The Red Hot Chili Peppers Are Back
According to Anthony there is also no reason for concerns about the future. 'The optimism from before One Hot Minute... I get what you’re aiming at, it was a completely different feeling and a completely different time.”
Well then. A different feeling, a different time and, not unimportant, a different CD. Because let it be especially clear that One Hot Minute more then pales in comparison to the album that will be released in early June Californication: a inspiring, animated and sound Chili Peppers record that doesn't offer many new angles, you could call it a old-fashioned Chili Peppers record because of it's BloodSugarSexMagik like soul, regardless of that it has rock solid song material. And in the meantime the band goes to extremes: in Around The World, Get On Top and Purple Stain they are playing more angular, stripped down and more virulent then ever and with intimate songs like Porcelain, Savior and the title song they are, this is rare in the Chili Peppers oeuvre, moving.
“We shouldn't look for explicit signs of what happened these last few years on Californication,” says Anthony. “I'm not someone that tries to analyze things from the past or put them in songs as metaphors. If I think about facts, I can 't be creative. You can say that It puts my mind in the wrong space.”
And even if the album title and the many references in the song texts refer to Hollywood and California do make you think of that concept, according to Anthony it's barely there. “Those geological references appear frequently, every time there is a different reason for it. I understand that Hole made a concept record about Los Angeles with Celebrity Skin, but I've never listened to that CD. There is a pretty innocent idea behind the title Californication: it's a word that I made up for the.. How else am I suppose to say this? The californication of the world. In the last few years, alone and with the band, I've traveled a lot and I discovered that everywhere you go, even in the weirdest places, you find influences from the Californian culture. I've seen little boys, live in the jungle in self-made huts 3 meters above the ground, wearing Dukes of Hazard-T-Shirts. And there is not a country in the world where the people don't think of movies and glamour when they hear the name Hollywood.”
What is also noticeable: Anthony refers to two songs, This Velvet Glove and Purple Stain, that are literally for John Frusciante. “Yes. Out of pure love for him. Our regained friendship has made a huge impact on me and I couldn't let that go during the writing of the lyrics. External factors work with that: the environment in which we rehearsed, the weather, the euphoria within the band... I noticed that I, after years of being stubborn and disinterested, became sincerely interested in John. For his life, his craftsmanship, and his way of thinking... Some of that has turned up in the songs. Moreover the band members’ background has always been a big influence on my lyrics. Even in the first Chili Peppers song, Out In L.A. every member was given a small ode... If you look back on our careers the band always stood or fell by resilience of the mutual relationships. There were never any purely musical differences of opinion. Because our friendships were on a temporary stop there were times the band was on a temporary stop as well. And when the band was going well, like now, that was the reason that we could connect as humans. Look at the friendship between Flea and I; it dates back to five years before the foundation of the Chili Peppers. Because of that we do not have a business relationship. When things go wrong we never say: Okay, fuck you and fuck you, I quit, it's finished. Because you know and feel that you are connected to each other down to your toenails. You don't give up something like that.”
By Erik van den Berg/Photography Niels van Iperen
