John Frusciante

John Anthony Frusciante was born on March 5, 1970, in New York. He became interested in rock music at an early age. After his parents divorced, John and his mother moved to California when he was seven. When he was nine, his stepfather offered him his first acoustic guitar.

John taught himself how to play guitar, and for the next several years he would spent all his time practicing. In California his interest in music grew and grew as he discovered bands such as The Germs. While at school it was clear that John was an outsider, mainly because he would rather concentrate on music and that was his life.

In school he heard many artists who influenced what he played on his guitar, such as Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa, among others. John became a big fan of a local band called Red Hot Chili Peppers when he heard them at 15 years of age. At this time original guitarist Hillel Slovak was still in the band. At the age of 16 John left school and home to become a full-time musician. He had even auditioned to be a guitarist for Frank Zappa but "chickened out" at the last minute. At a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, John met Hillel Slovak. Over the years John also met Anthony Kiedis and Flea, and began to come in contact with them regularly. When Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose on June 27, 1988, Jack Irons, the Chili Peppers' drummer at the time, also left, as he and Slovak were best friends and Slovak's death was a huge shock to Irons. Flea and Kiedis did not want to quit the band, however, because they knew that it hadn't reached its full capability.

Flea had jammed with John many times after Hillel's death and told Anthony that John was right for the Chili Peppers. The instrumental "Pretty Little Ditty" (the riff of which was sampled for Crazy Town's smash hit "butterfly") that appeared on the album "Mother's Milk" was born through the numerous jams that Flea and John had. A little while later, John auditioned to be a guitarist for the band Thelonious Monster. The band was about to offer him the job, but Flea jumped in just in time and offered the guitarist position in the Chili Peppers to John, which he gladly accepted.

Flea and others close to the band recalled that John was very much like Hillel, not only in the way he played guitar but the way he stood and moved like him. In 1989, "Mother's Milk", John and new drummer Chad Smith's first album for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, peaked at #59 on the Billboard charts and with the hit "Higher Ground" originally written by Stevie Wonder.

The Chili Peppers were becoming more popular every day while their fan base grew. Years earlier, when John was at a Chili Peppers concert, Hillel asked John, "Would you still like the Chilis if they got so popular that they played the L.A. Forum?". John responded, "No, because it would ruin the whole thing."

With the success of the band's fifth album and John's second with them, "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" (1991), what Hillel said bothered John and he began loathing the popularity of the band. During the Blood Sugar Sex Magik world tour, John's relationship with Kiedis started falling apart, even though they were once the closest in the band. After a while they stopped talking. John would retaliate at shows by playing quiet parts loudly and loud parts quietly. Flea even recalled that John started playing angrily. He knew John wasn't happy.

At a hotel room in Japan in 1992, John did not want to play one night. He angrily

...