Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers surprised a few drum students when he turned up at their lesson one morning as their substitute teacher.

The episode was captured by Drumeo, and of course, it’s now on Youtube. There are a number of memorable moments, most notably when the young student is asked by Smith what sort of music he likes and replies “punk rock”. He then names his favourite punk bands as “Blink 182, Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers,” whilst clearly not having a clue who he’s speaking to.

“Red Hot Chili Peppers, they’re not really punk rock, but okay,” Smith replies, before he tells the kid, “Well, do you know I drum with Red Hot Chili Peppers?,” as the youngster’s eyes open wide in shock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86WVogU8FbQ&t=275s

A little later Smith listens as the same student starts up a beat whilst he’s reading off a sheet. “You’re a good reader,” Smith compliments him. “Are you reading the Chili Peppers songs?”

“Nah, they’re too hard,” the young kid answers.

To the nervous young mom who has only just started drum lessons, he advises: “Ignore the cameras, and ignore the Hall Of Fame drummer sitting next to you.”

And when asked by another student what it’s like being in the Chili Peppers, Smith gave a pretty succinct summing up of their strengths as a band: “Anything that we do ends up sounding like us. Each guy has a very strong personality on his instrument.

"Like, Flea has a very distinct style and sound and Anthony when you hear him sing, his voice is very unique. So whenever we apply that to whatever – fast, slow, hard – it ends up sounding like us and it’s really satisfying for a drummer. That to me is the best thing about being in the band.”

“But, like, the chicks and the money is awesome,” he adds jokingly, turning to see his young student nod in agreement.

Eventually, Smith meets the real teacher he was covering for and ends by telling him to “keep up the great work.”

DRUMS WEEK 2025: Last year, a street busking drummer unwittingly found himself going viral when footage emerged of him performing Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Otherside in front of an audience of one: Chad Smith.

You can see here that the drummer, revealed later to be one Armond Davis, is in the moment, whilst settled on the concrete just feet away is Smith who is quietly taking in the performance.

“Who wants to tell him?” remarked a passerby who recorded the encounter on his phone, comparing the situation to “shooting hoops in front of Michael Jordan without realizing it.”

Many were amazed that the drummer didn’t recognize the rock legend watching him. One commenter noted, “Just casually playing for one of the best drummers.” Another added, “Bro has one man listening but still the biggest audience.”

Whilst another insisted, “There’s no way he’s playing an RHCP song and didn’t notice the only dude sitting watching him was Chad Smith himself.”

Some people commented on the honour of having an acclaimed musician appreciating one’s talent. One person posted, “The fact that Chad Smith is just sitting there vibing is about the biggest compliment you could ask for. Bro, good job.”

Another chimed in, “Chad Smith is an excellent drummer himself, so seeing him bobbing his head while you play the drums is the biggest compliment.” A third added, “This is how you know Chad Smith is just a pure music lover.”

So did the drummer find out in the end? Yes, he did. The person who shot the footage said “I had to let the drummer know, of course. Once I showed him the video, I took him to where Chad was.”

Eventually responding in his own video (below), Armand Davis revealed he was the unwitting performer. "I am the drummer that played in front of Chad Smith. Honestly, as a street performer sometimes we have incredibly slow days and that was one of them.

"I played at least five songs back-to-back and I got zero attention. So after a little I just zoned out into the music. By the time I was halfway done with Otherside I realised somebody was sitting in front of me and he had really good energy.

"He was bobbing his head and I could tell he had to be a drummer because he had good subdivision with his feet. He looked familiar but I just couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time."

Maybe one of the reasons Smith was so appreciative was that he has recent-ish experience of being in the busker’s shoes.

In 2016, as part of a photoshoot for Rhythm magazine the Chili Pepper astonished Londoners that summer by turning up and performing on a tiny kit with a friend round town.

One of the most renowned drummers in rock, Chad Smith's funk-infused, impactful beats have set the pace for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers since 1988. Therefore it's no surprise that when the 63 year-old was in dire need of a new studio build, the likes of PreSonus answered the call.

“Going and recording music is, first of all, really a privilege,” said Chad, in a video published by PreSonus.“It’s such an amazing thing to be able to do. And I wanted to have a place to rehearse, but also record.” As the below video demonstrates, the Chilli's beat-supplier still has phenomenal chops behind the kit.

