Josh Klinghoffer: Being fired from RHCP “truly felt like a death”

In a brand new interview with Rolling Stone, guitarist Josh Klinghoffer has opened up about being fired from the band (Red Hot Chili Peppers) after performing with them for ten years.

Klinghoffer, who replaced the group’s longtime guitarist John Frusciante in 2009, was swapped out for the return of Frusciante late last year. While fans were ecstatic that Frusciante would be returning to the band, Klinghoffer was obviously shaken.

Asking him to walk us through the day of dismissal, Klinghoffer told Rolling Stone:

I had gotten the text from Flea the day before and we’d put the writing on pause for a while and I just thought we were getting back into the swing of things. We finally came to the communal decision that we would do a record and that was what I thought we were going to talk about mostly.

I turned up last and they were all sitting in the backyard and Flea seemed somber when I got to the door and he just got right to it and said, “We decided to ask John to rejoin,” and I just sat there quietly for a second and said, “I’m not surprised. I wish I could’ve done something that would’ve made this an impossibility. But I’m really happy for you guys.” I’m happy for John. I wanted to leave the feelings that I had in that moment untouched, which were just the love for those guys. [Pauses] I love those guys deeply. I never saw myself as deserving to be there over John.

I had this amazing journey with those guys that was bringing me to this moment where it was ending. I was able to just grab hold to the fact that I really, truly had a great deal of love and respect and gratitude for everything that they allowed me to experience with them the whole time. So the moment they told me, I was able to freeze that emotion and protect those feelings toward them and not be, a year later [if] my finances are getting tricky, be like, “Those guys!”

Later on in the interview he opens up about how it felt to him emotionally.

It truly felt like a death, but how many times do you get to walk away from a death and live the rest of your life? So I sat there in the backyard with a really heavy heart; it was a truly emotional afternoon and this is just something that, for me, is nice to feel because I don’t really get to slow down and smell the emotions very often.

Here’s a YouTube compilation of every time Josh Klinghoffer saved Anthony Kiedis’ singing live.

You can read the full interview here.

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