Party of Fun – The Red Hot Chili Pampers

Mother’s Milk needed!

That week in July, New York is mostly occupied with the New Music Seminar. Artists who have already “arrived” don’t need to have anything to do with it and are simply doing their daily work: recording fame sustaining successors, performing, making video clips, promoting. However, The Red Hot Chili Peppers are semi arrived and are doing it differently. The weekend after the Seminar is reserved for recording video clips for two songs of the new record Mother’s Milk, which particularly sounds different from the previous one and can hardly be called fame sustaining.

Singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea Balzary are in New York and thus can make their appearance on the Seminar in a panel about music and video (Flea to director Alex Kashishian: ‘Hey, what do you think of those early Traci Lords videos? Strong lighting, huh?’), jam with George Clinton during the opening party in The Palladium, organize a Midgetgolf & Beer party and do some interviews for promotion.

A year ago, everything was looking gloomy for The Red Hot Chili Peppers; guitarist Hillel Slovak died on 27 June, not long after a successful European tour, during which they also came to the Pinkpop festival. When Anthony and Flea decide to continue with a new guitarist, drummer Jack Irons quits the band permanently. Now and then there is some news about a new guitarist (former Funkadelic member Blackbird McKnight is one of them), but the definitive Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mark II is announced only after the recordings for a new record have come to a good end.

Whether guitarist John Frusciante and drummer Chad Smith are valuable gains for the Pepper sound, will probably remain a point of discussion for a while. They are from a more straight rock direction and lack the loose, fluent playing of Slovak and Irons. In particular John Frusciante’s metal-like, tight guitar riffs make Mother’s Milk a considerable heavier record than its predecessors. Michael Beinhorn produced for the second time and took care of a very ‘live’ group sound, even more than on The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, in which the fringe has been reduced by background ladies and some musicians.

Uplift was the first record the Peppers themselves were satisfied with. The Red Hot Chili Peppers (’83, production Andy Gill) and Freaky Styley (’85, with George Clinton) have left some less good memories, simply because there was no group sound. Now the crossover of funk, rap, metal, hardcore and (decreasing since ’89) psychedelica that can take great forms on stage, can not be recognized easily. However, the new line-up creates a more easily recognizable sound, something especially EMI is very happy with, that appears in the American bio: ‘These are the mature songs we knew had to come; we finally get to know these musical, freewheeling anarchists.’

‘Yeah,’ says Flea to this: ‘It probably has something to do with the guitar sound. Rock & roll, you know, the kids can headbang more, you know…’

Blob

EMI’s office is located on the eighteenth floor and it is hard not to look outside constantly. Flea is choosing and listening to Marvin Gaye-songs behind a high-up’s desk. His bleached hair is held together neatly in many plucks by red hair elastics. The distinctive head is also decorated with a goatee, painted red. Anthony enters in a particularly extravagant red spectacle frame, and a tightly cut gray summer costume, of which the trouser-legs are short. Breakfast has been ordered; outside it is raining.
Raining a lot in Hollywood lately?

Anthony: ‘No, not at all… I don’t mind to be sitting here in the rain. I love Hollywood, but…’
Flea: ‘It’s become shit.’

Anthony: ‘Er, the smog and pollution are getting worse and worse. We’ve got one of the most severe cases of air pollution in the world.’

Flea: ‘It’s really bad. Just before we went to New York it was so dirty, you couldn’t even see a few hundred meters off the road…’

Anthony: ‘If the smog pulls up, like during the winter months, it’s one of the most beautiful places to live. Green hills, palm trees, the beautiful ocean, blue sky… But then summer comes and everything changes into a thick, beige-gray layer of foam. You can’t see the hills…’

Flea: ‘…although they’re just a few hundred meters away. You only see a gray blob. Vague shadows.’
Are the Red Hot Chili Peppers infrangibly connected with Hollywood?

