What? John Frusciante’s status in the Red Hot Chili Peppers has always been a little sketchy, but apparently the guitarist has been out of the megastar band for over a year now.
Yesterday John Frusciante “clarified” in a myspace blog that he is no longer in the Red Hot Chili Peppers and hasn’t been for over a year.
Music Radar indicated that he had been sketchy in interviews for a long while, at one point requesting to only be referred to as a “guitarist” rather than “the guitarist of one of the biggest rock bands of the last twenty years”.
In
the clarification, Frusciante is quick to note that there was “no drama or anger involved” and his California-fetishising buddies were happy to see him go off and do his weird thing (as anyone who has listened to his solo albums can confirm).
So we’re left with one specific question: who will replace him? The Dave Navarro experiment was a bust, as was the Jesse Tobias, Zander Schloss and Arik Marshall dalliances (you might remember Arik as the bald dude who was with them for their
Simpsons appearance). Now they have a “well-respected” guitarist Josh Klinghoffer in contention.
Klinghoffer has done studio work with Beck, Butthole Surfers, Gnarls Barkley, Sparks, PJ Harvey and… John Frusciante. Klinghoffer helped out on Frusciante’s solo albums and toured with RHCP on the
Stadium Arcadium tour, so he’s effectively been in the band for a couple of years now.
It’ll probably be fully confirmed soon, as RHCP are already in the studio and will most likely release their tenth album late next year. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.