Rolling Stone (Mexico) interview

Interview with John

The presence of your guitar playing on this new album is huge, what motivated this change?
In many ways I thought I had kept some stuff to myself before. When I joined the band the first time, I only did some guitar solos and play-alongs, at that moment I didn’t feel I had the capacity or the possibility to do anything else.

Because of your youth and inexperience?
Yes, I was very young, I didn’t have experience or knowledge to do anything else. It wasn’t like Jimmy Page, who when he started Led Zeppelin had already done session work for ten years. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, not just with The Yardbirds; he had been working on recording studios since 1958, so when he came into Led Zeppelin he felt free to do what he wanted to do. To me that was a learning process between 18 and 21 years old; when I started to record Mother’s Milk I limited myself, I didn’t play as well as I knew I could do. That was my way to make good music, but at the same time I knew I wasn’t doing everything I could.

But in this album, after a lot of meditation, I asked myself why about said limitation, why I couldn’t just let go freely, breaking out of control with my playing. Omar Rodríguez helped me a lot. When I met him he came from a punk scene, but he liked to do things solo, play very fast, stuff I could do. That gave me the courage to put out that part of me to be able to create guitar solos that really exposed that emotional side; I was able to find the way to do it without getting too carried away, but also without setting myself any limits.

I suppose your solo work was very influential.
Of course, especially with Joe Lally from Fugazi, as Ataxia. It was the first time I could get out of control and find a new direction. With Ataxia, every solo was like an explosion, and I wasn’t again worried about me playing too fast or too slow, or if it was too simple. I was only concerned with making interesting sounds with my guitar.

I also learned how to use the studio in a creative way on my solo records. I used to leave a lot to the engineers, but I started experimenting on the studio with things that I didn’t know how to do before. When I was 21, no engineer ever asked me if I wanted my guitar on a single channel or to duplicate it; they took all those decisions. Now it’s a collaboration between both, that’s why I insisted that the engineer that worked with me on my solo albums joined me on this album’s overdubs and mixes. We have the experience, we understand each other perfectly, he’s like a (business) partner and is ready to experiment and take the technical decisions that are necessary to make my dreams come true.

Was this recomforting protagonism by chance?
It was never my idea to be upfront or to stand out in this album. Even when we started to work on this album I felt like the most fragile part of the band. It was a moment of emotional weakness, in which everyone else was making an effort to support me. I had this weird feeling in my gut that made me tell them we had to stop. I came back three weeks later, when they were on the bases of the songs and I started doing my overdubs and all these things. I had to work with those inner feelings that haunted me, with my demons, but I came back stronger and we sounded like a band again. I wanted to participate in every aspect of every song, but I didn’t want to have any keyboards or any compression; I didn’t want it to sound like a studio record, my idea was for it to be like a live-recorded album, very raw.

I worked on a 24 channel console just for the bases, another 24 channels for the overdubs and some others for backups, licks and dubs. Sometimes we had up to 72 channels on the console for guitar. I was very inspired by Led Zeppelin’s Presence or Jimi Hendrix’s last songs, where in spite of having many channels on the record, they were focused on the raw, the fresh and the warm of the feeling you can get from a good band playing together.

So the sounds that seem like synthesizers come from your guitar?
Yes, the only songs with keyboards are the second verse of “Wet Sand” and a synth on “Charlie”, which is very obvious, parallel to the guitar solo. The rest of the time it’s me with my guitar making sounds through the synthesizer, putting together different processed electronic gadgets. In fact, when the synth came out it wasn’t as people know it nowadays, it was an electronic element that existed in science, and was taken advantage of by musicians since the fifties. In that way I’m using it today, just to change traditional sounds. I’m not gonna start playing a keyboard at this point in my life. I’m going to use anything that enriches my sound and changes it, be it a filter, a reverberation, or simple distortion, upping and lowering volume, panning from speaker to speaker or with a flanger, as Hendrix’s engineer did on Electric Ladyland, that’s how I used it on “Dani California”. I’m trying to do everything as possible to play with sounds, with synths, console, mixes, effects, the same air in the studio when I feedback the sound and even the relation between the place I’m standing in and my amp.

