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It’s all change for stadium funk rock titans Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Guitarist John Frusciante is out, new boy Josh Klinghoffer is in and, on the
eve of their tenth album, they’re embracing “the gayness”… and poison.
The Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica is the hotel of choice for A-list rock stars
who want to avoid media attention or don’t fancy slumming it with the hoi
polloi a few miles away in Hollywood. A super-plush Mediterranean hideaway,
its luxury interiors are matched by luxury prices. Its here, in a swanky
$1,400-a-night suite, that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are officially kicking
off promotion for their new album, I’m With You. The tranquillity of the
setting is in inverse proportion to the turbulence of recent years. A
gruelling I8-month slog in support of 2006's Stadium Arcadium nearly split
the band. “Things had gotten dysfunctional and not fun.” says bassist Flea.
“We just needed to get away from it”
Worse was to come. When they did reconvene after a two-year break, talismanic
guitarist John Frusciante – whose return to the band in 1998 coincided with
them jettisoning the party-heavy funk-rock with which they made their name in
favour of an altogether more mainstream sound -announced that he was quitting
for the second and final time. The guitarist gave no reason other than a
frustratingly vague: “My musical interests haw led me in a different
direction.”
And so it’s here that the Red Hot Chili Peppers Mk 10-yes, there have been
that many line-ups – have convened with baby-faced new guitarist Josh
Klinghoffer to talk about I’m With You. Its a continuation of the more
mainstream sound of their last few albums, only this time with added African
percussion (on the self-explanatory Ethiopia) and soft rock flourishes in the
shape of some Billy Joe-esque piano. Anyone seeking the testosterone-fuelled
energy and socks-on-cocks rush of 1991′s Blood Sugar Sex Magik should look
elsewhere. It rocks in places, but for the most part I’m With You is a
Properly Grown Up Red Hot Chili Peppers Album.
“I wouldn’t call it ‘grown-up’.” counters singer Anthony Kiedis. “I
mean we’ve got our shit a little more together than maybe we used to. But
not so much that it still doesn’t have a few rough edges.”
“I have no idea what that means,” adds bassist Flea. “I know that we’re
growing up, I know that we’re also going sideways and down and diagonally
and circular. We’re embracing the warmth, the beauty, the gayness, the
macho-ness.”
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have been fending of charges of ‘growing up’ for
a good 12 years now. That was when the 15-million-selling Californication
gave their flagging fortunes a shot in the arm and found them swapping one
fanbase (early adopters who discovered them in the 80s, whose ranks were
swelled with the stratospheric success of Blood Sugar Sex Magik and its hits
Give It Away, Suck My Kiss and Under The Bridge) for another, much bigger one
consisting of housewives, estate agents and mainstream pop fans. The former
group mourned the loss of ‘their’ band to no avail: the Red Hot Chili
Peppers of old have gone, the tube socks packed away, never to return.
The four of them are interviewed in pairs today. Anthony Kiedis and Josh
Klinghoffer are up first. Despite turning 49 this year, the frontman is as
athletic as ever (“l can’t wait to hit the 50 mark so I can really carry
the flag for the half-century-of-life-and-still-living-crew. I look forward
to defying the odds of gravity”). He sports Jack Sparrow-style facial hair
and a hipsters’ uniform of shorts with shirt, tie and suit jacket. He has a
short attention span, and a tendency to be very reserved, especially when it
comes to personal questions.
“John Frusciante leaving did for us what we could not do for ourselves,”
says the singer. “It allowed us to have a new relationship and start from
scratch. And it was time to start from scratch.”
What happened with John Frusciante?
“There was a certain amount of discord and tension that had built up from him
not wanting to be where he wanted to be,” says Anthony Kiedis. “And vice
versa. He did it in a very gentlemanly way. He came and had a very calm
conversation about him just wanting to do something else. Which was more than
understandable, all things considered. And it was a great relief.”
This earnest explanation is as deep as Anthony Kiedis will go in explaining
John Frusciante’s departure, possibly because there genuinely seems to be no
drama. It’s certainly a world awav from the first time the guitarist quit,
in the middle of a Japanese tour in 1991. Back then the guitarist was strung
out on drugs. So was Anthony Kiedis. But times change, people grow up.
