John Frusciante back in the Red Hot Chili Peppers (again) definitely has fans energized from the band’s new album, Unlimited Love, and their . But why did he even exit the band in 2009?

The guitarist touched on that in a new interview with Classic Rock saying, “I became quite off balance mentally those last couple of years we toured. When I went on tour, we had just finished mastering [2009’s ‘Stadium Arcadium’] the day before, and I could really have used a breather.

Frusciante continued, “As the tour went on, I got deep into the occult, which became a way of escaping the mind-set of tour life. The occult tends to magnify whatever you are and I was an imbalanced mess…Of course, there were interpersonal problems within the group, but those could have been worked out easily, if not for the fact that I was completely burned out and imbalanced.”

After a decade away from the band, however, Frusciante is back with a force as evident from tracks like “Poster Child” and “Black Summer” from Unlimited Love, which is due out April 1, and is available for pre-order in a variety of formats at RedHotChiliPeppers.com.

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