After agreeing to work with renowned producer Rick Rubin in his Laurel Canyon mansion for their fifth album, Blood Sugar Sex Magick, the Red Hot Chili Peppers settled down for a two month recording session in 1991, unknowing of the estate's haunted reputation and its alleged various guests that resided there from beyond the grave.
Said to be a former home to Harry Houdini, the grounds were already marked by a mystical allure, with the legendary magician having lived in a guest cottage there for a short time, practicing his underwater stunts in the pool. According to the Houdini estate, his widow lived in the mansion after his death, hosting frequent seances to commune with its spirits, and even once threw a famous party for 500 magicians.
As well as its magical associations, the house - which was built in 1918 and then apparently reconstructed in the 50s following a major fire - is rumoured to have its own rich and complex history, one involving the tragic deaths of lovers, a curse, and bootleg liquor transporters, who would sneak their goods through its numerous underground tunnels.
Whether the mansion's rumours or historical tales are true, in the '90s, the Californian funk rock band had their own stories to tell after experiencing some of its famous paranormal activity for themselves. In fact, the phenomena was of such note, that RHCP even contacted psychics to come help with the problem.
One of the strangest occurrences that took place saw guitarist John Frusciante have an erotic encounter with a spirit.
Speaking to Interview Magazine in 1991, the band complained of cold rooms, disembodied sounds and peculiar energies.
“There are definitely ghosts in this house,” said Frusciante. “One of the rooms, the psychics said, has a very spiritually sexual vibe, and I actually heard a woman being fucked in there one day."
The guitarist then goes on to explain how the energy of the space soon had him overcome with unexpected sexual urges; something he hadn't experienced the entire time he stayed there, due to him being immersed in the album recording.
According to the guitarist, their visitations from the psychics were a dud, suspecting that they been dealing with frauds.
"After a few visits, relations with the ghost-busters went sour", Frusciante adds. "The girl-friend of one of the psychics pretended to be possessed. And she said that some of us were going to get possessed. We didn’t know whether to believe it at first. Basically, they tried to scare us.
"These guys do their first couple of visits for free, acting like they’re just nice people who are interested in this sort of thing, and then they scare everyone and charge money. If I see either of them again, I think I will just hit them in the face.
“Actually, the ghosts are very friendly. We have nothing but warm vibes and happiness everywhere we go in this house."
While Frusciante claimed to have received sexual inspiration from his ghostly encounter, bassist Flea declared in an interview with Variety to have felt musically inspired by them. "I’m not a medium, but we felt a lot of stuff in that house, and some of it would kind of put your hair on end — things moving, noises, voices" he said.
"We might have smoked too much weed and been making stuff up, I don’t know. But I know that there are spirits all around us — the things that give us memories and thoughts and ideas. It’s not just chemicals. … There’s this whole invisible world, and when we got into that house, we really immersed ourselves in it.
“You can’t just put good musicians together and tell them to go do something beautiful. You have to have assistance. The spirits have to believe in you, they have to age you, they have to be there for you, they have to guide you, they have to protect you, they have to speak through you. When you surrender to that world and consciously let go and let it speak, beautiful things happen. And when you start thinking that you control it, you constrict it.”
Whether RHCP actually witnessed real paranormal activity is anyone's guess, but their spooky experiences at the mansion really hit home after seeing a photo that ended up being featured on the album's sleeve. In the image, the band are positioned in front of the mansion, standing on a small bridge. Meanwhile, an "orb" - an object which people connect to the physical representation of entities - features next to them, with the photographer only noticing the strange light after developing the image.
Since RHCP's stay, the mansion studio has welcomed Corey Taylor, System Of A Down and plenty more bands who have claimed to have experienced paranormal activity - none however, have claimed to had a similar experience to John Frusciante.
