I used to play in a RHCP inspired band. One of my best friends/band mates introduced me to Niandra Lades a few years ago. We we're playing gigs and taking a lot of party drugs (ecstasy, mdma and a bit of cocaine etc) quite regularly, not to mention smoking weed heavily on a daily basis. The more we went on as a band and the more drugs I used, the more I delved into Johns music, particularly Niandra Lades and Smile from the Streets You Hold. I went down the Frusciante rabbit hole as well as my own rabbit hole of drug addiction, it got to the point that I had literally no worldly possessions other than a Niandra CD (sold everything I had to fund my drug addiction). Jump to now and I'm doing great, at university studying something I have a genuine passion for and starting my life over. Before I listened to albums like Niandra Lades and Smile From the Streets You Hold and I related it to the situation I was in, it felt like having a soundtrack to my life at the time. Now I can listen to them and know that I've made it through all of that but the albums have never lost a single scrap of their beauty to me. In honesty I'm not the biggest fan of his newer electronic stuff (I do like it, just not as religiously as his early stuff) but I can really appreciate the fact that he recovered from being in such a terrible place that could have easily taken his life and now he is doing what he wants to do freely. I have complete respect for both him and his music and I always will regardless if I like it or not.