The company kitted out Smith with a state of the art array of their latest gear (both hardware and software). Key highlights include two Quantum HD8 interfaces which provide a range of input and output options. With the interface's handy auto-gain feature fully calibrated to respond to whatever volume levels Chad is smashing the kit at. There are 16 additional mic inputs to accommodate anyone else who might want to jam with Chad (and who wouldn't?)

Smith also now has a paired set of Eris Pro 8 studio monitors with an Eris Pro Sub 10 to emphasise the low-end. These have been perfectly tuned to the room, and allow for a suitably wide sweet spot, ultra-accurate stereo imaging and a low end that is immaculately detailed.

An automated-fader equipped FaderPort 16 controls the actions, with a pair of HD9 Headphones (and a HP60 Headphone Amplifier) channeling all the action straight into Chad's ears.

Of course, PreSonus are also behind one of our favourite DAWs, Studio One (recently updated to version 7) and, as the video reveals, the company have set-up Chad with some ready-to-go templates. "This is so great," Smith giggles.

As the clip progresses, Chad witnesses the auto-gain on the HD8's in action, calibrating the gain to compensate for the volume of the input signal. "Wow, not bad!," exclaims Chad, "I thought it was going to be way roomier. Dude, this is amazing."

As the short video comes to a close, an impressed Chad announces to the PreSonus crew that it's "going to get really loud, ready?" Before shouting; "Beat it!," and letting rip on the kit, demonstrating his extreme prowess.

To read more about Chad's new PreSonus studio, head over to their website to read the full story.

Paul McCartney surprised punters at a tiny venue in the Hamptons, Long Island this week when he guested on stage with producer Andrew Watt and Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. 

The Beatles legend sang spirited versions of I Saw Her Standing There and Neil Young’s Rockin’ In The Free World. Watt’s girlfriend, singer songwriter Charlotte Lawrence, added vocals to the latter and by the look of the videos that have appeared on social media everyone present had a fine ol’ time.

The venue, Stephen Talkhouse (yes that’s actually its name), has a capacity of just 250. For a British equivalent – imagine if Macca had turned up to a pub venue in, say, Margate.

It was something of a home gig for McCartney. The ex-Beatle has had a house for decades in the Hamptons, the well-to-do beach resort that’s situated at the far end of Long Island.

Bit odd to see him without his trusted Hofner bass (or indeed any guitar) slung over his shoulder, isn’t it?

Watt is said to be working on the new McCartney album, the first since the lockdown album McCartney III in late 2020. Over the last few years, the 33-year-old has developed a reputation for re-energising rock legends’ new material. 

He’s worked with Elton John, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop and Pearl Jam, and last year produced Hackney Diamonds, the first new Rolling Stones album since 2016. Indeed Watt and McCartney’s paths crossed during those sessions, when Macca guested on the track Bite My Head Off.

McCartney heads back on the road on October 1 in Montevideo, Uruguay and will spend most of the autumn touring South America. He returns to the UK for two shows at London’s O2 on December 18 and 19.

Drumeo’s ‘…Hears it for the First Time’ series — where a famous drummer is presented with a song they’ve never heard before and their attempt to play along is recorded — has become a hugely popular regular on the online drum lesson platform’s social media channels. This time, it’s the turn of Red Hot Chili Pepper, Chad Smith, who found the gauntlet of 30 Seconds to Mars’ 2006 monster hit, The Kill, at his feet. What’s more, is perhaps predictably, he absolutely destroyed it.

In case you’ve never watched the format, a drummer is played a drumless version of a piece of music they’ve never heard before from Drumeo’s collection. They can listen to the song to grasp the feel, then record a few takes to get it right.

Chad Smith claims to have never heard The Kill by 30 Seconds to Mars (despite knowing Jared Leto and his brother, 30STM drummer, Shannon Leto), and we certainly believe him based on his reaction to hearing the song on camera.

After listening to the song’s intro/verse, and exclaiming “Oh, it’s in three?”, Chad joins in on the second bar of the first chorus, and from this point onwards pretty much has it nailed. Throughout his first and only take, he picks up on some of the song’s key arrangement and compositional cues instantly, including the full-band stabs during the song’s breakdown, and he even hits the two-bar stop before exploding back in for the outro.

At one point, Smith — who’s playing so hard he looks like he’s going to smash his fists through his CS Dots — breaks a stick, and seamlessly retrieves another one without dropping a beat.

