How To Write Songs Like… The Chili Peppers
Rikky Rooksby dissects the Chili’s distinctive style of rock, so you too can get funky like Frusciante…
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Writing traits: Inventive chords shapes, 16th-note funk rhythms, 9th chords
Recommended listening: Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991), Californication (1999), Stadium Arcadium (2006)
Roots: Funkadelic/Parliament, Jimi Hendrix
Eighty minutes and 28 songs long, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ninth studio album, Stadium Arcadium shows they’re never short of ideas. It gives ample space to the band’s more melodic side, yet ever since Under The Bridge, guitarist John Frusciante has explored many cool chordal ideas beyind the punk/funk birth of the LA band.
Take it to the bridge
The Chilis’ Under The Bridge has several interesting songwriting feature. It has a ‘false intro’ in the D-F# change heard at the beginning, an idea that doesn’t re-occur in the song. A false intro is one that sets up a style, tempo, harmony or key that doesn’t turn out to be true of the whole song. It’s a good way of surprising the listener. The first verse of Under The Bridge increases the tempo and changes key into E major.
Under The Bridge also has an interesting bridge based around the chords A-C-G and F, which takes the song out of E major. These chords feature a single shape in positions V, VIII, I and III. In first position, this shpae makes Fmaj7, which isn’t a moveable shape because there’s an open string at the top. If you move any chord shape up which has an open sting, the type of chord (not just the pitch) changes. If a chord has no open strings (ie a barre chord) and you move it, the pitch changes but it stays the same typ of chord.
Songwriters who work on guitar exploit this technique to get harmonic and melodic ideas going. Try it: play an open-string chord, move it up the neck and see which positions produce potentially useable sounds. In Under The Bridge, the Fmaj7 (FACE) moved up to II (3rd fret) results in a G6 chord (GBDE); at V (5th fret) it gives an A chord (AC# EE); and at VIII (8th fret) it gives a C (CEGE). The attraction of the shapes is the ringing open top string, and such shapes help you get a fuller sound when you’re the only guitarist in a band.
Get the Funk out
Many Chili Peppers songs have a strong funk element. Listen to 2002’s By The Way: the intro sequence, which is also that of the chorus, has an 8th-note pulse, but this abruptly gives way to a fierce 16th-note based funk break. The 16th-note strum is a vital part of funk guitar. It means strumming four times – down, up, down, up – on each beat. Here’s how to practicise it…
Hold down an E9. Tap your foot to a moderate tempo, like that of Califonication, strum down on each beat (quarter notes), then down and up on each (8th note), and then down-up-down-up. Keep the wrist of your strumming hand relaxed. When you’re happy with this, try muting the chord by relaxing the pressure of the fretting hand to create rhythm, while the strumming hand carries on a steady rhyhtm. This creates a distinctive rhythmic effect. The same technique can be applied to single-note guitar riffs. John Frusciante’s riff on Can’t Stop is a good example of how he often plays with a different feel to how a typical hard-rock guitarist would have played it. As a practice exercise, try a Frusciante-style approach to Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love riff!
The ninth chord is one of the most distinctive chords in funk when subject to 16th-note strumming. It features in the RHCP song Behind The Sun.
The remaining chord boxes give some related chords for you to try. If the 9th is raised a semitone, you get E7#9, the chord associated with Hendrix (chord box 4). This has a dissonant, spikey sound that’s great for aggressive riffs, especially if you alternate the chord with the open bottom E string. Note that by removing the G#, this chord becomes an Em7 in a useful shape. If the 9th is lowered a semitone, you get E7#9, a rarer chord that features half way through RHCP’s Dani California (chord box 6).
If you return to the ninth we started with an raise the 7th, the result is E major 9, a very different-sounding chord that could fit a ballad or medium soul groove (chord box 7).
It’s this masterful chordal knowledge that always keeps John Frusciante’s playing so full of invention.
