John Frusciante

My describing The Empyrean as a story is accurate from my viewpoint, but misleading, as there are no road signs to lead someone else to perceive a clear story out of it. There was no intention to write what would be seen as clear-cut story, though it is one to me. Being that it takes place in the mind of one person, no laws of time and space, or concrete relationships exist therein. This is to say that if you look into it with your logical brain you will only strain yourself and come up with nothing. The words were specifically written to document an inner experience of life, the kind that a person has extreme difficulty translating to anyone else. Part of the intention was to write words to connect with other people who have been, or are, overwhelmed by the confusing, inescapable inner world they must live in.  Equal attention was given to writing words that would gently direct themselves towards the listeners’ intuitive brain, and their sub-conscience, which I believe comprehends and catalogues everything in a much richer and more multi layered way than our conscious mind. Like a lot of lyrics, it was written to be perceived in as many ways as there are people hearing it. A person to whom the words have no clear, conscious meaning may derive more from it than someone who reads it as I do, and so I recommend hearing or reading it however you will. It would have been simpler to say nothing at all but this only fully occurred to me today, as I have gradually realized that by saying what it is to me, I am encouraging people to see it my way and to me, that’s not what rock lyrics are for. I believe rock lyrics should be open to interpretation and I wrote these so they could be. While I could explain the story as I see it that would detract from the potential multifarious meanings that will come about from people applying their own sense of feeling from their life experience, much as they always do. 

Journal Entry Number 3

The Empyrean is a story that has no action in the physical world. It all takes place in one persons mind throughout his life. The only other character is someone who does not live in the physical world but is inside it, in the sense that he exists in peoples minds. The mind is the only place that anything can be truly said to exist. The outside world is only known to us as it appears within us by the testament of our senses.  The imagination is the most real world that we know because we each know it first hand. Seeing our ideas take form is like being able to see the sun come into being. We have no equivelent to the purity of that in our account of the outside world. The outer world appears to each of us as one thing and it is always also a multitude of others. Inside to outside and outside to inside are neverending. Trying and giving up are a form of breathing.

 - John

 The Empyrean is my new record and will be released worldwide via Record Collection on January 20th 2009. It was recorded on and off between December 2006 and March 2008.  It is a concept record that tells a single story both musically and lyrically. The story takes place within one person, and there are two characters. It contains a version of Tim Buckley’s, ‘Song To The Siren’ and the rest of the songs are written by me. My friend Josh plays on it, as does Flea. It also features Sonus Quartet, Johnny Marr and The New Dimension Singers. I’m really happy with it and I’ve listened to it a lot for the psychedelic experience it provides. It should be played as loud as possible and it is suited to dark living rooms late at night.
  
 - John Frusciante, November 3rd, 2008
 

The Empyrean Track listing:
1. Before The Beginning  
2. Song To The Siren  
3. Unreachable  
4. God  
5. Dark/Light  
6. Heaven
7. Enough Of Me  
8. Central  
9. One More Of Me  
10. After The Ending 

Cover Art