HAPPY RETURNS

It was towards the end of 2019 when the conversation took place. Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea was hanging out at home with his former bandmate John Frusciante, the prodigal-son guitarist who 10 years earlier had quit the band for the second time. Frusciante’s departure had been painful, sure, but ultimately necessary for both parties, and the two men had stayed in touch sporadically.

“We were just shooting the shit, talking, eating,” Flea says now of that evening. “We’d never really talked about it [the split] much. At one point my wife and his girlfriend were in the other room and we were sitting alone, and I said: ‘John, sometimes I miss playing with you so much.’ And I started crying when I said it…”

Suddenly his voice is thick with emotion. It’s difficult to tell for sure, but it looks like Flea is welling up.

“…And he looked at me and I saw the tears in his eyes,” he continues. “And he said: ‘I miss it too.’ There was just this moment, but in that moment I remember thinking: ‘Man, you know…’”

That moment was a tipping point. By the end of the year, Frusciante – the guitarist who played on the Chili Peppers’ most successful records – was a member of the band for the third time, replacing his own replacement, Josh Klinghoffer.

Frusciante’s return is more than just the latest twist in a sometimes combustible musical drama that stretches back almost 40 years. It’s a restoration of the finely balanced alchemical formula that powers one of rock’s most successful, innovative and occasionally misunderstood bands. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have made some great albums without John Frusciante, but they’ve made their greatest albums with him.

“If your long-lost family member comes back and says: ‘Hey, I wanna rejoin the family,’ you have no choice,” says frontman Anthony Kiedis. “You cannot say no.”

It’s early 2022, and the reconstituted (re-reconstituted?) Red Hot Chili Peppers are readying themselves for the release of their twelfth album, Unlimited Love. It’s a very Chili Peppers title, partly because it exudes exactly the kind of vibe they have long cultivated, and partly because it appears to be a reference to Love Unlimited, late soul titan Barry White’s backing singers in the 70s.

“It is not,” Kiedis says good-naturedly of the latter. He says it’s a lyric from a new song, , that producer and long-time Chilis collaborator Rick Rubin picked up on. “I tried to fight it – ‘I kind of like these other titles I have,’” he says. “But it was titled by majority vote. That’s okay. I have faith in the group.”