Flea on the emotional moment John Frusciante rejoined the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2019
It all began one night over dinner. “We're talking and listening to music and hanging out and talking like friends,” Flea recalls. At one point, Flea’s wife and Frusciante’s girlfriend left the room, and suddenly the two old bandmates were alone. “And I was just like, ‘Dude, just from my heart, I fucking miss playing with you.” Tears began streaming down the bass player’s eyes after the admission left his lips.
“I hadn't said that to him, because I wanted to respect what he would want to do,” Flea says. “He was very respectful about what we were doing, even though I imagined it wasn't always easy for him.” And yet, Frusciante apparently felt the same. His eyes began watering, too, as he stared back at his old pal. “He responded to me saying, ‘I really miss playing with you too.’”
Consequence Interview with Flea in 2022
https://t.co/sBCkKCArBd
Photo: São Paulo, Brazil. November 10th 2023.
Ozzy Osbourne Tribute at the Grammys 2026. In Memoriam.
Chad Smith, Slash, Duff McKagan, Andrew Watt and Post Malone perform Black Sabbath's War Pigs.
#GRAMMYs2026#GRAMMY@RHCPchad
John Frusciante on rejoining the Red Hot Chili Peppers
“It was mainly because I love them and felt that we had unfinished business on a soul level. There are aspects of our love and respect for each other that can only be communicated by playing together.”
March 31, 2022 Interview with the Los Angeles Times
https://t.co/JKLnwExjZM
“When you're at odds with yourself, it's hard to create. Sometimes the writing process is as easy as opening up the window and letting in the breeze. And sometimes it's like chiseling away at a block of granite with a pencil.” - Anthony Kiedis
Anthony Kiedis and Flea discuss John Frusciante's return with Clash Music back in 2022
Anthony: “When we got together and had our talks to see how we feel, it felt like a lot of the old misgivings and damage had found a way to repair itself or heal to some degree, that in the end, the value of creativity and making music together as a family outweighed any of the differences that we might have personality-wise. Because, it turns out, sometimes those peculiarities of your brethren are really what makes them creative and special and interesting, and as fucked up as I might be, or as fucked up as anyone else in this band might be, that’s kinda what makes them special and it makes them pour the juice that they pour.”
Flea: “I don’t think of it as a reincarnation or a rebirth or anything, I just think of it as we just are still fucking doing it, man, you know? It’s just what we do. This is our life’s purpose. This is our mission. This is our gig.”
https://t.co/F1N0Q0uoRB #RedHotChiliPeppers
Photo by Clara Balzary
“Performing live is something I mostly do with Anthony, Chad, and Flea. I just never felt the urge to try and create that kind of energy with another group of people. I felt like a magical force brought us together when I was eighteen, and I'm pretty sure that only happens once in a lifetime to musicians who are very lucky.” – John Frusciante
November 2020 Interview with Mondo Sonoro
Photo: Unlimited Love Tour in Miami on Aug 30th 2022
Californication was so important to me but less important to everyone else. Every time I’d bring it up, everyone would go, “We’ve got twenty-five other songs recorded. We don’t need another one.”
“No, we have to have this,” I urged. “This is the anchor of the whole record. It’s as good a lyric as I’ve written in a long time. It has to be a song.”
It was such a sense of relief and gratification, to know that Californication didn’t end up in the same trash bin as “Quixotic Elixir” and a number of other songs that I had high hopes for. - Anthony Kiedis (Scar Tissue)
Photo by James Dimmock, Los Angeles 2002
"John has no desire, anywhere in him, to show off. He just wants to make great music. His vision of the music is so beyond ego. He’ll write a beautiful chord progression and melody, and within that, he trusts me just to do my thing." – Flea, April 2022
"I probably shouldn't really talk about it because band business, you know, but we're just starting to write and stuff. Just trying to put together some music." – Flea, July 2025
Dinner with the Macleans Podcast. July 22nd 2025
https://t.co/XQIJitfyu1
"If you look for the bad in the world, you'll always find something bad, but if you look for the good in the world, you'll find it. It's there." – John Frusciante, 2001
“We weren’t supposed to be thinking about making new music yet. I feel like the flame has been lit under John early in the cycle, and err… the new Wet Sands are out there, starting to form.” – Anthony Kiedis
Whole Lotta Red Hot Episode
Released on SiriusXM on Sep 25th 2025