Towards the end, he goes off-piste playing a 4/4 beat against the song’s 6/8 pulse before deciding he’s had enough. When offered the chance to do another take, Smith says, “No. No, I fucking nailed it!” 

Next up is the reveal, where he gets to hear how close he was to the original. “What the fuck was that?! Was that like, My Chemical Romance or something?”. Drumeo’s Brandon Toews tells him the name of the band and song, and Chad realises it’s Jared Leto’s band, later adding “I’m gonna call Jared and say, ‘If your brother gets sick, man…”. 

Reflecting on his approach, he adds. “It was fun, I love improvising and jamming to new music. It’s not my normal wheelhouse, this kind of thing. Just trying to listen to what I think the arrangement’s going to be… It had a lot of energy in that song so I just decided to inappropriately overplay, which is kinda fun. But you know, let’s get back to shit that I know!”  

Everyone knows Chad Smith for his work in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, where together with bassist Flea he’s formed one-half of the most famous rhythm section in rock for the last 30 years. More recently, Chad has been stretching out with session appearances with some heavy hitters including Joe Satriani, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop and…Dua Lipa.

Chad recently sat down with Drumeo to discuss his involvement in the studio version of the UK pop artist’s song, Break My Heart, the chorus of which famously features an interpolation of INXS’s Need You Tonight.

His role came about via the song’s producer, Andrew Watt, who the Chili Pepper worked with on Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop’s respective albums. Chad tells Drumeo, “My friend Andrew Watt is quite the producer extraordinaire, and he was working with Dua Lipa. I came down and they were just finishing up the session, they’d just kind of written everything, pretty much. Andrew was like ‘I’m so glad you’re here! we were just talking about how this song needs live drums!’. I’m like, ‘Here we go! Great!”

Chad goes on to talk about his approach to the song — a straightforward, tight disco groove —explaining that there was already a programmed beat on the track, and that he kept it four-to-the-floor. “In a situation where you’re the artist’s ‘band’, if it’s a singer, you’re just trying to do whatever they need or want to help make it feel good. There’s no…I’m not trying to get my thing in there at all. 

“I want to just play, and be the drummer in their band for that two weeks or whatever it is while you’re making that record. This was just literally putting drums over a pretty finished track. There was some drum machine on it already, but they just wanted that kind of disco-funk thing. So I did some of that, and it ended up working. While he was there, Chad took the opportunity to play through the song - doing so with razor-sharp precision against the quantised finish version.

Break My Heart featured on Dua Lipa’s second album, 2020’s Future Nostalgia, and was released as a single the same year. Despite peaking at a moderate number six on the UK charts and number 13 on the US Billboard chart, the song has since gone on to amass over one billion streams on Spotify, and the official video has been played over half a billion times on YouTube. Not bad for a chance encounter with a mate!  

Red Hot Chili Peppers have released a new music video accompanying their latest single, Tippa My Tongue.

Taken from the forthcoming album Return of the Dream Canteen – due out on 14th October – the Rick Rubin-produced track is quintessential Chili Peppers, driven by a deep funk groove and laced with a hefty dose of acid rock.

Featuring trippy animation by Julien Calemard and Thami Nabil, the band’s latest vid is a psychedelic extravaganza and was directed by Malia James with creative direction by guitarist John Frusciante’s girlfriend, Marcia Pinna aka Aura T-09.

Return of the Dream Canteen follows up this year’s Unlimited Love album and was announced by the band during a live concert in Denver, Colorado last month.

It was a surprise for fans, many of whom didn’t expect the news so soon after Red Hot Chili Peppers’ latest album release.

However, Frusciante had previously alluded to the prospect of more new material during an interview with Total Guitar.

“Before we knew it, we had way more songs than we’d ever written for a record before,” he recalled, adding, “I definitely feel like we saved some of the best stuff for the potential next album.”

Speaking of their new album, a band statement on the Red Hot Chili Peppers website reads:

“We went in search of ourselves as the band that we have somehow always been. Just for the fun of it we jammed and learned some old songs. Before long we started the mysterious process of building new songs. A beautiful bit of chemistry meddling that had befriended us hundreds of times along the way…

“When all was said and done, our moody love for each other and the magic of music had gifted us with more songs than we knew what to do with. Well we figured it out. 2 double albums released back to back.”

Pre-order Return of the Dream Canteen here.