Flea was a special guest on Mike Watt’s radio show, on February 21st 2010. He talked about a lot of things: his  trip to Nigeria last year and he also mentioned he recently returned from Ethiopia.

The most interesting part of the interview is related to Red Hot Chili Peppers, where Flea talks about John Frusciante and his replacement – Josh Klinghoffer. He confirms that John has quit the band and Josh is the new guitarist, which we already knew anyway, but it’s still nice to hear. Flea seems to be ok with John’s decision to leave and is happy for him.

It’s around the 28 minute mark where Flea mentions both of them – John Frusicante and Josh Klinghoffer. And here you can download and listen to that part of the interview.

Thanks to rhcpuniverse for uploading the recording. Visit their website to download the whole interview!

So, for the first time, someone from the band – Chad Smith, openly talks about John Frusciante’s departure from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, in a recent interview to a Pittsburgh radio station – 105.9 The X

NA: I hear the lineup has changed any chance you can comment on that?

CS: Expect something new and fresh, Josh not only is a fantastic guitarist but the kid can do it all, sing, bass drums and even piano.

Hmmm… At least someone spoke about it. I am glad the band is with John and they support his decision. Can’t wait to hear the new Red Hot Chili Peppers sound! Enjoy!

So it’s official now,  after a whole year, John Frusciante finally announced that he left Red Hot Chili Peppers for real. And he is not coming back, because he wants to concentrate more on his own work:

I really love the band and what we did. I understand and value that my work with them means a lot to many people, but I have to follow my interests. For me, art has never been something done out of a sense of duty. It is something I do because it is really fun, exciting, and interesting. – John Frusciante

You can read the whole blog entry on his MySpace page as well as his official blog.

No one can tell for sure who is going to be his replacement as a new guitarist for the band.  As you already heard, it could be John’s apprentice Josh Klinghoffer. Feeling are mixed and I am not sure what to make out of this. I hope it’s for the best and as you can see he had his own reasons, and it wouldn’t be the way it used to if he forced himself to do something he didn’t feel like doing… It’s really sad to think they will never play together again though.

Let’s make a little break from all the rumors and what ifs, and while we’re waiting for official news, let’s enjoy Chad’s company. Here is yet another interview with Chad Smith done by Francisco Fernández, from Argentinian Red Hot Chili Peppers website – FunkyMonks.ar I am just going to post some parts of this interview, related to Red Hot Chili Peppers, and you can read the whole thing on Francisco’s website – FunkyMonks.ar, or you can also download and listen the whole interview here:

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Chad, we know that the Chili Peppers are performing on the 29th of January, Neil Young tribute concert… are you going to play a new song apart from Neil’s cover? Is there someting you can tell us about the concert?

CS: I think it’s for the Grammys and around that time they do as always, honor an artist, this year is Neil Young and a lot of people are going to be doing Neil Young songs, he’s gonna be there, obviously. So we’re just really honored to be able to play this great music, we’re just gonna do one song, ’cause like 20 people are playing, bunch of different people, I don’t what song we’re gonna do yet but ? wrote Neil.

I don’t want to bother you with questions of the Chili Peppers, but we have heard rumors about the band situation for almost three years and we would like to know what plans the band has after this concert

CS: Well, we’re writing songs right now, you know, we’re gonna make another record and it’s going really well, we have a great time, we just needed to take a break, we’ve been playing… you know, being a Chili Pepper is a full time job [laughs]. You know, we write songs, we record them and then we go on tour on tour for a long time. We did that for ten years pretty straight, and we just thought it was time to take a break and do other things and live our lives, be with our families and come back fresh with your batteries recharged and once again make new music. That’s why we took the time off, we’re not breaking up or anything, it was just a break and now we’re back and everybody is really happy to be back playing.

That’s great! Well we heard that you have recorded four new songs with the Peppers. By the way, congratulations. Some of them have pianos and it seems to be something different from what you have been doing all these years. What can you tell us about the new sound of the band?

CS: Well, I can’t talk too much about it because it’s really in a early stages, you know, we write music for a long time and get a lot of different things before we end picking what, you know, it’s going to be songs and what’s gonna end up on CD’s. So I don’t want to say “Yeah, there’s gonna be piano”, we’re just doing whatever feels right and whatever people in the group wants to bring to the table. You know, it’s gonna be different. Always different, a very honest representation of what we’re doing at the time. So that’s what I can say…

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The question that’s been bothering all true Red Hot Chili Peppers fans still remains unanswered. Has John Frusciante really left the band? Has his apprentice Josh Klinghoffer replaced him in the studio? And if all the previous assumptions are true, when will they officially go public and say so… Or deny, just give us any kind of closure so we can stop assuming things. We can’t know. What I can do now is give you more has John Frusciante left the band rumors from a few different sources and you get to decide for yourself if you want to believe that or not. I begin to winder if any of this is making any sense at all but it seems like the rumors won’t go away. Can “just rumors” last this long?

The newest piece of info comes from musicradar.com, where they state that John Frusciante is no longer working with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but they won’t give away the source, saying it’s a source close to the band:

“Josh Klinghoffer has been playing with the group for a couple of months now,” says the source. “Optimistically, the Peppers are trying to lock down a replacement for John, who has apparently quit. Mentally, John checked out a long time ago. He’s interested in doing his own thing, his own albums – the whole big rock band machinery just doesn’t appeal to him anymore.”

The news that Frusciante has quit can hardly be viewed as surprising. During a podcast interview with MusicRadar earlier this year, the guitarist was lost for words during a routine question about the status of the group. He paused for nearly 30 seconds (later edited) before awkwardly stating that the Peppers had “no plans.” – says Joe Bosso from musicradar.com

These rumors resurfaced again when Chad Smith in a recent interview refused to talk about John: “I was told to stay away from John questions“

Two other sources also posted the same info recently. Buzzbands.la owned by a former LA Times states:

I hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers are writing music for a 10th album, but without John Frusciante. Guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who toured with the Peppers as a second axeman (and who also has played with Gnarls Barkley, Beck and PJ Harvey), is involved.

Read the whole article on Buzzbands.la

Buddyhead.com, an independent record label also puts the same “rumor” on their blog:

Looks like John Frusciante up and quit on his homeboys. Cuz our buddy Josh Klinghoffer is the new guitar player in Red Hot Chili Peppers. Drinks are on you dude. Better figure out what sock size your dick is STAT.

Read the whole article on Buddyhead.com

That’s all for now. I think it’s best to wait for an official announcement, which should be out some time soon, because as you can see these so called rumors are getting way out of control. Let’s hope for the best and stay with the band no matter what their decision is, they must have their own reasons!