3 Songs You Didn’t Know Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Guitarist John Frusciante Wrote

Years before landing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers (RHCP), guitarist and songwriter John Frusciante was already writing and recording music as a teen. At 15, he even attended his first Red Hot Chili Peppers show.

After joining RHCP in 1988, Frusciante appeared on their fourth album, Mother’s Milk, then Blood Sugar Sex Magik in 1991 before leaving the band in 1992 to work through his addictions and pursue a solo career. By the end of the ’90s, Frusciante returned to the band to work on their biggest-selling album, Californication, before parting ways once again in 2009 and returning in 2019.

Along with providing his fleshy hooks, Frusciante also had a hand in co-writing dozens of RHCP songs, including “Give It Away,” “Under the Bridge,” “Breaking the Girl,” and “Scar Tissue,” among others.

In 1994, Frusciante released his solo debut album Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt and 12 more releases through his 2023 dual albums, I and II, along with four more albums under the moniker Trickfinger.

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Outside his own catalog, Frusciante has appeared as a featured musician and collaborated with Deep Purple’s Glenn Hughes, Ziggy Marley, Perry Farrell, Macy Gray, The Mars Volta, and more. He even plays guitar on Johnny Cash’s final 2002 album, American IV: The Man Comes Around (American 4). 

Frusciante has also written a few songs outside of his core RHCP, solo catalog, and other projects. Here’s a look at three songs he penned for other artists.

1.  “Divine Love, Sex, and Romance,” Nina Hagen (1991)
Written by John Frusciante, Nina Hagen, Zeus B. Held

German artist Nina Hagen’s fifth album, Street, featured one track co-written by Frusciante, “Divine Love, Sex, and Romance.” Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, who once dated Hagen, also co-wrote the track “Nina 4 President” on the album.

Nearly a decade before she released Street, Keidis and RHCP bassist Flea wrote the song “What It Is” for Hagen’s 1983 album, Fearless/Angstlos.

He’s a real Lifelover
Inna real love life
There’s just no other
And in my arms made by
The divine mother
He’s at home
There is just no other

My love life so so divine, you’re my divine
Tantra mantra, my Loveline is so divine and
Thats the bottom-line soo divine

The soul is a spaceship, without you I’m lost
In space I’m dressed up in lace, for you
Now you’re kissing my hand, you’re taking my arm
Together we dance, the one and only dance
The dance of love, sex and romance

2. “The Afterglow,” John Frusciante and Josh Klinghoffer (2004)
Written by John Frusciante and Josh Klinghoffer

Guitarist Josh Klinghoffer joined the RHCP in 2009 after Frusciante’s departure and recorded two albums with the band, the 2011 release I’m With You and the band’s 11th album, The Getaway, in 2016. Before his short tenure with the band, Klinghoffer and Frusciante were collaborating together in the early 2000s.

They released two albums with their short-lived trio Ataxia, which also featured Fugazi bassist Joe Lally. In 2004, both guitarists released the collaborative album, A Sphere in the Heart of Silence, and co-wrote the seven tracks together. Filled with mostly electronic instrumentals, each also took turns singing on select tracks, including “The Afterglow,” which features Frusciante on vocals.

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“It’s electronic music, but much more raw,” said Frusciante of the album in 2005. “We recorded this the same way we did ‘Inside of Emptiness,’ with all the out-of-control qualities that I’ve been building toward with my style of playing and recording, but we used electronic instruments. There are some techno things with punk-rock-type screaming vocals. It’s only a seven-song album, but it’s like 38 minutes long.”

Even though there’s been a rift between the two since their collaboration, and following Klinghoffer’s recruitment into RHCP, the guitarist says he still has deep “love” for Frusciante. “I wouldn’t say there’s no chance,” said Klinghoffer of mending things with Frusciante. “Even if we don’t talk much in the process, I feel like it would be fun to play some of those songs again or play them live. We don’t talk much these days but I’ve always maintained that I still have an enormous love for him. … He’s one of my favorite musicians, one of my favorite writers, so I’m not against the idea.”

Undenied
Death before life

You’re in my place again
Echoes deprive us enough
You’re in my wailing
Decide what it means to work in fire
Decide what it means to work in fire

Shadows casting bodies
Who knows which way things will go?
All shifting images
Upside down to be upright
Upside down, you’ll make them cry

Death before life

3. “Glosa Picaresca Wou Mên,” Omar Rodríguez-López (2007)
Written by Frusciante and Rodríguez-López

Frusciante had already played guitar on five albums by The Mars Volta before collaborating and guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López’s solo albums, including Se Dice Bisonte, No Búfalo, and Calibration (Is Pushing Luck and Key Too Far).

Shortly after parting ways a second time with RHCP in 2009, Frusciante also served as executive producer for Rodríguez-López’s directorial film debut, The Sentimental Engine Slayer, in 2010. That same year, the two also released two collaborative albums: Omar Rodriguez Lopez & John Frusciante, and Sepulcros de Miel.

For Rodríguez-López’s fifth album, Calibration (Is Pushing Luck and Key Too Far), Frusciante co-wrote the guitar-squalling track, “Glosa Picaresca Wou Mên.” In the middle of the criss-crossed riffs, you can also hear Frusciante’s vocals.

Drew the line, to the lung
Drew the line, waiting again
Forever it is, wherever I am
Blood is drawn, through the line
Tripped on the lung, light on the touch
They come to me, left again
Under the knife, come to the line
It’s all a disease
Stem by stem, leaf by leaf
It’s all a disease in the way
Stem by stem, leaf by leaf
No return, sing the song
We live to be wrong, we live to be wrong
We live to be wrong, we live to be wrong

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Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/FilmMagic