According to Robbie “Rule” Allen, who worked as John Frusciante’s guitar tech during his first period with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, John started using a Marshall 2550 after the Mother’s Milk tour, before the band recorded Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
By the time he was doing Blood Sugar, he was using the Marshall 2550 Silver Jubilee.
We started using that after Mother’s Milk tour. We bought it in between Mother’s Milk tour and when they went in [to record Blood Sugar]. Because they had a talk with him, they were like “Look… we want you to play a Stratocaster, we want you to listen to a lot of Jimmy Hendrix and we want you to achieve that tone” and he did it… he listened to them. So, he went for that and would use the Silver Jubilee and the Marshall Major.
He had two full stacks and four cabinets, but they weren’t silver, he would get black ones. He would set them side by side and when you stand in front and do that “waka-waka” [simulating the wah-wah] they would come at you with different frequencies and they would sound like it was a stereo thing.
ROBBIE “RULE” ALLEN [1]
The 2550 belongs to the same Marshall JCM 25/50 Silver Jubilee family as the 2555, the 100-watt Silver Jubilee model later associated with John’s classic live rig. The main difference is that the 2550 was the 50-watt version, switchable down to 25 watts, while the 2555 was the 100-watt version, switchable down to 50 watts. Allen also noted that John’s amps and cabinets from that period were black rather than silver, which suggests he was using the later black-finished version of the Jubilee-style Marshall rather than the original silver 1987 cosmetics.
This is also supported by photos from the same era. In the photo below, a Marshall 2550 can be seen to John’s right, identifiable by the three toggle switches on the front panel. By comparison, the JCM800, which was John’s second amp during this time, has only two toggle switches.
Salt Lake City, UT, United States [2]
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