Anthony: ‘Er, I think Hollywood has had a very relevant influence on our existence. It’s pretty hard to bring tangible proof, but that is where we grew up, that is where we did what we should do, that is where we saw everything happen. But we’ve been talking about moving a lot lately…’

Eindhoven

Are the Red Hot Chili Peppers infrangibly connected with Hollywood?
Anthony: ‘Look, the style was born and raised in America, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do whatever you want with it in other countries.’

Flea: ‘There are so many groups already in America, I can’t say whether Fishbone, we and others are the top of an iceberg.’

Anthony: ‘Yeah, if there already is a Hollywood or American scene of comparable groups, then it’s widely spread and difficult to be seen as a coherent whole. Elements of our music suddenly turn up, so… And in foreign countries… A band like the Urban Dance Squad has gathered very American elements like rap, funk and American rock & roll with an own taste to it, because their life experience comes from an other country. The environment and social electricity in America has a lot to do with why we sound like we do. The Squad sounds very good, but to me absolutely Dutch. Whether I can define that? Hmm, it’s not the vocals, for that matter they could’ve been from the Bronx. I don’t know, it’s a feeling.’

Flea: ‘The singer of our opening act in Eindhoven was really funny (Go-Gorillas, MvS), backstage he was speaking Dutch, like: Jeutebreutebietenjietebietbiet, or something, and on stage it was: Yo! How’s everybody doin’, yo, havin’ a good time? And then again: broetnbietnsploetn.’

Are cities like Utrecht and Eindhoven inspiring?
Anthony: ‘On tour? When I was on tour, for me those cities represented very peaceful communities, with a very relaxed feeling. I can even say they’re some of my favorite cities. Lowly small places, where you can go out normally without a lot of pressure. Worries disappear quickly, if you hang around there for a while. After New York, Los Angeles, London and Paris, those cities were almost some kind of resort. A tranquillizer…I am trying to think about whether a specific tour experience ended up in a song… Anyway, I just want to say that where you live isn’t the only relevant influence on your music. Look at Urban Dane Squad, look at George Clinton, who lives in a tiny farmer town, Brooklyn, Michigan. He does create the most rocking urban funk sounds that mankind could ever hear, so… Okay, of course he spends a lot of time in Detroit, that’s pretty near. Still: it’s just what you concentrate on.’

The Female Breast

Flea: ‘Whether you believe me or not, Holland is high on my list of possible settling places.’

Anthony (pointing with his thumb): ‘…Family man…’

Flea: ‘It’s a good place for a child to grow up.’

Anthony: ‘I’ll explain, then you’ll know where That Crazy Record Title comes from. Flea, the bassist, the God of the Bass Guitar, became father of a little daughter, Clara, last year. He’s seen his wife, Luicia, breast-feed the child every day, for ten months. The idea of mother’s milk got so deep in his unconscious mind, that once we were discussing about titles… Actually we wanted to call the record Rockin’ Freakapotamus. But we thought the American media would probably think for the fuckin’ fourth time that we’re a fuckin’ joke band, sot then we were thinking in the direction of Jim, or John, Arkansas, or what more typical Americana are there… We were scared to death that Rolling Stone would not review our record for the fourth time in a row. So there had to be a critically acceptable title, to lure them to our always critically acceptable music. And now we think we can get them with Mother’s Milk. Plus it’s a title with great depth, a bonus actually. The life-giving substance, the nutritious, er, natural milk that makes you strong, and, and… And now Flea will explain mother’s milk makes a baby stronger than formula milk.’

Flea: ‘Okay, it’s the remedy for diseases and infections, it tastes sweet like honey, it’s warm and beautiful, it’s from the female breast. And we all know the world is about The Female Breast. Great stuff.’

Anthony: ‘You should see Flea throwing that kid. He throws her up, bounces her against the ceiling, catches her and she’s still laughing!’

Is she playing bass already?

Flea: ‘No, she’s a drummer. We’re the toughest rhythm section around.’

