Red Hot Chili Peppers

by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

  I think that part of it is because when you walk into a room and people know the famous you, there is an expectation or there is a predetermined idea of who they think you are, instead of just being completely open, like, “Hey, who are you? What do you like? What do you do? Let’s dance, let’s talk.” Unless the new people that you are meeting are unaffected people, it’s kind of hard to get past that image. But I’m sure it’s as much my fault as anybody else’s. I do remember having those strange feelings, particularly after Blood Sugar, which was a very profound shift in our visibility factor.

  Maybe part of this whole dynamic was our perceived image at that time. We were literally naked before our fans. For the first ten years, if you asked someone, “Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when I say Red Hot Chili Peppers?” They would say, “Naked guys on stage.” Our first shows were in front of our friends and we used to go out on stage in the very beginning wearing just our tube socks in a very strategic area. Our friends would then try to pull the socks off. There was no perceptible change because they were people that we knew.

  Hanging out in Talin the day before a show.

  But then we did that iconic poster, a poster that at that time became more well-known than us or our music. It was taken by this outstanding female Japanese photographer and she made it into a poster—just the four of us, naked except for our tube socks, standing there with a stoic, deadpan expression on our faces, as if we were sailors leaving for war. It instantly became, “Yeah, I know you from that poster!”

  We really couldn’t escape that image, especially after we started taking a little more pride in our songwriting and our musicianship. “Uh, yes, we do play naked sometimes. But there are songs and rhythms and notes and harmonies and lyrics, did you happen to notice those as well?” So we were typecast as those wild and crazy naked guys for about ten years.

  All that made us more approachable to strangers. There is something about our personalities that definitely made people feel a little more comfortable getting in our faces at the weirdest times. Whether we were eating or in a conversation, they felt like, “Oh no, it’s okay to talk to these guys.”

  Another factor in this was that when we started playing music, the most popular music going was hair metal: Poison, Ratt, Warrant, all of that stuff. And they were such posers, God bless them, I don’t take anything away from them, they were having a great time and they were causing other people to have a great time, but their shtick was to have a very handsome guy made up like, “I’m so handsome I’m almost as pretty as your girlfriend.”

  Our image was a stark reaction to that posing. We would just distort our faces into the most contorted and ugly masks that we could and that was how we presented ourselves—drooling and dirt and cum and mud and paint splattered all over the place. We wanted to make ourselves as unattractive as possible and there was a comedy to it and there was a knucklehead factor to it. It…was all those things. I think that that made people feel like, “Oh, I can talk to these guys. They’re just knuckleheads like me.” Approaching us was much different than approaching a man in a fine suit with lipstick on.

  As we progressed in our careers, I would meet people who began to play the bass because they were inspired by Flea. Girls, boys, not necessarily successful musicians, but people that were happy to play music. Later on, we ran across John Frusciante, who was a huge fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as Frank Zappa, King Crimson, and many other musical entities. He didn’t just learn our guitar parts, he learned the bass parts, the drums, and the vocals. When we met him, there wasn’t this wall between us, like, “I’m your fan, so we can’t communicate.” He was like, “Yes, I am your fan, but I also am one of you and I would like to play music with you.” Not necessarily be in your band, but, “Let’s go jam right now.” He was so confident in his own musicality and he wanted to test himself. He jammed with Flea when we still had Blackbyrd McKnight from P-Funk in our band and it wasn’t as if we were trying to get rid of Blackbyrd, but John just wanted to play with Flea and they had a couple of jam sessions.

  And then the buzz on John just took hold and we thought: Wait a second, maybe this is the guy we’re supposed to be playing with. Then I went to see him audition for Thelonious Monster, since we already had a guitar player. He was so amazing and that was the moment that I realized, this has to happen. I think Flea had already sort of had that moment when he played with John.

  Some years ago I published my memoir entitled Scar Tissue and it generated a whole new category of fans. I had revealed a lot of personal information in the book and I was so unprepared for the response. I was so stupid to think I could say all of that stuff and not have people trip out on me. But immediately people rolled up on me with these incredible expressions on their faces talking about how they read the book or they couldn’t put the book down, and telling me the effect that it had on them, the effect that it had on a family member. It got to be like, “Oh my God, I’m talking to a person who knows a lot of intimate details about me. It’s like they’ve read my diary.” And at first it really set me off, I was like, “What have I done?” I thought I was going to tell tales and paint the colors of the different decades and the relationships and the drug abuse, just basically tell as many stories as I could and weave it all into this life.

  Grandpa Kiedis was from a small village in Lithuania.

  It turned out the book had a meaning and a purpose that I don’t know if either myself or my collaborator, Larry “Ratso” Sloman, were really conscious of as we were putting it together, and that was really a much more noble endeavor than I ever had in mind. I didn’t set out to see if I could help people get over their hurdles and their struggles. I just wanted to tell my story. What ended up happening was something way better because after people got over the details of the sex or the drugs or the whatever, what it was seen as was: Here’s a guy who was really messed up, going downhill, crashing hard and somehow—with the help of many others—managed to completely right the ship that was going down. And they were like, “If this fuckup can right his ship, why can’t I right mine?” Or “Why can’t I help my family member figure out how to get their shit together?”

