Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik

In this photo, John Frusciante can be seen playing live with a white Fender Stratocaster. In an interview with Vintage Guitar, in answer to the question "What are some of your favorite instruments in your collection" he mentions owning a "white early-’60s Strat". He says:

There’s a cool white early-’60s Strat that was rented to me at one point for some reason, and I just had such fun playing that I bought it. But it ended up not really being able to alternate with my other guitars; it’s the kind of guitar you can have some fun on, but it’s not really practical. If you break a string and someone hands you that guitar, you’re not going to be able to do the same thing with it at all.

Later in the interview Frusciante is asked, "Were many of your guitars purchased to have different sounds for recording, but not intended for use onstage?"

I bought them because I thought I’d play a different way on each guitar. But as time went by, I didn’t use them much. With the white Strat, it was a neat experience because it made me play different, and made the band sound different. If I hadn’t gone through a phase of buying, I never would have came upon the White Falcon and some of the others.

The article can be found here, and originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Vintage Guitar magazine.

This video titled Red Hot Chili Peppers - John Frusciante - Gear Rundown - Part 3 - Guitars was also submitted as a source for a duplicate entry, with the following notes:

Fender Stratocaster is probably most famous type of guitar used by John Frusciante. He started to use Stratocasters early in his career after being persuaded by Flea and Anthony. He used two stratocasters to record Blood Sugar Sex Magik: a 1958 one and a 1957 fretless one(used only on Mellowship Slinky in B Major). It is possible that after leaving the band in 1992 he either sold the guitars for money or they burned in the fire of his house. After reuniting with the band in 1998 and later writing and touring, several new stratocasters appear: his most iconic 1962 3-tone sunburst rosewood strat, a 1955 2-tone sunburst maple strat, 1961 fiesta red stratocaster(purchased just before Stadium Arcadium), 1963 Olympic White stratocaster(used mainly on tour).

This Stratocaster had gold hardware, probably one that Frusciante used on BSSM seen on clips while recording solo for Mellowship Slinky (while recording Mellowship frets were already taken out as John didnt like new frets that were put on refreting after 1990 tour). This is cca 59 60 strat (not the same strat John used on BSSM tour 1991 1992).

In this photo, John Frusciante can be seen playing a Martin D-18 (it is not a D-28 as there is no white binding around the body). This same guitar can be seen in John Frusciante's bedroom on the documentary "Funky Monks", filmed during the recording of "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" (see at 57:05 on this link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z3Gnbgjq0M). This Martin D-18 is therefore possibly the instrument used during the recording of the song "I Could Have Lied". It is possible to notice that the bridge pin of the G string on this guitar is white while the others are black ; this bridge pin was certainly swapped with one of the bridge pin of the 12-strings guitar used by John Frusciante during the recording of the song "Breaking The Girl" (this 12-strings guitar has 11 white bridge pins and 1 black bridge pin as you can see in the photo of this link : https://www.groundguitar.com/john-frusciante-gear/john-frusciantes-12-string-acoustic-breaking-the-girl).

Used on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, John used the Dyna Comp on the solo of "Mellowship Slinky in B Major" and for the intro of "Under The Bridge" and if you go on YouTube and look up "John Frusciante recording Mellowship slinky in B Major solo" you can see it by his right knee next to the time.

You can see this pedal featured in the new setup of RHCP for Unlimited Love Tour.

You can see the mentioned Big Muff by John during the recording session of BSSM in the right corner of the recording room. It is a vintage Big Muff Deluxe.

The image provided shows an orange DOD pedal on John Frusciante's pedalboard, identified as the DOD FX80-B Compressor Sustainer. This visual confirmation aligns with the need for a compressor to achieve the sounds present on the "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" album, where compression played a significant role.

This is a scan of a magazine interview where Frusciante talks about using a Fender H.O.T. practice amp during the recording of Blood Sugar Sex Magik:

"I like to keep things simple. Those MESA/Boogie amps were too hard for me to understand. For most of the basics, I used two Marshalls: a guitar head for edge and a bass head for punch and low end. I split the signal with a DOD stereo chorus pedal. For some overdubs I used a Fender H.O.T. practice amp, but for a lot of parts, even solos, I just went straight into the board. You can get amazing, funky tones that way. In fact, a lot of my distortion is from overdriving the board."

Listed here as using this crash cymbal in the studio during Blood Sugar Sex Magik sessions.

Used this crash cymbal during Blood Sugar Sex Magik era.

Listed here using these hats during Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

Chad Smith did not use the Paiste Monad Danny Carey Signature 22" Dry Heavy Ride Cymbal. According to Ian Piggott's article on Chad Smith's drum setup during the Blood Sugar Sex Magik era, he used a regular dry heavy ride instead.

Flea used this on "Funky Monks", and "The Righteous and the Wicked" from Blood Sugar Sex Magik. It can be seen in the "Under the Bridge" video.

Flea used a blue model of this bass in studio during the recording of the album "Blood Sugar Sex Magic". He used this bass on every song exept "Funky Monks" and "The Righteous and the Wicked" (he used a 5 strings musicman stingray on these). We can see him with this bass in the docummentary "Funky Monks", in the video for "Suck my Kiss" and in some live shows in 1991 on youtube.

During the Blood Sugar Sex Magik tour, Flea used an Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay Special Electric Bass Guitar in Ivory White as his primary instrument, with a black StingRay as his backup. This is shown in a user-uploaded photo on Wordpress.