I thought I heard some Latin sounds on your guitar, very Carlos Santana-like…
A day before doing my solos on “Charlie” I had been listening to Santana records, I was enjoying all those guitarists for whom I feel respect, and I had them on my head when I recorded this album.

I suppose you include Eddie Hazel (Funkadelic).
Yes, of course, he’s one of my favorite guitarists. While recording this album we made a tribute to Funkadelic, it was an event to pay homage to George Clinton at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, celebrating his sixty years on the music business. We played some songs from his band and I had the opportunity to play Eddie Hazel’s guitars, it was very fun. He is another great example of how you play with sounds. Every Funkadelic album has Hazel’s distinctive, but the mastery with which he plays with Clinton’s sound is comparable to how Robert Fripp and Brian Eno experiment.

Besides funk, another of your great influences is punk rock. Now that it’s 30 years old, how do you see the global punk scene today?
To me the most important thing in punk is sincerity. At first it seemed a little phony to me all the genre’s attitude in general, however the most remarkable in its early beginnings was that it was much more honest than any other kind of music. On the fifties and sixties it was acceptable that you made music because you wanted to be radio or commercially successful; it was justifiable to play to make money. On the seventies people start losing that substance in their music, because its purpose was solely economic, music was going from bad to worse. When the Ramones, the Clash and the Sex Pistols came out, they really felt what they were doing, it meant something to them. It was very different to what the other bands did. Led Zeppelin made wonderful music, since they had a lot of people expecting them to do just that, while punks did it because they needed to express themselves, no matter the people or the business, or making themselves rich or famous. I felt deceived by bands like Kiss –to whom I had authentic devotion– when I realized all they cared about was making millions at our expense. To me the important thing in music is honesty.

This reminds me of the famous antagonism between punk versus disco, RHCP have adopted elements of both, as “21st Century”, on this new album.
I love disco since I was a kid. I loved the Bee Gees and Donna Summer, they always made great songs, but it was simply the media that created that antagonism, not the bands. Did you know the Sex Pistols were fans of ABBA?
P.I.L. was one of the first bands that combined punk and disco, on the album Second Edition you can appreciate that very clearly. Now we too combine both genres at times.

RHCP’s music has always been a faithful depiction of how you feel, ranging from melancholic (By The Way) to festive (Mother’s Milk), this new record has diverse feelings intertwined…
I’m trying very hard, I’m working on myself as a person, knocking down the walls that existed inside of me, to try to understand my existence. I begin to develop an awareness of every aspect of life and an understanding of these forces of nature, that in spite of being small they are determinant. I’m trying to find myself. It’s a long and hard road, but I keep trying hard at it and that’s what counts. Someday I’m gonna make it, now the important thing to me is to meditate every day, to try to be more open, work on my patience, which is not very good. I can be patient when I work, spend hours on a recording studio or at a concert, but don’t put me in line at the bank or a store, because I can’t stand it.

Which are your favorite songs out of the new 25? (28?)
From the production’s point of view, I’m very proud of “Slow Cheetah”, of how the solo on “C’mon Girl” came out and “Stadium Arcadium”. I like how those songs develop. About experimentation and how we channel it, I’d say “Dani California” is maybe the largest amount of guitars I’ve put on a single song, divided in groups and in times, giving the impression of an orchestra. But in general I’m very happy with many of the songs on the album. I think we’ve done something really special.

Though it’s been a challenge, it’s also been very fun.

Did you have the opportunity to play with Johnny Cash?
No, unfortunately I never had the chance to meet him. I took an invitation to record a guitar part. When I was on the studio, they were recording something by Cash, and I only went to the other studio to record a guitar solo. Johnny was still alive. Also for the Depeche Mode song that Cash recorded, “Personal Jesus”. Johnny didn’t want to do the song because he didn’t get it, Rick Rubin wanted to do an acoustic version, more blues-oriented, and he asked me to make an acoustic version and then he played it for Cash. Apparently he liked how it came out, it’s a song I knew very well, because I like Depeche Mode very much.

