21:29
Novento
On August 30, Los Angeles’ alt-funk rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers will end a five-year break and return with their 10th studio album, I’m With You. We caught up with bassist Flea to chat about the band’s hiatus, the departure (again!) of longtime guitarist John Frusciante, and how the quartet “found a new side of ourselves” in the process.
It’s been five years since the release of RHCP’s last album, Stadium Arcadium. Did you guys plan for it to be this long?
Yeah. It was planned. I initiated that. I just really needed to get away from [the band]. It had come to a point where it felt dysfunctional and not fun. Even though I felt that we made a good record, played good shows, and honored our position in the rock world, I wanted to get away to give the band a chance to survive. Having time off was really good. I went to school and studied music for a year at USC [University of Southern California], which unlocked a bunch of doors for me in terms of my relationship to music. My time away from the band has really made me appreciate it and also realize how much I love [singer] Anthony [Kiedis]. The dude’s my brother. I realized how much it meant to me to continue playing with him and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
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Then guitarist John Frusciante left… for the second time. Why?
It’s not any one thing. He just didn’t want to do [RHCP] anymore. He really wanted to do what he wants to do on his own, without having to deal with the band dynamic, our band dynamic. I’m grateful for the time John was in the band. It was an amazing time. It was a bonding, creative experience and I’m grateful for it.
Entonces el guitarrista John Frusciante dejó ... por segunda ocasión. ¿Por qué?
No es una sola cosa. Sólo que no quería hacerlo [RHCP] más.Realmente quería hacer lo que él quiere hacer por su cuenta, sin tener que lidiar con la dinámica de grupo, nuestra banda dinámica.Estoy agradecido por el tiempo que John estuvo en la banda. Fueun tiempo increíble. Fue un enlace, la experiencia creativa y estoy agradecido por ello.
Is the new album finished?
Yeah, we’re done. It’s been such a big process getting it done and I’m very happy with the body of work. It’s a real dynamic and new thing. We’ve found a new side of ourselves.
Está el nuevo disco terminado?
Sí, ya hemos terminado. Ha sido un proceso tan grande conseguir hacerlo y estoy muy contento con el cuerpo de trabajo. Es una cosa real nueva y dinámica. Hemos encontrado una nueva faceta de nosotros mismos.
How so?
Well, first off, the major difference is that John is no longer in the band and Josh Klinghoffer is now the guitar player. While it’s nice that Josh was already a part of our family, having made records and joined us on our last tour, he’s a very different musician than John. Because of that, the feeling of the music is a lot different. John is a brilliant virtuoso guitar player, who could do whatever he wants on the guitar. It’s unbelievable and I’m so fucking grateful for his contributions to the band. But Josh is a subtler textural player who also plays and writes on a lot of different instruments. He’s not like this Guitar Hero type.
¿Cómo es eso?
Bueno, para empezar, la principal diferencia es que John ya no está en la banda y Josh Klinghoffer es ahora el guitarrista. Si bien es bueno que Josh ya era una parte de nuestra familia, después de haber realizado los registros y se unió a nosotros en nuestra última gira, es un músico muy diferente que John. Debido a eso, la sensación de la música es muy diferente. John es un jugador brillante, virtuoso de la guitarra, que podía hacer lo que quiera en la guitarra. Es increíble y estoy muy jodido agradecidos por sus contribuciones a la banda. Pero Josh es un guitarrista más sutil textura quien además toca y escribe sobre un montón de instrumentos diferentes. No es como este tipo Guitar Hero.
And that’s a total shift from the band’s previous songwriting style…
Right. Before, we wrote by jamming together and Anthony would add his parts afterwards. Now it’s a much different approach. It took some time, for me particularly being so used to the way that John wrote, to understand the way Josh would interact with what I played. It was like, ‘Wait, I thought you were going to come up with that perfect part that interlocks with what I’m doing and boom, it’s going to be done.’ With Josh, it creeps up on you. He sings beautiful background vocals on this record, too.
Y ese es un cambio total del estilo anterior de la banda, canciones ...
Cierto Antes, escribía mediante tocar juntos y Anthony añadía su parte posterior. Ahora es un enfoque muy diferente. Tomó algún tiempo, para mí todo está tan acostumbrado a la forma en que John escribió, entender la manera en que Josh interactua con lo que toco Era como, 'Espera, pensé que ibas a llegar a esa parte perfecta, que se entrelaza con lo que estoy haciendo y boom, que va a hacer.' Con Josh, se desliza en usted. Él canta vocales hermosas de fondo en este disco, también.
How did your time studying music change your relationship to the band?
It made for a big difference in me as a writer. I studied chord theory and started playing the piano. So I wrote a lot for the record on piano. Before I wrote for the band mostly on the bass. On the piano I’m writing chord, rhythm, bass, and melody, so it’s a much different input from me. A lot of these songs were translated to a rock band. So we’re starting with a song written on a different instrument, then translating it right away. It’s a huge difference in the creative process and the end product. It has the violent rocking sound and it’s real funky. There are some beautiful, deep songs that can connect to people’s hearts. Anthony is singing about some big issues for human beings.
Como fue tu tiempo estudiando musica, cambia tu relación con la banda?.
