Hannah Peters/Getty ImagesFormer Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer is speaking publicly for the first time since the band announced that he was no longer in the group, and that longtime on-again, off-again guitarist John Frusciante is returning.
During an interview with Marc Maron on the comedian’s WTF podcast, Klinghoffer says that the news was a “complete shock, but not a surprise.”
“It’s pretty simple, and there’s no animosity,” Klinghoffer explains. “The explanation is that John would like to come back, and has rekindled the relationship with the band, or with Flea, musically, for the last little while.”
“Behind your back,” Maron suggests.
“I suppose,” Klinghoffer responds.
Klinghoffer adds that the idea that Frusciante might be returning to the Chili Peppers had “crossed his mind once or twice” before the band officially told him the news after he learned that Flea and Frusciante had reconnected.
“I didn’t know they’d been playing or anything,” he says.
Overall, though, Klinghoffer says his emotions about his time in RHCP are positive.
“In that moment they told me, I sort of had this great wave of love for them, and love for everything I was able to do with them,” he says.
Klinghoffer handled guitar duties in Red Hot Chili Peppers from 2009 to 2019, and played on two albums: 2011’s I’m with You and 2016’s The Getaway.
Frusciante, meanwhile, has previously gone through two tenures with the Peppers. He first joined in 1988 before departing in 1992, and then returned for a stretch between 1998 and 2009.
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