Tattooed Love Boys

''Once the foundation of a song is built, John takes the song over the top,'' says Rubin, who has produced every Chili Peppers album since Bloodsugarsexmagik. ''It's not a lot of experimentation. John has the idea. And if he goes too far in any direction, the other members pull him back in.''

''John's always had an understated confidence,'' Kiedis says. ''But he likes being loud now, and part of that came from hanging out with the Mars Volta.'' Their guitarist, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, and Frusciante got tight when the two bands toured Europe together a couple of years ago, Kiedis explains. ''And Omar is such a rocker that John was like, 'It's time I let it all hang out.' Being at the forefront, going for the heavy blistering guitar in your face: John's always been capable of that. But he didn't feel it. Now he feels it.''

Frusciante is an only child, born in New York and raised in Chatsworth, California, in the San Fernando Valley. (He now has half brothers and half sisters by his parents' later marriages.) His father, also named John, was a professional concert pianist who, after a few years of touring and a serious back operation, enrolled in law school. He is now a judge in Florida. Frusciante's mother, Gail, was trained as a theatrical singer but chose to be a full-time mom when she became pregnant.

''I got the combination of the two,'' Frusciante says proudly. ''My dad had the passion and intensity. My mom had the ear and pitch. I was sure I could do the dream they once had.'' When Frusciante left school, he moved into his own place in L.A., where he religiously practiced guitar by himself. His parents supported him with a monthly stipend, enough, he says, ''to pay rent.''

Frusciante saw his first Chili Peppers concert when he was fifteen, in L.A. It wasn't just their funk and lunatic stage antics that blew him away. They had, he says, ''this incredible force that made everyone in the club feel great. They lit up the room. That's an incredible power to have, when you're no different from anyone else -- until you get onstage and everyone else is rocking out with you. I think that's the thing that's made Anthony and Flea stick with it, and stick with each other -- that magical power.''

In 1988, shortly after Slovak's death, Frusciante worked up the nerve to introduce himself to Kiedis and Flea, who recommended Frusciante to their friend Bob Forrest of the band Thelonious Monster, then looking for a guitarist. The two Chili Peppers even accompanied the nervous guitarist to his audition -- Frusciante's first for anyone -- then decided to keep him for themselves after they saw him play.

For Kiedis, still reeling from the death of Slovak, Frusciante was a lifeline. Their age gap and the teenager's inexperience didn't matter, Kiedis says: ''In the moment, it was, 'That's my new favorite guitar player and best friend.' John and I became inseparable. Every day, we'd get together -- eat, smoke cigarettes, chase girls, play pool.''

''Then it was like John swung the other way,'' Flea remembers. ''He'd been this eager kid, who would do anything to make the band work. Then Bloodsugar... came out, and he was like, 'These guys are a bunch of assholes, sellouts.' Becoming a hard-core junkie, deciding to live that life for a period -- it was an intense decision, the most extreme I'd ever seen. And I've seen a lot.''

''Chasing girls, running around and being silly -- I didn't want to do that anymore,'' Frusciante says. ''But I didn't know how to be an artist, a creative person, in the world. I only knew how to do that in the privacy of my home.'' In a sense, Frusciante had never left his bedroom.

''I should have talked about what I was feeling, but we weren't close at the time,'' he says. ''Flea was going through a divorce. If I'd be bumming out about something, he'd be like, 'You're fine. Look at me. My life is ruined.' And it was true, compared to my problems.'' Frusciante says that he did not start using heroin until after the band finished recording Bloodsugarsexmagik. ''If I had quit when I first thought of it'' -- during the sessions -- ''I'm positive I would have gone on to a steady, paced life.''

Frusciante is adamant about his sabbatical: ''I was not in the depths of darkness.'' He talks about being holed up at home, painting and writing with the same isolated concentration with which he'd learned how to play guitar. He is also frank about his addiction: ''I was 'no shame.' There was a dealer with the best Persian heroin and the best cocaine. He had thirty customers when I met him. He dumped them all so he could deal with me.

''The whole experience of being a drug addict and getting out of it -- I don't see it the way other people do,'' he says. ''Any rejoicing you do in life has to do with something you've overcome. I had my reasons for doing it.'' And they were, Frusciante insists, ''as good as my reasons for not doing it. Success, in a way, is this monster that says, 'Now you're gonna do this, and now you're gonna do that.' And everybody does what the fuck that monster tells them. I'm somebody who didn't do that. I'm proud of myself for quitting the band when I did.''

Ironically, Frusciante's return to health (he has been drug-free since 1998) and the band (initiated by Flea) helped Kiedis come out of the black himself. ''I was struggling when he came back,'' the singer confesses. ''I had one last relapse. It was his chance to reach out to me and say, 'Don't do that. We have too much cool shit going on here.' He was so nonjudgmental, as only another person with that kind of experience could be.''

But in his consuming love of music and desire to excel in it, Frusciante is still basically the same kid who jumped right from his bedroom to the ultimate rock & roll fantasy camp. ''I don't feel like a man,'' he admits. Stadium Arcadium ''reminds me of the way I felt when I was sixteen. The playing is exactly what I would have loved to do then -- except I didn't have the life experience to do it.''

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''I had a little revelation a couple of weeks ago,'' Kiedis says at one point that day in his living room. ''My mom retired after forty years of faithful service to the same organization.'' He repeats the number in a low voice. ''Forty years.'' And again. ''Forty years.''

Kiedis' mother, Peggy, worked at the Michigan law firm of Miller, Johnson, Snell and Cummiskey. ''And she loved it,'' he says. ''Those were her friends. She was of service. And it wasn't about money. That was her purpose.

''Then I was thinking: 'We've been a band for twenty-three years. In my circle of friends, I don't know anybody who's done anything for twenty-three years. I was like, 'How the hell have I had the same job for twenty-three years?' Oh, right. You pattern yourself after your parents, whether you like it or not.''

Asked about the qualities he inherited from his mother, Kiedis replies without hesitation: ''Survival. Strength. She's a Leo. She's quiet. But she is the stability in me. That is a huge factor. It's not as flashy and colorful as the things I got from my dad -- nor as destructive or newsworthy.

''But that's what I took from her, this ability to stick with something long-term no matter what -- the highs, the lows, the disasters, the triumphs,'' he says fondly. ''And the way things are going, if I had to draw an arc of how this band is going, I feel like the best is yet to come.''

When it is pointed out that he has another seventeen years to go with the Chili Peppers before he equals his mom's record, Kiedis laughs. ''I don't mind having seventeen years left in this band.''

(From RS 1002, June 15, 2006)