Red Hot Chili Peppers Icon Rips ‘Weird’ John Frusciante Reunion

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Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer discussing John Frusciante replacing him just two years before it actually happened was just revealed by RHCP Reddit user k0stil, who translated a conversation from Portuguese. Red Hot Chili Peppers announced a John Frusciante reunion album a couple of days ago.

Let me ask you about this transition, because you’ve been friends with John for so many years, you’ve made an incredible number of recordings with him, I mean more than I can count. What was it like to get into the band and not just replace the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist, but replace your friend?

“This whole thing is strange and I could never imagine it would happen. I couldn’t imagine that I would be doing this years before it happened, but, you know, the band has been nothing but welcoming and supportive of everything I wanted to do and, when I think for them, their relationship with the band.

The band with the four with John in the past became what they became and I think they were excited to do this with a new person with a new energy. The only downside is that it’s like someone had pressed the pause button with my friendship with John when I joined the band, but it makes sense to me.”

I was going to ask you about that. Is there any kind of different respect going on? If John called tomorrow and said, “Hey, I want my old place back.” Would you say, “Oh, that’s fine, we’re friends and you can have your place back.”?

“I don’t know if… I think that would be too much…”

Weird?

“I mean, I don’t know, this is hypothetical. But that would be, well, it would be weird, but this is something that would require a conversation from him with the other people in the band, not with me. He left the band, he didn’t want to do it anymore.” That’s it, for good reason.

He was in the band and worked hard for a long time, he didn’t want to live his life the way you need when you’re in this band. These guys wanted it, so it’s very simple, the band won’t just break up because he doesn’t want to do it anymore, although some people wished that was the case.

As I said, as I already knew and had a great respect for how this great gear works, I was able to become part of it, and perhaps even help it grow. There are times when I still feel … I hope the new work we do, and the new music we make, is as exciting for some people as some of the old stuff. I don’t know if this is possible, some of the high points achieved by this band are simply unsurpassed.” Flea posted a brand new John Frusciante photo a few days ago.