The Darkness singer Justin Hawkins is often outspoken on his podcast, “Justin Hawkins Rides Again,” and now he’s taken aim at Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante, calling his guitar playing “shit” and comparing it to child-like paintings.
Hawkins’ remarks came from a recent episode of his podcast entitled “How NOT to Write a Song,” in which he and guest Pat Finnerty (of the YouTube series What Makes This Song Stink) proceeded to lay into Frusciante as part of a lengthy two-hour conversation.
“My issue with Red Hot Chili Peppers is that I get nothing from John Frusciante’s guitar playing,” Hawkins said, addressing the negative comments he receives from RHCP fans whenever he discusses the band on his podcast. “I feel like if we can call Mark Knopfler [of Dire Straits] an underrated player, I would describe John Frusciante as an overrated player. In fact, I have done that, more than once.”
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Regarding his specific qualms with Frusciante’s style, Hawkins demonstrated some guitar notes on a nearby acoustic: “He doesn’t give me any of the… [single note vibrato]; he goes like this… [single note without vibrato].”
To back up that point, Finnerty cited Frusciante’s “dinky” guitar solos on Californication while Hawkins elaborated.
“Somebody said to me it’s deliberately minimalist,” Hawkins continued. “Maybe it’s like that thing where you become a super-accomplished painter and start doing some naive child-like daubings, and that’s your phase. I think that might have been one of the things he was exploring, but it doesn’t stop it from being shit.”
The Darkness frontman also made it clear that his opinion of Frusciante doesn’t stem from jealousy over the RHCP guitarist’s success. “It’s always like, ‘You’re jealous because he sold more records than you have.’ And it’s like, well, Mark Knopfler has sold a lot more, more, more records than me, and I’m not jealous of him. I love his guitar playing. So that argument doesn’t really hold any water.”
Hawkins did go on to praise Frusciante’s tone and choice of guitars — his collection of “old, old, old” Fender Stratocasters — but the compliments ended there.
You can watch the full clip of Hawkins and Finnerty discussing Frusciante’s guitar playing below.