Hillel

Like on the previous records, there are some diverse songs on Mother’s Milk. Covers this time are from Stevie Wonder (Higher Ground; Anthony: ‘Wonder is the cosmic God of the universal sound, one of the greatest musical beings ever’) and Jimi Hendrix (Fire, Anthony: ‘It’s a bit fast…’ Flea: ‘Twice as fast.’ Anthony: ‘Twice as fast as Jimi’s performance, and half as intense, but we’re doing it anyway because we love him’). Own songs are about congenial souls on the American West Coast, like Fishbone, Thelonious Monster and fIREHOSE (Good Time Boys), about a musical journey through your spirit (Anthony: ‘The vehicle is made of music, you feel the funk worm crawl through your intestines for 4:24 minutes; not a dirty, sickly worm, but a fat, firm one’ – Subway To Venus), about Magic Johnson, a player of the L.A. Lakers (‘Having him in our life has been a big musical influence. He has such a nice smile and we want to show him we love him’), about the street women in San Francisco (Stone Cold Bush), about a Sexy Mexican Maid (Anthony: ‘Everything stops, except your fantasy. You dream of making marvelous love, nicely let her come…’) and about the right of MTV broadcasting time for the Peppers (Punk Rock Classic).

Anthony: ‘Knock Me Down, the first single, is sentimental, sad and honest. About Hillel’s death. About how sad it is that nobody knew how sick he was and he needed help. About his pain. Then it was too late and he was dead. And all we could do was, er, cry and that sort of things. It isn’t easy to talk about it, no. You can give up and keep crying, or keep your distance a little bit and say: Yes, we miss him. Because of Hillel’s death the band was smashed into pieces. The unity was completely gone. It was either throwing the pieces into the fire, or getting the tube superglue and join the pieces again, with some new pieces… Do you want to say something else, Flea?’

Flea: ‘No, just keep it like this.’

Three Pounds

Anthony: ‘Although I didn’t have anything to do with the music, I only wrote the lyrics, I think Nobody Weird Like Me is one of the most freaky and original songs I’ve ever heard. The music sounds like a steam locomotive from 1927, that’s passing a Japanese bullet train with about 462 miles per hour, while laughing.’

Flea: ‘It’s got a lot to do with Michael’s production. He wanted that sound and for the first time he got what he wanted. Also on Higher Ground, that Peppers sound would’ve been impossible two years ago, because he didn’t feel the band so well as now. I think the sound of Mother’s Milk is great, got it?!’

Anthony: ‘The old songs come out especially loud.’

Flea: ‘They come out especially well. This line-up is capable to play everything we’ve ever recorded. And rightly.

Anthony: ‘John’s been a Chili Peppers fan since his birth and has practiced the old songs more than we ever did. Chad had never heard us before, but he’s the type of musician that can learn five LP’s by heart a day. He’s from some softie band from Detroit, Toby Red. John doesn’t have any band or stage experience…

How do the Red Hot Chili Peppers find a suitable band member?
Flea: ‘We need to get on well with him, he needs to be able to do his work, he needs to have personality, be talented enough, original enough and unbiased.’

Anthony: ‘He needs to have a penis and balls of minimum three pounds. We have this penis-and-balls-scale for that, you know? Let’s weigh…’

Fun

The Peppers wrote Taste The Pain for the movie of Anthony’s girlfriend Ione Skye, Say Anything. The members themselves have played in some flops, make their own videos (‘Maybe MTV had a problem with men in nun costumes who are in a confessional with fourteen year old girls’ – the Catholic Schoolgirls video clip) and hope to someday make a movie like The Monkees of A Hard Day’s Night.

‘There’s still some unevenness, like the aesthetic reality of our drummer. He’s got one pose, probably practiced in the mirror. Even the bump in his pants is always in the same position. So until we’ve sternly confronted him with that, we’ll just keep performing,’ says Anthony.

Flea: ‘Hey Mark, do the people still love us in Holland? Can we sell out a week in Paradiso? Seems fun.’

It does. But first start on 26 August at 15:00 on the Dam in Amsterdam, during the Uitmarkt…

— Mark van Schaik