  I would say that that is what fans of the book have become. They come up to me now and they’re like, “I read your book, thank you.” Either “You helped me get on track” or “You helped somebody I love get back on track.” And it continues to this day. A week doesn’t go by without someone rolling up on me and thanking me.

  That’s one of the most rewarding experiences of being in a position to help other people. Since the very beginning of our band, some very sick and even terminally ill people have come to our shows to get a dose of cosmic energy from the music and the performance and the camaraderie of the band. And we have always welcomed that and we always have appreciated that exchange with anybody, whether they are close to the end or just permanently physically ill, we love that.

  Obviously it feels good to make somebody happy, to make somebody feel the spirit and I can think of so many beautiful occasions where very, very sick people have come to our shows. Some of them can’t talk, some of them can’t move. I remember there was a guy on one of those horizontal wheelchairs, completely immobile, but for sure feeling all of the goodness that we had to offer. And that’s a pretty moving experience for us, to see that somebody thought it was important to get that person into our show. They thought that it would do them some good to be present for the music.

  I can’t remember when it started, but for a very long time we’ve had a relationship with Make-A-Wish Foundation and maybe every five or ten shows somebody will show up whose wish it was to get to a show. And they can range from ten years old to thirty years old, and they usually come with a chaperone or maybe a family member and we’re all extremely happy to have that experience and to let them into our world and treat them like a king or queen for the day, because it’s just a great reminder of the give and the take and how lucky we are to be in a position to tou
ch people and that they can come and touch us. You can become a very bitchy, self-centered little brat on tour, like, “Where’s my shake?” And then some kid walks in and they’ve been fighting for their life for the last two years, you’re like, “Whoa, let me just slow my roll real quick and get back to basics and remember why I’m here.”

  Because in the end, I am here to serve. We have a great life, we make a good living, but really we are here to serve. At our best moments it isn’t about the money, it’s not about the fame, it’s not about the chicks, it’s not about the cash and prizes. The best moment we will ever have is the moment of serving, they’re the real moments. Like when you get to the gates of Saint Peter, he’ll be like, “Well, did you serve? Were you nice? Were you kind? Did you give it up to someone else?” He’s not going to say, “Were you rich? Did you get that limited edition convertible?”

  One of the things that we’ve discovered as we’ve toured the world many times over is that there are real differences in nationalities as far as fans go. Because we’re an L.A.-based band we’ve always had a very cool relationship with the different ethnic groups that inhabit our city of angels. I’ve noticed that if you go to a Morrissey show, his audience is about 80 percent Mexican. They are the most emotional, passionate, colorful, and committed fans you could ever want to perform for. They just give themselves entirely to the music, to the lyrics, to the person performing. There’s this link, this bond, this oneness, because they are not trying to be too cool, they’re not trying to put on anything, they’re just like, “This music takes me out of myself to a better place.” I think we have a bit of that same good fortune with our Mexican or Mexican American fans. That connection led us to the writing of the song “Cabron,” which directly acknowledges how great it is for both us and for L.A. to have Mexicans in our mix. For one thing, Mexicans are ridiculously loyal and they won’t like you for the year that you are popular, they’ll like you for the thirty years that you are up and down, which is a good thing.

  Then I have to acknowledge the black gangster, not the typical black element in L.A., but the slightly harder black gangster element. I’ll be driving down the street sometimes and I’ll hear “Under the Bridge” cranking out of a low rider, loud. And I’ll kind of peek over and it will be a car full of heavy gangster-looking dudes. And they’ll see me and they’ll give me the most casual acknowledgment, but it’s a strong acknowledgment. It’s not like, “Oh whoa, look who is there, oh my God, hey, get out them flip phones and take a picture!” It’s like, “That’s right, we’re down.” That’s a pretty cool feeling.

  When we get out of the country it’s always interesting to see how different countries respond to the record you just put out. Invariably, every time we put out a new record, a different country will react stronger than it ever has before. Italy has always been a very passionate place in general when it comes to life and music and food and loving and automobile design and many other things. I know they were super into Blood Sugar Sex Magik, but it wasn’t until we put out Californication that I realized Italy was The Country that was their record. Californication sold more records in Italy, by far, than anywhere else in the world. For whatever reason, that struck a chord with the Italians. I could tell, because we were doing press tours and we were there the day that record came out. And everywhere we went, on the very day it came out, people were singing along with the songs on that record. And I’m like, “How the fuck does anyone know … They’ve heard it for like ten minutes, they’re singing along.” But everywhere we went, people on scooters, people at the sidewalk cafés, wherever, it was that way from day one.

