 and unfolded anything but smoothly, marked by major lineup and stylistic changes.

There are the totally underground RHCP, with a still very unstable line-up, and then the ones who would become known to a few college radio stations starting with their debut “The Red Hot Chili Peppers” (1984). Then there are the Red Hot Chili Peppers with producer Andy Gill of Gang Of Four, who doesn't seem to properly capture their spirit, and later the ones produced by George Clinton and, above all, by Rick Rubin. There are the peppers before heroin took over everything, and the ones in which it becomes impossible to work, with founder and singer Anthony Kiedis strung out on a drug that kills first guitarist Hillel Slovak with an overdose in 1988. Substance abuse would go on to plague the artistic and personal life of new guitarist John Frusciante as well. His name, in fact, is tied to many of the band's “befores” and “afters”: there's a watershed marking his arrival in the band in 1988, another when he leaves the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1992, and yet another when he returns in 1998... and the same goes for all the other occasions on which Frusciante has drifted away from and back to the RHCP, even if each time the news made less of a splash.

Over the course of a career spanning five different decades, from their rudimentary beginnings in the Eighties to their status as funk-rock dinosaurs in the 2020s, the band has faced countless crossroads. Among the defining moments of the early years is the arrival of drummer Chad Smith, later destined to become the rhythmic core of the group alongside the exuberant, larger-than-life bassist Michael Peter "Flea" Balzary: while Frusciante came and went from the band, it was these two plus Kiedis who formed the stable nucleus around which the likes of Arik Marshall, Jesse Tobias, Dave Navarro and Josh Klinghoffer rotated on guitar.

By 1989, another watershed year for the band, a series of major events took place: Red Hot Chili Peppers released their fourth album, "Mother's Milk", the first with the legendary Kiedis-Flea-Smith-Frusciante line-up, but also the last with EMI, the first to achieve some recognition beyond their core fanbase, yet also the last in which the Red Hot Chili Peppers weren't international stars. "Mother's Milk" marked an effort to increase melodic sensibility (just listen to the instrumental "Pretty Little Ditty", later used for a big hit single by Crazy Town) and also to chase a hit, albeit without the band's full backing. By 1990, after seven years of career, Red Hot Chili Peppers already had enough behind them to fill a book, and yet what was about to happen would become the single most important event in their history.

The breakthrough album: Kiedis's poetry and erotic delirium

On "Mother's Milk", producer Michael Beinhorn pushed a bit too hard in the search for a chart single, so the band opted to replace him with Rick Rubin, who had previously turned down working with them due to their severe drug problems in the mid-Eighties. This time he not only accepted, but set up a studio in the old mansion of illusionist and escapologist Harry Houdini, in Los Angeles: he christened it "The Mansion", which would later become the recording location for Guns N' Roses' single "November Rain", the Mars Volta's album "De-Loused In The Comatorium", and the creative home for many other artists, including Marilyn Manson, Jay-Z, Slipknot, Audioslave, Linkin Park, Maroon 5 and LCD Soundsystem.

It was Kiedis and Frusciante who sketched out the new songs, a fact that left a deep mark even on the final versions of the tracks on their fifth album, released by Warner under the title "Blood Sugar Sex Magik": a collection of songs that, alongside an exuberant tale of overwhelming libido and a triumph of good vibes, also brings together a psychedelic, dreamlike side and a more introspective, emotional, even dramatic one. It was precisely the most touching track among those in the works, inspired by an eponymous piece of writing by Kiedis about a particularly dark period of his drug addiction, that would turn Red Hot Chili Peppers into rock giants, not just for fans but for anyone with ears to listen.

"Under The Bridge", the eleventh track out of a total of 17, opens with a tenderness that seems almost miraculous for a band that, up to that point, had made brashness and exuberance its calling card. Frusciante's melodic guitar-only intro pairs with a Kiedis who, more than singing, tenderly confesses his boundless loneliness:

Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner

Sometimes I feel like my only friend

Is the city I live in, The City of Angels

Lonely as I am, together we cry

This overwhelming emotion, that of a man who hits rock bottom and is left alone with his inner demon, persists even when a bit of that funk spirit resurfaces, albeit over the skeleton of a heartfelt ballad. Not even the swelling finale, with its choir and dramatic crescendo ("Under the bridge downtown/ I could not get enough/ Under the bridge downtown/ Forgot about my love/ Under the bridge downtown/ I gave my life away"), robs this gem of its grace. Still the most iconic hit of the band's entire career, "Under The Bridge" was released as the album's second single and spent 26 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, earning a platinum certification.

"Blood Sugar Sex Magik" isn't just "Under The Bridge", though — listening to it thirty years later, it's striking how that era-defining single arrives so late in the tracklist, and, above all, how it's preceded by songs that are so different and, for other reasons, just as remarkable.

For instance, the album's first single is none other than "Give It Away", the band's first major hit and a track that, in under five minutes, perfectly sums up the four Californians' funk-rap-rock aesthetic: Smith's driving rhythm is joined by Flea's frenzied bassline, one of Frusciante's acidic riffs and Kiedis's manic rapping, with the obsessive repetition of the title serving as a further rhythmic device. An inverted guitar solo also adds a psychedelic touch to this funk-rock orgy, though the use of a jaw harp and a hypnotic coda that explodes into a funk-metal riff are also worth noting.

"Give It Away" would go on to become the most frequently performed live track in the band's entire discography, perhaps precisely because of its ability to sum up the group's various sides, being an irresistible moment of musical fun as well as a positive message of sharing and generosity.

