Casparcritique #9: interviewing John Frusciante (1994)

It was May 1993, the biggest popfestival of the Netherlands (at the time) Pinkpop was on it's way, and I was watching it on the telly. One band called Thelonious Monster got on stage and within no time the singer did all sorts of crazy stuff. Trying to cellotape his gitarist, lying on the floor pretending to be dead (or something like that), and finally he climbed into the high side of the stage on top of the speaker boxes. About to break his leg when he fell of, I just remember thinking what kind of drugs he would be on, and remembering absolutely nothing from the music itself.

Shortly after, VPRO television aired an interview they did with former Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante. He had left the band about two years before and hadn't been seen for some time. Immediately you realize why: the man was completely addicted to heroin. Now that I watch the interview again, I realize that back then I was just absorbed by what horrors drugs do to really talented men, that I just didn't pay attention to what they were saying, or the music they were making. Frusciante talks about leaving the band and makes complete sense explaining the reasons why. He talks about Kurt Cobain's death, and calling him stupid for not wanting to see his child grow up. I mean, he is completely lucid, intelligent and straight forward about things.The music he still composes sounds lost in space, off tune, lacks structuring. This way, the documentary is essential stuff for anyone interested in, let's say, rock music from the eigthies, or drug abuse in the music scene.

A real treat of watching the interview comes after as a sort of a bonus track. The interviewer discovers that Frusciante contributed to a short movie made by the singer of the band Butthole Surfers, and a young actor called Johnny Depp. The movie is called Stuff, and is basically a filmed tour around a completely messy, chaotic house, that apparently burnt down shortly after the movie was made. What I enjoyed about it, was that Frusciante's music all of a sudden makes complete sense! It fits like a glove when the camera swings through piles of dirt, slowmotion filming of the graffiti on the walls and ending up filming Frusciante lying on a couch thinking about what it would be like being dead, flowing around space and his words in his scrap book making sense, finally.

Bram van Splunteren is the journalist from VPRO who documented RHCP already in the 80'ties, he made this interview with Frusciante, and afterwards, with Frusciante back in the group doing the stadium tours he so detested, he again filmed and interviewed the band. This way he has become the axis filmmaker on the band. You can watch his own compilation on youtube. But my suggestion is to watch the Frusciante interview still available on www.hollanddoc.nl. My rating would be 4 out of 5, and a half for the bonus track!