  Then we put out By the Way and By the Way was England; Italy cooled off. They’re like, “Eh, it’s no Californication.” For the next two or three years that we were involved with By the Way, we should have just moved to England, because that’s where it was hot and that’s where we did our thing. Then Stadium Arcadium was Germany. We should have moved to Germany.

  My first inkling that South Americans reacted differently to rock music than any place else probably came with the Ramones. Rick Rubin always had the Ramones as one of the top three greatest bands of all times. And if you listen to the records, they qualify for that conversation. Their songs, their textures, their look, their performances, the magical chemistry of those guys, they had it in spades and they never sucked. America didn’t embrace them with the same kind of enthusiasm as they did the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. But long after they had cooled off in the USA, they could still go down to South America and sell out stadiums and create their own version of Beatlemania. South Americans really don’t care what’s popular in America, or what is popular globally, they care about what is popular to them. If they decide that it’s the shit, it’s the shit and they will behave accordingly.

  And then we got our first taste of it. We went on a tour to Brazil with Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and L7 and it was the first time we had been anywhere where there was no getting out. We checked into the hotel in Rio and you were not going to get out of the hotel because it was literally sequestered by a ring of five thousand human beings that would just as soon rip you to shreds as to let you go for a walk on the beach.

  It was the first time we had ever been to a country where no matter what, you had to have security guys with you wherever you went, which is really not that fun. So, that was pretty weird. You could go out on the balcony and a thousand people would instantly start singing one of your songs to you. It was like that classic scene where Martin and Lewis, I think, come to New York City and they open their window and it’s just mayhem. I didn’t really feel like we deserved that much attention from anybody but it was coming with such a loving spirit, they weren’t obnoxious about it, and it was kind of novel the first time around. But eventually you could see how this could be a bit of a problem. I’d want to go surf or look at the shops, or walk around and we’d literally have to escape. There was a routine to even getting the car out of the parking lot or out of the driveway of the hotel, so you could go off in the jungle somewhere and take that walk.

  A little graffiti fun on the road.

  One time when we were there, I was given a security officer who was a cop. He was like Tony Baretta, an undercover cop, young, cool, a jujitsu black belt. He carried a gun, but he knew Rio de Janeiro like the back of his hand. I was there with a friend of mine from L.A. (we’ll just call him “Mr. J”), and we wanted to go see the mean streets of Rio de Janeiro, the favelas, the colorful side of Rio. We were staying in this opulent, ritzy area, which is always the most boring part of town and we figure, “Okay, we’re with a cop who knows his way around; we’ll be safe. Take us to the real spots where things could get dicey.” He’s like, “Okay, let’s go, that’s where I work. I got no problem up in there. I get a lot of respect.” I’m in the backseat of a compact car and he drives us off into the night, maybe it’s midnight. My friend Mr. J is in the front seat. And there were hookers everywhere; there were drug dealers everywhere; there were kids running around, bike-riding, dancing; there was the smell of food; and people thronging in the streets.

  So we see this fantastic, six-foot-two-inch, black-skinned transsexual hooker, wearing just a fluorescent bikini, a beautiful specimen of a human being. Attractive, but straight-up transsexual. And the cop pulls over and the transsexual recognizes him and she’s like, “Fuck, I’m busted.” And he rolls down the window and he says, “Hey, come here.” And she kind of stalls, she’s like, “Oh God, the night’s just getting started, I really don’t want to get busted right now.” He’s like, “No, no, no, you’re not in trouble, come here. I want you to say hello to my friends.” So the expression on the tranny’s face just changes drastically from “fuck” to like, “Oh! This could be fun.” And she looks in the car, she sees Mr. J in the front seat, she sees me in the backseat, and I’m like, “This is beautiful, this is a real moment.” And then the cop gets a little bossy with her and he says, “Turn around, turn around.” So she turns around an
d he smacks this big, taut, black ass a few times. He knows that she’s fun and not going to be worried. It wasn’t like he was scaring this person or anything. She was enjoying this.

  About to get in the water in Rio.

  And then she turns around and she sort of reaches into the car, over my friend and puts her hand on his leg and grabs his dick and you can tell by her reaction that he’s got a hard-on. And she’s like, “Oh, you like that smacking.” He got so embarrassed and he’s like, “No, no, my cock’s not hard. My goodness, you should see it when it’s really hard. That’s nothing.” But he really got turned on by this tranny getting her ass spanked by the cop.

  So the Brazilians were the most fanatic of our South American fans at that time, but since then the Argentinians have given them a run for their money. They don’t post up in huge numbers in front of the hotel but when they show up for the show, they show up ready to let it all hang out.

  We did an interesting thing in Argentina about ten years ago. Their economy was basically going bankrupt and their money was near-worthless. At the same time, they were getting hit with the worst floods ever in Buenos Aires. We had scheduled a show for Argentina, but suddenly no one had any money, literally overnight. So our management called and said, “We’ve got to cancel, they’ve got no money in Argentina.” And we were like, “Fuck that, we’re in South America. They want to come see us, we want to play for them. Let’s just go and play.”