Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer discussed Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard in a new Pirate Rock 95.4 interview.
“I didn’t start off as a guitar player, I started as a drummer, so I always think of Stone Gossard being the guy, just because he was such a simple rhythm player. I always thought ‘I want to do that,’ I was not a lead minded guitar player.
I was always interested in the normal guitar hero people like Hendrix and Jimmy Page, and stuff like that. As I got older, Johny Marr is one of my favorites. One of my favorite guitar players is a guy named Nels Kline who plays with Wilco, which is funny because I just know him as a local LA guitar player, but he’s been in Wilco now for over 10 years. I’m not even sure if he lives in LA anymore, but he was someone who played somewhere in Los Angeles every night of the week for years.”
He also discussed John Frusciante.
“Josh Frusciante’s always been one of my favorite guitar players, which is strange, because I play in the same band as him.”
“He’s doing music on his own at home. He and I haven’t spoken in years, from doing things that both of us want to be separate from. If I’m going to be in this band, it’s enough that I have to walk out on stage and play songs that someone so close to me for so long wrote, and make them my own in a way. Likewise for him, he felt like he wanted to be away from this band. If he and I were talking all the time, it would be really hard for him to maintain distance from the band.
I think we will speak one day, I still have all the love that I always had for him, I just think for the both of us, we need to not be faced with what the other does. I won’t even get into the fact that I’m sure there’s tons of people that wish he was here, and not me. If I was talking to him every night, it would be strange.”
