The Maturity Of Four Illuminati
May 2006, EPS (Spain)
thanks to Esther for translating and typing it out
click the thumbnail to see scans
The undergrounds of a whole in Los Angeles, Grand Café, year 1983. Four kids, surf, drugs and punk lovers who meet once in a while to make some music, offer their second live show. The audience does not stop bouncing, dancing, total ecstasy, they’re going nuts. Anthony kiedis, the singer, a watch out dude who wanted to be an actor, just knods his head in the air while he raps.
Time freezes, everything stops: the beer’s jet draws a perfect circle in the air; a magic ring is above Red Hot Chili Peppers heads. That’s the moment when Flea, the bassist of the Californian band, realizes something big is gonna happen. The ring sign.
“For a second, I knew God was speaking through us, I knew we were getting all the energy in the universe; it wasn’t our instruments, it wasn’t the notes, it wasn’t the people, we had an energy bigger than anything, and that energy picked us”, he tells sitting in a green couch, with the sandwich’s crumbs he just ate, fighting to stay in his lips. “It was magic, I never felt something like that creating music, it was pure and magic”, he says, almost possesed, with his incredible blue eyes, almost transparent, looking up at the sky. “I’ll never forget that second with the beer drawing that circle in the air”. Flea stands up again like possessed, but this time is to find a place to urgently spit. The ashtray of the Chateau Marmont room plays the victim, and the noise and the dimensions of the operation are quite notable. Wow with the flea. “you never! have to swallow that”, he finishes off.
It’s been 23 years since the beer’s ring moment, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of the biggest super rock megabands. Who would have told this californian guys that at this time of the game, they were gonna have their place in the music olympus next to bands like U2 or REM, with perspectives of keep on growing in the stages kinda like the Rolling Stones. They’ve sold 50 million albums (according to their record label). The tickets for their spanish dates sold out in 48 hours. They had to add one more date for Barcelona.
The Chili Peppers reappear with a singular bet: a double album that would be in stores on may 9th, something not usual these days, a 25 songs collection born in a creative incontinence period, a river of ideas named Stadium Arcadium. They say it’s the best they’ve ever done, wich is what the artists usually say when they have something new out. And them, who survived at massive drug abuse are here to tell. Here, in Los Angeles. Happy and mature, daddies and inspired, loving and clean.
“We’re Mister mommies right now”, says Chad Smith, the drummer, motorbike boots, street urchin look. “It’s the first time while recording that all four of us are having happy and healthy relationships, and I guesst that has to do with the music you make: John with Emily; Anthony with Heather, Flea with his girlfriend and I, just got married in May”.
They started to record their album March 20th 2005 and, six days later, Nancy, drummer’s wife, gave birth to his fourth child (other three are from previous marriages). Flea was also a dad in October. “ The record is an exact picture of the live we’ve had this year”, Chad says, “the relationships subject is there in the songs”.
