Flea, the bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, convinced guitarist John Frusciante to reunite with the rock band.
The 59-year-old bass guitarist explained that he was spending time with John, 52, when he brought up the fact that he missed playing music with him.
In an interview with Classic Rock Magazine, Flea revealed: “We were just shooting the shit, talking, eating. We’d never really talked about [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.”
The Red Hot Chili Peppers first formed in 1983. John joined the band in 1988 after original guitarist Hillel Slovak’s death. John first left the band in 1992 due to drug issues caused by discomfort with fame and then rejoined in 1998 after going to rehab.
John left the band again in 2009, and Josh Klinghoffer, 42, took over his guitarist role until John rejoined in 2019.
Flea described his emotional conversation with John as the tipping point that led him to ultimately decide to rejoin the band.
Flea added: “And [John] looked at me and I saw the tears in his eyes. And he said: ‘I miss it too.’ There was just this moment, but in that moment I remember thinking: Man, you know…”
Lead vocalist Anthony Kiedis, 59, also commented on John’s reunion with the band.
He revealed: “If your long-lost family member comes back and says: ‘Hey, I wanna rejoin the family,’ you have no choice. You cannot say no.”
In the interview, Flea also commented on how he, like John, was initially plagued by the effects of the band’s rise to fame.
He confessed: “I became a mess when we got really famous. I fell apart, I became ill, I had chronic fatigue syndrome, I was miserable and sad, and I went through a period of seclusion and sadness.”