Although there's still been no official word, it appears that Red Hot Chili Peppers' guitarist John Frusciante has left the band.
Sources close to the band say that Frusciante is said to have already been replaced by Josh Klinghoffer, who toured with the Chili Peppers alongside Frusciante in 2007. It would make the second time the eccentric guitarist has been replaced, after Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro's stint with the band in the mid-nineties.
"Josh Klinghoffer has been playing with the group for a couple of months now," a source close to the band explained. "Optimistically, the Peppers are trying to lock down a replacement for John, who has apparently quit. Mentally, John checked out a long time ago. He's interested in doing his own thing, his own albums - the whole big rock band machinery just doesn't appeal to him anymore."
We're just as skeptical as the next guy about unnamed sources, but like I said, we saw this one coming. In an interview with MusicRadar earlier this year, Frusciante made some relatively permanent statements about not being involved in the future of the band, but nobody seemed to know quite what to make of it at the time.
In an interview with Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith back in September, the kit-pounder made a vague reference to moving forward on RHCP's new album "one way or another" when I asked about Frusciante's reluctance to rejoin the fold.
Johnny Firecloud: How are you gearing up mentally for the Chili Peppers to kick back into gear?
Chad Smith: It’s all good! I’m ready, it’s gonna be fun. We haven’t played in two years, so that’s the longest we’ve ever not played together.
Johnny Firecloud: There’s been a lot of concern over that, since you’ve been gone for so long. And John (Frusciante, RHCP guitarist) made a couple comments a while back on how he’s got no intention of diving back in..
Chad Smith: Yeah, he wasn’t too anxious to get back & get going. But one way or another, we’ll get going.
At the time, it seemed as if Smith were simply giving his buddy the benefit of the doubt. Now it seems that he may have known more than he was ready to let on at the time, and “one way or another” carried more weight than we realized.
As a session guitarist, Klinghoffer has worked with artists including Perry Farrell, Tricky, PJ Harvey, Neon Neon and Gnarls Barkley. He also played with Frusciante on several of the guitarist’s solo projects, which should make the transition considerably easier for him, should this all turn out to be true.
If so, the Chili Peppers have lost a brilliant limb whose harmonics and falsetto harmonies consistently lifted the band out of the pop-funk-schtick they always seem to return to. On the upside, perhaps this means we can look forward to a new stylistic turn from the guys, as Dave Navarro helped bring when he hopped on board for 1995’s One Hot Minute.
