How to play guitar like John Frusciante

A video and tab lesson on the Red Hot Chilis' guitar man

Total Guitar (Richard Barrett), Wed 28 Oct 2009, 5:05 pm UTC

World famous as guitarist with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Frusciante is also a prolific solo artist. His angular, funky style comes from influences as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Marr and Siouxsie Sioux guitarist John McGeoch, as well as electronica and new wave such as Kraftwerk.

Our examples here are inspired primarily by John's most recent work with RHCP. They showcase his clean, precise chord work interspersed with deliberately 'naïve' sounding melodies, contrasting with full-blown Hendrix style lead workouts.

Get the tone

John mainly uses old Fender Stratocasters through Marshalls to get his tone. Use a neck pickup with a clean tone and a touch of compression for added smoothness. Elsewhere, a 'Fuzz Face'-type distortion and slapback echo (set to repeat at around 100ms) will prove handy, as will a fantastically solid drummer and mad bass player!