Evidently, so do bands.
The singer tries hard to bring Josh Klinghoffer into the conversation, with
little success. At 31, the guitarist has appeared on more records than many
musicians twice his age, collaborating with everyone from PJ Harvey to Gnarls
Barkley and, ironically John Frusciante. It was the connection with the
latter that led to him joining the Red Hot Chili Peppers as a touring
guitarist on the Stadium Arcadium tour. Quiet and introverted, Josh
Klinghoffer is either uncomfortable or unimpressed with the interview
process, leaving Anthony Kiedis to do most of the talking. At 31, he’s young
enough to be one of his bandmates’ sons.
“We tested for that,” says Anthony Kiedis with a laugh. “We made sure.”
Josh Klinghoffer: “Age honestly doesn’t come up in my mind. I think I’ve
now finally admitted to myself that I’m an adult. Even though I don’t look
or act like one most of the time.”
There are trace elements of old Red Hot Chili Peppers in The Adventures of
Rain Dance Maggie, the first single from the album. It’s key line -”I want
to rock you like the 80s” – sounds like it’s beamed in straight from Blood
Sugar Sex Magik. Proving there’s life in the old horndogs yet, this
snigger-worthy lyric has already upset the stuffed shirts at the BBC.
“Referencing the 80s is a fun thing to do,” says Anthony Kiedis. “Getting
cock-blocked for saying ‘cock’ on British radio. British radio does not
love the word ‘cock’. Hopefully the original will rise to the surface.
Because it is a poignant moment in the song. You can hang your teacup on the
word ‘cock’.”
Some would say cock rock has never gone away. Motley Crue and Poison are
touring the US together this summer…
“I would like to see what has become of those chaps,” says Anthony Kiedis.
“I ran into CC Deville on the Sunset Strip recently. He was so sweet. He’s
just emanating good vibes and loving nature. It’s all just gravy for him.”
There are more similarities between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Motley Crue
than either party would like to admit. Both made their name in the clubs of
Los Angeles of the early ’80s. Both have had their struggles with substance
abuse. In Anthony Kiedis’ autobiography Scar Tissue, the singer says that he
has been sober since Christmas 2000. Does he find it easy to stay away from
it all?
“Well, temptation pops up and it fades so quickly. The other day I saw a
video and these three beautiful sexy stylish girls are in a kitchen and they’
re all blowing smoke down each other’s throats, getting ready to go out. And
for a moment I looked at it, and I was like: ‘Oooh, that looks kind of sexy
and fun.’ But that just doesn’t work for me. I’ve tried it about 18.000
times and it always ends up disastrously. So, I’ll just have to enjoy it
vicariously, without the smoke being blown down the throat.”
Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary is officially the second best bassist on the planet,
at least according to a recent online poll. He was beaten by The Who’s John
Entwistle, though he did trump Paul McCartney, Geddy Lee and Primus’ Les
Claypool. “What about John Paul Jones?” he asks. “Incredible bassist. Or
King Crimson -Peter Giles?”
Along with Anthony Kiedis, the athletic and muscular 48-year-old is the Red
Hot Chili Peppers’ joint senior partner. His fluid, elasticated basslines
drove the band’s sound in the 80s, though the thunder-thumbed four-string
acrobatics have been toned down in recent years in line with the band’s
General drift away from youthful exuberance. Witty, quick and sharp, he’s
willing to open up about most subjects, though he can be prickly if he
chooses.
The bassist is teamed up with drummer Chad Smith. Usually the Red Hot Chili
Peppers’ class clown, today Smith is tired and occasionally impatient. He
refuses to be drawn on his Sammy Hagar-fronted side-project Chickenfoot or
any of the 20 other non-Chilis albums he’s played on in the last 10 years,
while references to his resemblance to comedy star Will Ferrell go down like
a fart in a spacesuit. “Chad told me the other day that if someone mentions
Will Ferrell to him again, he’s going to strangle them to death,” explains
Flea.