Is there any plans for any other solo albums?
Yes, last year I made six solo records, including Ataxia, we had a six month break and I recorded and album per month; each one we did it in five days. I had to get out somehow all the stuff I had written, I had over 70 songs from the last 3 years.

I have another 17 ready, so, in spite of me being busy next year and a half touring with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, we always have breaks, so I’ll take one of those to get into my house’s studio and record another album.

I’ll take it slow, if I get another six months, I’ll spend at least four of them resting on some beach.

Interview with Chad

As far as Stadium Arcadium goes, Chad Smith considers that things turned out in quite a simple, very natural way. “Every suggestion was listened to and taken in account exhaustively, in a way that we all felt totally implicated in the creative process. Later we’d give structure to the music, before Anthony’d explote his inspiration through the creation of melodies. It was really fun and exciting to show up every day to rehearsals, knowing that the unpolished ideas we had would turn into songs. That’s always been my favorite moment within the creative process of making an album: the exchange and fusion of ideas…”, affirms the musician.

Seen from the outside, you appear to be the “moderate” one in the band, is this perception away from reality?
Not really. Although we’ve had some conflicts and strong arguments, our disputes rarely grow out of control. We all have very strong ideas about what we love or what we want to do, as any other artist that looks to express itself; but we never lose sight of keeping respect for each other. The last word is music’s, the song’s.

Would it be hard for you to imagine on the console, to record a new Peppers album, a producer other than Rick Rubin?
That idea is a recurrent concern of the four of us every time we consider the possibility of making a new record: “What if we call somebody else this time?”, but once we start writing new stuff, we always realize that Rick is the right person for the job.

Amongst the bands of the current generation, which one would better incarnate the craziness and enthusiasm the Peppers had in their beginnings?
A band like !!! would suit the profile just fine. They’re really fun guys and sensational on stage. I love their energy. I’d also think of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Although these two bands aren’t very musically similar to us, they both possess that character and mood that remind me a lot of our initial stage’s.

Interview with Flea

The band’s bassist thought that due to the large number of songs they had they must’ve put out three albums, but, as he affirms, they had to leave 13 songs out of Stadium Arcadium, a double album. “The positive aspect”, he says, “is that the 25 songs that did make the cut make a very solid album together. We were writing music non-stop, as if everyone of us were at the peak of his creative capacity, and we didn’t see how to stop! We finished each and every one of the compositions, which meant a lot of work.”

Why not releasing two different records with six months apart, as bands like System of a Down and Rammstein have done recently?
We thought about it briefly, but turned down the idea almost immediately: the way we see things, those songs should go together. The day we decide to put out another record, we’ll write new songs and won’t make use of recycle. These 28 songs are part of a same entity and, in a way, to split them into two albums separated by time would be like wanting to get paid twice for the same effort, and we have no need, nor will, to do that. Of course, it would mean a brilliant financiery operation: the record label’s got to pay you twice, the audience has to buy the record twice…, no doubt the money incomes would be quite generous. I’m not saying that the bands you mention did it because of that, but this is a reality.

What happened to the songs you wrote for a solo album before John came back into the band?
Some of them are filed, other ones have been recorded. Though I consider part of that material to be good, I came to the conclusion that I’m not a good singer. I don’t see myself as a vocalist, that’s not my place nor my destiny. If tomorrow I think again on the possiblity of taking out a solo record, I’ll surely make an instrumental one. And if I decide to include lyrics, I’ll get someone else to sing them.

Do you feel a real necessity to do things on your own?
I have an infinity of recorded ideas at home here and there, little fragments all over the place: acoustic songs where I sing and play guitar; more fusioned songs, where I play trumpet and bass, accompanied by a drummer; some other ones more into rock… I even have around the base of a song I had originally conceived for my solo project and ended up giving to Perry Farrell. A lot of good things have happened to me throughout the last year. Playing with Patti Smith in London and New York was a fantastic experience, something profoundly emotive.

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 oppression 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.