The third single, which stylistically doesn't stray too far from "Give It Away", is "Suck My Kiss": more angular and less psychedelic, it stands out above all for its overt sexual references, with a Kiedis overwhelmed by his own carnal desires. Another ballad, albeit a relatively lively one, is the fourth single, "Breaking The Girl", notable above all for its elaborate rhythmic构造 and some sophisticated touches in the arrangement, as well as for being one of the band's few songs written in 6/8. It lacks, however, the power of its predecessors, a goal also missed by the fifth and final single, "If You Have To Ask", a track that recalls the simpler style of the band's early albums, albeit with some fun backing vocals.

In the crowded tracklist, opened by the powerful funk-rock-metal blend of "The Power Of Equality", some songs seem more remarkable than these later singles. Right after "Under The Bridge", for instance, we find a track whose impact rivals "Give It Away": "Naked In The Rain", driven by Flea's earth-shaking slap bass — he also delivers an anthology-worthy solo — and by Kiedis's wildly unhinged rapped lyrics, a kind of declaration of love for animals with outlandish lines like "Naked in the rain with a killer whale/ I can taste the salt when I lick his tail". The song had already been performed live back in 1989, during the "Mother's Milk" tour.

As the album nears its end, "My Lovely Man" brings back the funk-rock blend full of good vibes, serving as an introduction to the most outrageous track on an album already littered with sexual references, the sensual and sprawling "Sir Psycho Sexy". The eight minutes and 16 seconds of this long, elaborate, psychedelic erotic delirium mark the distance between the band's mainstream side and the one still tied to the exuberance and eccentricity of their formative years — far from the glory, but also from the constraints a band famous the world over must live with, as Red Hot Chili Peppers would indeed become following the release of "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" in 1991. If this fifth album represents, in a career made up of "before" and "after", the easiest dividing line to pinpoint, then "Sir Psycho Sexy" is the last element to clearly belong to that "before" of dues-paying, unusable in the "after" of radio airplay. It's no coincidence that this song, too, dates back to 1989, along with the aforementioned "Naked In The Rain" and "The Greeting Song", and it would be one of the most criticized for its excesses.

Based on a fictional character who exaggerates Kiedis's own traits, "Sir Psycho Sexy" is the story of a freak of nature recounting his sexual adventures: first his "snake" given to Eve in Eden is the reason for the divine expulsion from the biblical garden; then a traffic stop by a policewoman quickly veers off into a more explicit sexual encounter than ever; finally, the desire is for the love of a "punk rock mama" ("Hold me naked if you will/ In your arms, in your legs, in your pussy").

The chosen form is a funk-rock with clear nods to the Parliament-Funkadelic experience, mid-paced and relaxed in tone, though with significant surges of intensity and a few accelerations in Kiedis's rapping. The chorus, once again a group chant, has the task of holding together an at times adventurous narrative, coupled with instrumental digressions that dominate the second half. First the sexual energy dissolves into a drowsy psychedelia for an initial interlude, then a long instrumental coda arrives once the lyrics are done, where, in cyclical fashion, melodic textures are set against the solid rhythmic framework laid down by Smith.

At the heart of the story: the bond with the rebirth of alternative rock

"Blood Sugar Sex Magik" is therefore an album of singles that became classics, hidden gems, and a few compositions still tied to the Eighties. Across its long and varied tracklist, Red Hot Chili Peppers cross the most important threshold of their career: on one side we find a brash, joyously raucous band, on the other men ready to look at their own lives and mistakes with introspection; on one side a bunch of possessed funk-rockers driven by an unstoppable fervor, on the other a more refined outfit that skillfully uses melody and arrangements to enrich its songs; on one side there are fiery little peppers with their own devoted following, on the other a band that with this album will rack up 13 million copies sold worldwide and surpass 100 million over the course of its entire career.

Before this fifth album, Red Hot Chili Peppers were a promise of alternative rock, but with "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" they become an institution. The success will be such that it sends Frusciante into a spiral, and, as already mentioned, he will abandon the other three and fall into the nightmare of drug addiction.

On the promotional tour that follows, opening the shows are none other than Pearl Jam, at the time practically newcomers, but in that same period the band also performs alongside Nirvana: "Nevermind" was in fact released on September 24, 1991, the very same day as "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" (and as "Badmotorfinger" by Soundgarden). This fifth album is a milestone not only for the four Californians but for all of alternative rock, which in 1991 finds a crucial meeting point with an international audience thanks in part to this multifaceted crossover.

Coda: the Red Hot after their great success

What happens to the band afterward is a whole other long story of crossroads and changes, upheavals and returns. This same lineup will reunite only for the seventh album, "Californication" (1999), a bestseller with 15 million copies sold, containing a series of spectacular singles, decidedly more melodic but crafted with a real flair for an impactful sound: it closes a circle nearly a decade in the making, as the lineup at the turn of the millennium is by now used to its own success, wisely balanced in blending its different souls into songs suited for a mass audience.

It will mark the end of their peak period, but not the end of the fans' success and devotion, in love with a band that fought hard, even against drugs and death, before finding well-deserved, lasting success.

Today the Chili Peppers are an institution of rock, long past their rocky Eighties beginnings and known the world over for a string of international hits. Who knows if any of this would have happened if Rick Rubin, still the band's trusted producer on their twelfth album "Unlimited Love" (2022), hadn't insisted so much on putting music to that small, melancholy poem by Kiedis called "Under The Bridge".

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05/06/2022