For Stadium Arcadium, the bassist said he was listening to “flashy”
guitarists like Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. This time around, he got his
inspirations from altogether less straightforward sources.
“The three main things that I was listening to during the creation of this
record were underground kind of avant-garde electronic music, The Rolling
Stones, and Johann Sebastian Bach,” he says.
“I was listening to my wife’s heartbeat through her beautiful large breast,
” adds Chad Smith. “It was very inspiring to me.”
One of the tracks on the album, the percussive, African-tinged Ethiopia, sums
up where the Red Hot Chili Peppers are coming from in 2011. It was inspired
by a trip to the titular country undertaken by Flea as part of Blur frontman
Damon Albarn’s Africa Express project, in which Western musicians play with
their counterparts from that continent. It’s a long way from running around
with a sock on your todger.
“The idea wasn’t about drawing attention to what great do-gooders everyone
is, but to go play with Africans, on their turf, and not live in some ivory
tower,” says Flea. “They see Live Aid and they think it’s just silly.”
Any doubts that the perma-gurning bass-imp of old is a thing of the past are
dispelled with the news that he spent a )pear of the band’s hiatus enrolled
at college to study music theory (“I barely went to school after I was 15,
so this was great. I can’t wait to go back”), not to mention the fact that
he completed the Los Angeles Marathon (“Three hours, 52 minutes and 50
seconds. I rocked it!’).
“Rock stardom is, like, pretty boring,” he says with a shrug.
No plans to go see the Motley Crue / Poison double-header when it hits Los
Angeles, then? “Funny you should mention that,” says Chad Smith, perking
up. “Somebody sent me a link to a show from Dallas two nights ago. Tommy Lee
’s now doing a drum solo where it’s a rollercoaster ride. He’s in his kit
and on a track. And he invites somebody up from the audience and straps him
in with him: ‘Let’s go for a ride, come on dude, wheeee!’… you know,
Tommy shit. And he goes along, and you know what it is? It’s our song! He
plays along to [the Chili Peppers' cover of The Ohio Players' Love
Rollercoaster. Karaoke drums! He's playing to me. I'm going to kick his ass!"
Flea: "I like Tommy he's nice." Presumably, Chad, your Chili Peppers
commitments mean you won't be able to tour with Chickenfoot for their second
album?
"I think Tommy Lee's going to take my place," he quips. "Chickenfoot was a
thing that I did while we had a break from this. And it was a long break. And
those [Chickenfootl] guys were, like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re in that other band…
’. It was strictly something I could do for fun on the side, you know?”
So if Jimmy Page called and asked you to join the reformed Led Zeppelin,
would you go?
“Only if Flea gets to come with me,” he replies. “No, I don’t think that’
s going to happen. Jason Bonham did a great job. He’s the living sperm. If
they’re not going to use him, they’re not coming to me.”
Flea: “It’s the living sperm or nothing.”
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, the album that
transformed the Red Hot Chili Peppers from cock-waving funk-rock oiks into
cock-waving funk-rock oiks with several million record sales to their name
and several millions of dollars in the bank. The perfect distillation of the
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ sound and ethic, it was a watershed album for the
band, and the one that their fans – at least the earlier generations –
always go back to. For some bands, it might be an opportunity to celebrate
one of the key albums of the era by playing it in its entirety. Not the Red
Hot Chili Peppers, though.
“I would rather play this new record in its entirety,” says Anthony Kiedis.
“I still like playing those songs, but it doesn’t feel like a milestone to
me. I don’t feel like that was the best record we made. Even of that line-up.
”
“It’s nostalgia,” Flea will add an hour or so later. Nostalgia is fun but
it’s not exciting. There’s no risk or vulnerability happening.”
You can see their point: the past is done, move on, do the next thing. But
there’s something undeniably different about the Red Hot Chili Peppers in
2011 compared to the younger version of themselves. Once upon a time, they
were chemical lab; today, they’re a health club.
“Does it have to be one or the other?” says Anthony Kiedis. “Can it be a
health club with drugs? Rock ‘n’ roll can be with or without drugs. It can
be with or without health. It can be with or without late nights. It’s
anything goes.”
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