Rolling Stone (Mexico) interview
Not long ago you declared that the serious tensions between you and John during the recording of By The Way disappeared completely now that you recorded this new album.
We had some conversations and we agreed, in a very honest and mutual way, that we had to help a work environment more harmonious for each one to feel comfortable and be allowed to express himself. Throughout the 23 years I've been on this band, I've always felt OK to say what I wanted to say, there was always room for me to be myself. The only exception happened precisely while recording By The Way. I started feeling very frustrated and my relationship with John turned unbearable. Little after I was sunk with an opression of sorts; it came a time in which, if any heated discussion exploded about some musical matter, I could only get to lock myself up in my shell and get out of the place. I didn't want to fight about musical matters. I respect music too much to get carried away with that kind of discussions, where you have to stand up all the way for your position, outline your territory, demand your "rights". If everything turns into a fight, I'd rather leave the game. To sum up, I didn't feel any comfortable at all, and my spirited went so down I came to seriously think about leaving the band. Then, towards the end of the tour, things fortunately started to improve. We had some talks, attitude changed and we took things up in good terms.
What's your opinion on the debate about music downloads through the Internet?
I'm aware that currently, when you release an album, people are no longer gonna hear it just at home, but they'll also upload them to their iPod along with another thousand different albums, maybe even only some selected songs, without the artwork, or anything. The record will then be reduced to that digital numeric format on which you "clean" every **** and detail, on which songs are compressed to the limit. We've entered a radically different way to listen to music, and the change is barely beginning. I'm very curious to know what kind of effect will this have on people at the end. Now we can shuffle from a band and a song to another and other. We could ask ourselves if the same notion of "record" still makes sense to some. It's very weird... At the same time, I do admit the iPod's practical sense. I confess to be deeply grateful to have one when I go out on tour, since I can substitute, with that little artifact, the sacks with the 2 thousand CDs I used to drag along with me previously. Now, well, let's not fool ourselves: with the iPod the quality of music has diminished; both technical and auditive quality-wise. The practicality and the fast access win ground over pleasure and time dedicated to enjoy music. The same happens with music recording on the new digital technologies. The essential today is to correct and perfect everything through the computer, running the risk of missing the warmth on the way or losing every notion of breathing due to compression. Music is being disowned of some of its humane character and, as a result, the trend is for all records to wind up sounding the same. And, despite all that technology, today albums sound worse than they did.
