Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante Details His ‘Face-Offs’ With Flea

John Frusciante recently revealed that he and RHCP bassist Flea make face-offs to trigger their creativity in creating songs in a conversation with Guitar World. The musician detailed how he and the bassist encouraged each other’s creative process.

Red Hot Chili Peppers began their musical journey in 1983, and with their unique sound, they quickly got mainstream success. The band members are beloved by the fans and the rock and roll world as they give a distinctive twist to their music and never disappoint. However, they created and performed without their original guitarist Frusciante for ten years and worked with Josh Klinghoffer instead.

Although he was as appreciated as Frusciante, the band members had certain energy with the original guitarists. Hence, his return in 2019 made everyone very happy. Nevertheless, Klinghoffer departed on short notice, and everyone was sad to see him go. Yet, their fans, including the guitarist, knew that Frusciante belonged in RHCP more than anyone else. While Klinghoffer found his place in Pearl Jam’s touring lineup, Frusciante began creating with RHCP.

Recently, the guitarist revealed that he and Flea has a one-of-a-kind technique when creating music. This method shows how in sync he is with the band members and makes the recording process natural. He stated that he and Flea used to put their foreheads next to each other and look angry at each other. After this face-off, they would leave, create a chorus or a bridge and then reunite to merge them into a song.

Here is what Frusciante said about working head to head with Flea:

“Flea and I, we’ve always done these things called ‘face-offs.’ If we’ve been jamming and maybe we’ve got a good verse that we came up with, but it needs another section, in the old days, we used to literally put our foreheads next to each other and give each other kind of a mean look. And then it would be, ‘Okay, I’ll go outside. You can stay here.’

We’d go in separate rooms, I’d write a section, and Flea would write a section. We’d both attempt to write a chorus or a bridge or whatever it was, and then we’d come back into the room, and one guy would play everybody his part, the other guy plays everybody his part, and one of them makes it into the song. Or sometimes, both of them made it into the song. “

The band released its 12th studio album ‘Unlimited Love’ with John Frusciante, in April this year, and it was well-received. With their guitarist’s return, they created almost 50 tracks and planned a follow-up album to present the rest of the tracks to their fans.