Se hizo una gran diferencia en mí como escritor. He estudiado la teoría de de acordes y empecé a tocar el piano. Así que escribí un montón de grabaciones en el piano. Antes escribí muchas en el bajo para la banda. En el piano escribo acordes, ritmos, bajos, y melodias, es un aporte muy diferente. Muchas de estas canciones fueron trasladadas a una banda de Rock. Así que estamos comenzando con una canción escrita en un instrumento diferente, a continuación, la traducción de inmediato. Es una diferencia enorme en el proceso creativo y el producto final. Tiene el armonioso sonido violento y funky que esreal. Hay algunas canciones hermosas y profundas que se pueden conectar a los corazones de la gente. Anthony canta sobre algunostemas importantes para los seres humanos.
Like what?
About life and death and betrayal and his relationship to the world. It’s much more poignant than our other records. Life and death is a major theme. [The album] has a deep heart. Everyone in the band has grown and continued to reinvent themselves and become a better musician, and collectively we did. We were forced to.
Sobre la vida y la muerte y la traición y su relación con el mundo. Es mucho más conmovedora que nuestros otras grabaciones La vida y muerte es un tema importante. [El disco] tiene un gran corazón.Todos en la banda han crecido y continúan para reinventarse yconvertirse en un mejor músico, y colectivamente lo hicimos.
Did anything happen to push you guys in this direction?
Yeah. The first day that we ever played together with Josh after taking two years off, we found out that a very close friend of all of ours had died. We started jamming and came up with a song that’s on the record, called “Brendan’s Death Song,” about our friend [L.A. punk icon] Brendan Mullen. We improvised and it happened. It was a poignant moment for us. It was an emotional thing.
Hiciste algo para motivar a los chicos en esta dirección?
Sí. El primer día que toque junto con Josh después de dos años de descanso, nos enteramos de que un amigo muy cercano de todos nosotros había muerto. Empezamos a probar surgió una canción que está en el disco, llamada "Canción de la muerte de Brendan", acerca de nuestro amigo [LA punk icon] Brendan Mullen. Hemosimprovisado y así sucedió. Fue un momento conmovedor para nosotros. Fue una cosa emocional.
And that set the tone for the album?
Sort of. We’re the type of band that has ideas about what we want to do and what we’re reaching for, but it’s really about what happens when we get together in the room. It’s about what will organically grow from who we are at the time.
I hear the album is also inspired by African music.
Definitely. We’ve always all loved African music. Throughout our career we’ve played some African bits, but we never really captured it right. Josh and I tripped around Ethiopia with a group called Africa Express, which Damon Albarn [Blur, Gorillaz] organized. We saw music every night and jammed with musicians. Ethiopia is such a great country, beautiful place. So there are a couple African parts on the new songs. One is called “Take Me Home,” which has a real African feeling, and there’s another called “Ethiopia.” I’m really grateful to Damon for bringing me along. It really widened my scope of humanity.
He oído el álbum se inspira también en la música africana.
Por supuesto. Siempre hemos querido toda la música africana. A lo largo de nuestra carrera hemos tocado algunos fragmentos de África, pero realmente nunca capturamos esto. Josh y yo disparado alrededor de Etiopía con un grupo llamado Africa Express, que Damon Albarn [Blur, Gorillaz] organizado. Vimos música todas las noches y repleto de músicos. Etiopía es un país tan grande, hermoso lugar. Así que hay un par de partes de África en las nuevas canciones. Uno se llama "Take Me Home", que tiene una sensación real de África, y hay otra llamada "Etiopía." Estoy muy agradecido a Damon por traerme a lo largo. En realidad, se amplió mi alcance de la humanidad.
I think that picture of Ethiopia is different from how a lot of people imagine it…
All I knew about Ethiopia was from a few records that I like, as well as what I read about the famine. But you get there and it’s another world. It’s filled with art and music and poetry and intellectuals and writers — all kinds of people. I went to this town called Harar and there is a Mosque and a Christian church right next to each other, and everyone gets along. They’re devout about their faith, but they’re really tolerant. I was walking down the street with this Ethiopian dude, and he’s like, ‘Oh fuck, dude, I gotta take a shit,’ so he just walked up to a random door in this neighborhood, and the residents were like, ‘Come right in and use my bathroom.’ They don’t do that shit in L.A., man. ‘Excuse me, Arnold Schwarzenegger, can I take a shit at your house?’
Speaking of weird shit, you recently ran a marathon. That sounds painful.
[Laughs] I did that to raise money for my non-profit music school, the Silverlake Conservatory of Music. It costs a bunch of money to run, so I’m always trying to raise dough. And I read this book called Born to Run and it got me excited about running, and I had never been a runner before. I trained up and ran the marathon — and it was awesome. The training was fun and running the marathon was a fucking cathartic, beautiful experience. It was tough, but I like tough! I mean, I’m kind of a pussy as a guy, I’ve never been in a fight or anything, so not tough like that. But I like pushing my body. I pushed it too hard a couple times and injured myself. But after running for a while things really start to open up in your body. I felt like I’d tapped into parts of my body that I hadn’t before. I let things in the universe flow through me that opened me up in a really cool way. It was pouring rain during the whole race — it was freezing. But it was a blast. If I weren’t gearing up for the tour right now, I’d be training for another one.
Do you listen to music while you’re training?
Never. I don’t like it. It’s like my senses are so overwhelmed already, so full. The sound of my heartbeat, my footsteps, running up in this canyon here in Malibu, the birds, the animals, the sights, it’s so much already. It’s a beautiful thing.
Fuente: Stadium Arcadium
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