Originals Week: Frusciante Covered Too!
{Jun 05}
1980s crazy town, frusciante friday, john frusciante, originals week, red hot chili peppers No Comments
Frusciante Friday lives on through Originals Week. Now, this entry is from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and I know you’re probably thinking, “But how could someone cover a Chili Pepper song in the past decade and people not know it was by them, especially since their hits of the 90s still dominate the radio today?” If I could see you in person, I would slap you for not only asking that question but for still listening to the radio in this day and age. Radio…that’s a good one. Anyway, it is true that a band covered a Red Hot Chili Pepper song and I would be very surprised if even one person who reads this has not heard of it…but let’s start by talking about the Chili Peppers’ song first which is actually the story of how Frusciante came into the Chili Peppers. My, my, my how I love Frusciante Fridays!
The Red Hot Chili Peppers originally consisted of Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Jack Irons, & Hillel Slovak. However, due to contractual obligations to another band, Slovak and Irons were not around for the first album and only Slovak was around for the second. However, the Chili Pepper’s third album The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (featured “Fight Like A Brave“) is where the original line-up was finally together on an album. What resulted was a clearly better representation of their funk-punk fusion than their first low-rent punk album and they’re second mostly funk album (it was produced by George Clinton: what are you going to do?). Their third album did miles better than the second as it got to 148 on the Billboard 200 as opposed to…not charting before…so there was definite cause for celebration. However, that celebration was short-lived as Kiedis & Slovak both developed horrendous heroin addictions and tragically, it took Slovak’s life. Adding a smaller, but still substantial blow to the Peppers after this was the announcement that Irons would be leaving as he thought the band would keep killing his friends and didn’t want to be part of it. So what to do, what to do? Well, by this point in 1988, Kiedis & Flea had barely scratched their musical potential and with Kiedis clean, they both decided to keep the band going. They quickly snagged up DH Peligro & DeWayne McKnight to play the guitar and drums respectively, but chemistry is very vital in bands & ultimately the lack of it here lead to their departure. As luck would have it though, Peligro knew someone who had not only passed a class on RHCP Chemistry, but was now ready to teach it.
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