When I got there, River was already at the table. I hadn’t seen him in at least three months, since he had been in Utah shooting a movie called Dark Blood, in which he played a young, doll-making recluse awaiting the apocalypse on a nuclear test site in the desert. He asked me about his friend right away: “How’s John doing?”
“Dude, he’s getting worse all the time. Constant drugs,” I told him. “It’s madness up there at his place.” Frusciante’s house was even getting hard for me to visit. When I wasn’t at my apartment, I tended to stay with Johnny Depp. His place had a much more stable feel to it.
River seemed confused by what I’d just told him. He also may have been a little intrigued. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I stop by nearly every day,” I said, “but it’s really fucking nuts there. The place is filthy. It’s a mess. John and everybody write all over the walls. Do yourself a favor and just stay away.”
What I was really trying to put across to him was that he wasn’t like the rest of us. I may have been with a strung-out crew, but I felt like musicians were used to that life. Actors were more delicate. River had just had three months of healthy, drug-free living. Just walking in the door of John’s place and taking a deep breath might lead to an OD. I felt a little responsible. He didn’t seem to get it, so I spelled it out. “Look, man,” I said. “You haven’t done any drugs for months. You shouldn’t go up there. If you want to see him and say hello, he’ll be down at the Viper Room later. Trust me, it’s past the point of fun up there these days.”
Of course, you can never tell anybody what to do if they don’t want to listen, and River, being River, went straight from the party to John’s house. Forget the plush room he had at St. James’s Club. He stayed with John for the next few days and probably didn’t get a minute of sleep. The drug routine stayed pretty consistent for all of us. First, smoke crack or shoot coke directly into a vein for that ninety-second, electric brain-bell jangle. Then shoot heroin to get a grip and come down enough to be able to carry on a conversation for a few minutes before you start the cycle again. Just like the instructions on a shampoo bottle: lather, rinse, repeat. Always repeat. These sessions could last for days and would only end when someone fell out or other obligations intruded. And we’d write and record songs (and lose them), which is what River and Frusciante said they were doing, but one look at their hollow eyes told me they’d also been deep into a major-league drug binge.
When I walked into the Viper Room at about seven on the evening of October 30, the long fall shadows had turned to night, but it seemed like any other evening there. Sal was excited. “Frusciante and River are going to play tonight!” he said. River considered himself a musician. He had busked on the street as a kid and had continued to play guitar through his teens. He was proficient and he liked to jam. A few years earlier, when he had starred with Keanu Reeves—another aspiring musician—in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, the grim tale of two hustling male prostitutes, River had carved out time for music despite the tight shooting schedule. Flea, who had a cameo role in the movie, stayed with River and Keanu in the rental house they shared on location in Portland, Oregon. A couple of times a week, they’d hold late-night jam sessions, which provided River with his rock-and-roll fix. Back home in Los Angeles, he had formed a band called Aleka’s Attic that got attention mainly because he was River Phoenix, which must have frustrated him. Playing with Frusciante, I’m sure, validated him. He was more than just a Hollywood actor who dabbled in alternative rock. Sal was giddy about it. I wasn’t so sure. I knew what those two had been up to over the last few days and could just imagine what kind of disaster they’d whip up onstage.
“Dude, you can’t let them get up there,” I said, now taking on Sal’s part from the time I had booked Beck.
“No, no. They recorded a song. They played it for me. It’s going to be great. They’re just opening for P, anyway,” he explained.
P was a band that had come together from everybody hanging out. Gibby, Johnny, and Sal formed the core, and a revolving lineup fleshed them out. That night, Al Jourgensen and Flea were joining in. It was fun to watch some of the biggest rock and movie stars of the time getting together to play original material and lots of covers. They even had a song that mentioned River. It was called “Michael Stipe,” a name-check
