While many rock and roll stars break their guitars, former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante never did, according to his guitar tech. Dave Lee told JFEffects.
“This is a very good question. Although John played his instruments ‘hard,’ he still respected them. Even if he got mad and dropped one. Somehow there was rarely any damage. Aside from an occasional bent tuner, or broken tremolo arm. No real ‘damage’ other than normal wear and tear. People are often surprised by that. He was very good at playing hard, without damaging his guitars. This may sound surprising. But I do more ‘repairs’ to Adam Levine’s guitars than John’s.”
He also told JFEffects how to get John’s guitar sound live, “I get asked this question often by engineers. I would say the most important key to getting that tone is the Boss CE-1 chorus pedal. That “level” knob has its own kind of gain structure. That pedal, a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier (on the clean channel) as loud and clean as possible, a Strat on the neck pickup, ride that level knob on the CE-1, a lot of attack on the strings, it can be done.”
Definitely check out JFEffects, which is an awesome site. It’s incredible to see the amount of support John still has even a decade off the road.
