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July 2002, Mean Street (USA)
thanks to Caroline for typing it out
click the thumbnail for scans

Driving down Santa Monica Blvd. in his silver 2001 Porsche Carrera, listening to classical music on Loyola Marymount College station KXLU, Anthony Kiedis feels alive. He feels good about his day.

It's a beautiful spring-like afternoon and he's just left Village Recorders, the recording studio in Santa Monica where some of the work for the new Red Hot Chili Peppers' album - titled By The Way and slated for a July 9 release - is being done. He has plans to go to the Troubadour in Hollywood later tonight to see The Mars Volta, one of his favorite new live bands. This is the type of stuff that Kiedis, a former heroin addict, gets high on nowadays.

But it hasn't really been such smooth sailing lately for this Venice-local-turned-rock-superstar, who is going through a slow and painful separation with his long-time girlfriend. It is an experience that is teaching a now 39-year-old Kiedis life lessons that he has not had to face before, and according to him the evidence is in the lyrics.

"When I started writing songs in the '80s, I certainly was not interested in writing about relationships. I wanted to write songs that were attention getting," Kiedis explains. "But lately I've just been writing whatever comes in my head. I've never felt comfortable writing love songs, but it's sneaking in there. When I read my lyrics I can see where she is the initial point."

Kiedis recorded most of his vocals for the new album, which is the follow-up to 1999's landmark Californication, in a hotel room at the historical Chateau Marmont on Sunset Blvd. This way he can get more of a home feel without bringing all of the equipment and engineers to his actual house.

The tail end of the recording process this time around was difficult for Kiedis because he felt bogged down by the quantity of musical material that guitarist John Frusciante, bassist Flea and drummer Chad Smith had recorded.

"We wrote too many songs and I just can't even tell if it's good anymore," Kiedis says with a hint of frustration. "I am feeling pretty over-the-moon about this new album, but I'm a little more freaked out because I have lost all perspective at this point. There are days when I think that it is the greatest thing we've ever done and then there are days when I feel like this is just going to die in the water."

It's obvious that the pressures of following-up the multi-platinum Californication has began to take its toll on the Chili Peppers.

During the last few months of recording, Kiedis had been writing lyrics constantly; some ended up on matchbooks or napkins and some neatly organized in a notebook. He says that he was in such a songwriting mode that everything he wrote down was in song form.

However, through the overwhelmed confusion, Kiedis shows signs of excitement over the new material, notably the song "Don't Forget Me," which he calls a cornerstone of the new record. The song has been performed live once at the Silverlake Silverlining Benefit that the Chili Peppers headlined, but Kiedis predicts that it will be performed as a show opener for at least the next three years.

"This song is just so huge and powerful," Kiedis says, trying to put words to something that he feels passionately about. "It's my idea of what God is and what life is and what this whole picture is all about. It's just everything everywhere and the good and the bad and the in-between."

The song opens with bass-strummed-chords, which sets a powerful mood for the rest of the tune. The sound is distinctly the Chili Peppers, yet it offers something original and different through the arrangement.

A new addition to the trademark Chili Pepper sound has been the gradual integration of keyboards. Frusciante has been including keyboards and electronic effects in the mix, possibly inspired by his solo work experimentation as seen on his album To Record Only Water For Ten Days.

The guitarist, who has never driven a car or had a credit card in his life, can almost be classified as a savant. According to Kiedis, Frusciante needs music like most people need air or water.

"He needs music to constantly surround him," Kiedis explained, referring to Frusciante as one of the best modern-day guitarists in the world. "While we all take a vacation in the Caribbean he stays in his room and records a solo album, because that's what he has to do; that's just what makes him happy. That's his vacation."

The Chili Peppers have also begun exploring the possibilities of different vocal harmonies for their new songs. The group began to add harmonies on Californication, but that was only the beginning.

"It's like the Bee Gees meet the Beach Boys on this record," Kiedis quips, letting that sly, almost-sinister-looking smile creep across his lips under the unshaven veil of black whiskers.

It is their constant evolution and reinvention that has kept the Chili Peppers one of the most relevant bands in rock for the past decade. While maintaining a distinct sound, the group has altered its music as often as Kiedis' chameleon-like hairstyles, which have ranged from the long straight hair of the "Under the Bridge" days to mohawks on their last world tour to the current in-between jagged cut.

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