A Late Summer Night’s Dream
Working with a legendary eccentric like Rubin might have seemed like a match made in rock ’n’ roll heaven for this particular band, but the Peppers weren’t all that sure during the initial stages of the project. Says Kiedis: “At first, I thought [hesitantly] ‘Wow, Rick Rubin. I don’t know. He’s into all of these negative bands like Slayer and Danzig. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have always been totally into positive energy. It’ll never work.’ But then you get to know the guy, and you see how cool he really is. Rick has this real sense of identification with all of the red-necked, white trash of America, and he wants to be totally tapped into giving those kids something to work out their ya-yas with. He really is a great person.” And not at all the way a lot of people might believe him to be. “One day, he came over to my house to see what the lyrics for the album were going to be like,” continues the singer. “He saw the lyrics to this really sad thing I’d written called “Under the Bridge.” It was something I didn’t want his to see. It was sort of sensitive, and I thought he’d hate it. But when he read those words, he demanded that I sing it to him – and it knocked him out. I didn’t even want the bandit hear this song, but when they did, they were floored by it. As a result, it ended up on the record. So Rick Rubin’s not as one-dimensional as you might think.”
Considering Rubin’s “satanic” reputation, however, it was somewhat fitting that the team should decide to cap off the album with a cover version of Robert Johnson’s classic “Red Hot.” The track also displayed the fun-loving side of the so-called devil’s producer, since he had the group record it outside, campfire-style. “When we were doing the playbacks for it,” continues Kiedis, “Rick kept saying, “Can you hear the cars go by?” This is so cool!”
Although he may be the first to successfully capture some of the Chili Peppers’ inspired sense of lunacy on disc, Rubin joins a famous plethora of previous Peppers producers, running a gamut from Gang of Four guitarist Andy Gill (who helmed the band’s debut) to the band’s mentor and idol, George Clinton. “We thought Andy would be perfect for us, because Gang of Four’s first two albums were so fantastic,” says Flea. “But it was our first album, and we were totally naïve about what a producer did. Instead of suggesting to Andy what we really wanted out of a guitar sound or a drum sound, we’d just walk into the control room while he was experimenting, and say things like ‘This sucks!’ We should have been asking, ‘Can’t we try something else?’ – but we didn’t know. He was a very tight Englishman on top of it, and so that mix didn’t work very well.
“For the second album, we went to Detroit to record with George Clinton at the same studio where all of the classic P-Funk work was cut. He was so intense! I mean, you’d be halfway through a take and all of a sudden George would start talking to you, coaching you through the headphones, and coaxing a good take out of you. If anybody but Clinton tried that, I’d be screaming ‘Shut the fuck up! I’m trying to play!!!’ But he could get away with it. George is one of the greatest geniuses and sweetest guys I’ve ever met.”
As for Michael Beinhorn, the guy who helped them cut their breakthrough disc…well, he may have been just a tad overboard. “He was totally gung-ho,” says Kiedis, “Right before we did Mother’s Milk, he gathered us around him, and he was pumping us up with a pep talk, like ‘This is gonna be the greatest record ever made – LET’S GO!’ We did the most painstaking takes ever for that record, and it was difficult. But in retrospect, we got really good tracks out of it, even if Michael seemed to be very anal-retentive!”
Another thing that helps the new album is that the Peppers’ current lineup has apparently solidified since they cut Mother’s Milk. Original guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a drug overdose a few years back, not long before they began recording that album, and drummer Jack Irons, quit shortly thereafter, too grief-stricken to continue. Up to that point, the original band has been together in one permutation or another since high school. As a result, no one on the outside was totally sure at the time whether they’d be able to continue. “It took literally hundreds of drummers to find the one we wanted,” says Flea. “We even had a different guitar and drum combo at one point that we never ended up recording with. But when we met John, he knew every song we did, and was totally perfect for the gig. Before we cut Mother’s Milk, we did a few short jaunts with the new lineup. But we never jelled to the point where we are now.” For his part, Frusciante recalls the first time he’d ever seen the band live. “They were playing downtown in the Variety Arts Center. I’d heard their stuff before, so I knew what they sounded like. But after I saw them live, I thought, ‘Man, this is what I wanna do!’ I still can’t believe that I am actually doing it sometimes, y’know?”
In the past, the Peppers have been the subject of much controversy, which has even led to arrests, but they all claim that those days of mayhem and pillage are probably a thing of the past. “All of that kind of stuff is now confined solely to the stage,” says Flea. “We’ve been through the busts and the unnecessary controversy with nudity and assault and such, but talking about it and emphasizing it really detracts from people paying any attention to our music.” Despite the fact that the Peppers have often been labeled “critics’ darlings” (probably because they’ve sold lots of albums without radio play), their relationship with the media has always been touchy at best. “I don’t think those people really know what we’re about at all!” complains Frusciante. “Every time I read something about what we are, or what we’re supposed to be, it completely misses the point. We’re trying to tap into all of the good vibes in the universe, and yet all we ever see is ‘Cocks in socks.’ It’s ridiculous!”
Not that the band exactly does anything to downplay this image. It doesn’t help matters that a recent issue of Musician magazine devoted a large percentage of its letters section to complaints about a recent “Ask the Red Hot Chili Peppers” column, in which the band dished out advice á la Ann Landers. When asked about a constantly brawling baby, Flea had suggested that the advise-seeker “tie up the brat, and leave it in the closet.” Musician’s readers were outraged. “That was total bullshit,” scoffs the bassist. “The interviewer from Musician came to our rehearsal space, and asked us to come up with the most outrageous answers we could think of to these innocuous. I would never, ever, even think of doing such a thing. I mean, I have a 4-year-old daughter myself, and would do anything I possibly could to insure my child’s happiness. I’m sorry if those people took what we said the wrong way, but I can’t see how any thinking person would take it seriously.” Kiedis snorts about the letters. “They can all go fuck themselves. Those people are idiots!”
Those people probably also aren’t likely to be part of the crowd when the Peppers kick off their world tour later this month, commencing with “a few cow towns,” claims Kiedis, “before hitting some real cities.” The prospecting opening acts at press time were Soundgarden and L7. “We originally wanted Ice Cube to do this tour,” says Kiedis, noting my visible grimace at the mention of Seattle slop-meisters Soundgarden, “but he was simply too expensive. Then we asked Lenny Kravitz” (does this mean the tour would have been called “Monsters of Melrose”?) “but he was also too pricey. Soundgarden are actually coming along nicely, and I hope L7 makes it onto the tour because those chicks really rock out, y’know?”
Which leads to a discussion of some of their favorite bands around town. The Chilis seem keenly aware of the happenings around LA, and are quick to hype their particular faves, which include Thelonious Monster (“They’re eventually gonna come out with something really unique,” says Kiedis, “though I don’t think even they know what that is yet”), Two Free Stooges, and Spinout – but their biggest praise is reserved for LA’s other huge left-of-center act, Jane’s Addiction. “They’re the greatest band on the planet at the moment,” says Flea. “They are to this generation what Led Zeppelin was to the one before.” The other Peppers concur. “Jane’s Addiction is at the very forefront of everything that’s important right now,” adds Smith.
