The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins Gets ‘Nothing’ From John Frusciante’s Guitar Playing
The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins, not afraid to share his opinions on his video podcast Justin Hawkins Rides Again, delivered a scorching one last week when he said he gets "nothing" from John Frusciante's guitar playing in Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Chatting on the show with fellow musician and YouTube personality Pat Finnerty, who concurred with Hawkins' take, the pair laid out their case against Frusciante's playing.
The Darkness singer-guitarist even compared the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist's "minimalist" technique to "child-like" scrawling. Watch the video near the bottom of this post.
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"Why are the Red Hot Chili Peppers fans so sensitive?" Hawkins asks by way of introducing the topic. "The videos that we do on them receive a lot of 'critique' from RHCP fans."
Hawkins Criticizes Frusciante's Playing
The Darkness rocker continued, "My issue with Red Hot Chili Peppers is that I get nothing from John Frusciante's guitar playing. I feel like if we can call [Dire Straits'] Mark Knopfler an underrated player, I would describe John Frusciante as an overrated player. In fact, I have done that more than once."
Hawkins adds of those who question his opinion, "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 records than me and I'm not jealous of him; I love his guitar playing. So that argument doesn't really hold any water."
However, "Somebody said to me it's deliberately minimalist," The Darkness frontman says. "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 discussion was also covered by Guitar World. What do you think about the critique?