10 Rock Artists That Tried To Destroy Their Career

When John Frusciante first took the job as the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, no one was expecting the band to take off too quickly. These guys had already become known as one of the weirdest art rock bands in the California area, and imagining a world with the sock-clad funky gods on the charts seemed like more of a pipedream than anything. Sometimes those dreams do come true though, and John didn't particularly like what he saw on the other side.

Once the Peppers graduated to the stadium circuit, John was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with his place in the band, with the paparazzi hounding them every day and never being able to feel completely satisfied with his success. This was also around the same time he started using heroin, which led to him getting more messed up when he took to the road, leading to a disastrous performance on SNL and a show in Japan where John quit right before he was about to go onstage.

This wasn't just a joke on his bandmates either, with John taking time off and making solo projects, each of which made him sink deeper and deeper into his addictions before finally cleaning up his act in the late '90s when he returned to the band for Californication. John may have made it to the other side, but for a few years, it looked like he was about to go down the same downward spiral that led to the death of Hillel Slovak before him.