Funkin’ Up The Milky Way
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Alternative Press (USA), November 1989
The article is an interview with AK and Flea, but they mention John a lot and it gives a clear picture about the band back in the days.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers defy instability, death and anything else that tries to stop them. Jason Pettigrew cruises the Milky way with Anthony Kiedis and Flea. Portraits of funky milkmen by Lee Locke.
NEW YORK CITY - I leave the rest of the A.P. staff at the hotel while the final schmoozing of the New Music Seminar winds down. I grab my briefcase and head for EMI Records, the East Coast headquarters for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
As I make my way up the street I notice a large amount of destroyed catering all over the sidewalk. New street-smart architecture in the medium of beer cans and empty fifths piles up. I’d better ask the doorman if I’m at the right place.
“You’re going up there?” he asks incredulously, just seconds before a banana-peel-and-egg-white combo slides down the brim of his cap. “You’re one sick puppy dog, pal.”
I take the elevator to the eighth floor, and as the door opens I see that the once-sterling office decor is marred with spray paint, toilet paper, shaving cream and more strategically tossed food. Nude couples are tossing beer on one another. In fact, there’s so much beer on the furniture that every time somebody jumps onto one of the lobby’s plush chairs, a fine mist shoots out from all sides. Down the hallway, the noise is deafening, even over the monstrous stereo system, which is playing One Nation Under A Groove.
As I round the corner, I’m bashed in the face by what feels like a planet-sized cantaloupe. Michael Balzary (known to his pals as Flea) is gleaming over target practice.
“You must be the pencil dick from A.P.,” he says with a chuckle. “Are you the guy that jerks off to a copy of Field And Stream magazine?”
“Who told you that?” I glare at him with one eye while picking seeds out of the other.
“John Lydon,” he shoots back while dumping a bowl of vegetable dip over his head. “That is what he told me, and he’s never told a lie in his life.” The last word is punctuated with a belch.
“Just the issue of Field And Stream his wife is in,” I mutter. At this moment a severely distressed EMI publicist is screaming obscenities that would turn Andrew Dice Clay into a crybaby.
“Flea! You !$@& stupid, arrogant !#@$#@!’s have destroyed an $8 million office!”
“So,” bemuses Flea. “Let Richard Marx pay for it.”
The publicist, covered in what appears to be a combination of mud, cold cream and spaghetti sauce, is about to reach spontaneous combustion. “You %@%#@’s shoved his head down the commode and now I’ve got three paramedics trying to revive him!”
Flea waxes philosophically. “I find that offensive because with all of his money you would think he would go to a restaurant. At least a McDonald’s.”
“I will kill you $#$&’s , I swear,” she screams, running down the hallway.
Flea begins to write the word “poop” on his stomach with the dip. “Stress really is the No. 1 killer, man. C’mon, let’s go find Anthony.”
A 30-foot descent down the well-partied corridor and a left turn finds Anthony “The Swan” Kiedis being held down by six voluptuous women who are currently redefining the parameters of oral sex. The floor is ankle-deep in foam, aerosol cans, Silly String, salad oil and the dead or near-dead bodies of A&R men, pizza-delivery boys and EMI executives.
“Antoine! Time out for physics class,” announces Flea. “Or are you wimping out?”
“Money talks, my brother,” Kiedis calmly replies as he frees himself from legs, breasts, tongues and various other extremities. Once free, he grabs me by the necktie and points me out the window. “You ready, Flea?”
“What are you doing?!” I shriek, waiting for my bowels to fail me.
“‘S’no big deal,” he explains. “I bet Flea 10 bucks that when you drop two things out of a window, they hit the ground at the same time, regardless of mass.” And with that, he throws me out the window.
As I am falling to certain death, I meet up with MTV’s Adam Curry. “Adam! How much do you weigh?”
“One-seventy-five. One forty-nine with a crew-cut… aaaaaaarrrrgghh!!!”
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