Stage Tour - the successor video game to Guitar Hero – is coming soon and the first featured tracks have been confirmed.

The original Guitar Hero was notable for mixing up classics with some lesser-known songs and the developers RedOctane Games seem to be following a similar pattern with their new creation.

Among the big names confirmed are Red Hot Chili Peppers who have contributed their 2006 single Dani California. Meanwhile, Extreme’s 1990 track Get The Funk Out, which features a Nuno Bettencourt solo that Brian May once described as a “tour de force”, also makes the cut.

As you’d expect, there’s a variety in terms of style. So indie rock is covered – Weezer’s 2001 single Island In The Sun is included – as well as metal: Ghost contribute one of their biggest songs, Square Hammer.

Back in the day Guitar Hero offered a hand up to many bands – DragonForce have said that the inclusion of their track Through The Fire And Flames in the game saw their album sales “explode”. So it will be interesting what happens to German ‘electronicore’ band Electric Callboy and Canadian indie rockers Good Kid – neither of whom are household names – after their inclusion in Stage Tour.

RedOctane has also released a developer spotlight trailer for the game, which they are describing as ‘redefining the evolution’ of rhythm games. It spotlights the various stages, characters and controllers – the official guitar controller is a Kramer model, though you can use a standard gamepad or keyboard controller if you so wish.

And Gibson are also involved - the front-end of the game is based on the Gibson Garage in Nashville. Game Lead Alex Jeffreys added that “our ultimate goal with Stage Tour is not only to bring the rhythm game back but bring it back better than ever before.”

There’s not an official release date yet, though when the game was announced in February RedOctane said it would be “later in the year”.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers appear to have sold their recorded music catalogue to Warners in a deal that’s apparently worth more than $300 million (£220 million).

The band have been signed to Warners since their 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik, but the new deal does apparently cover the four albums they released prior to that on EMI (their self-titled debut, Freaky Styley, The Uplift Mofo Party Plan and Mother’s Milk).

Hadn't the band already sold their back catalogue, though? Well, yes. But that deal, which was conducted in 2021, saw the Chili Peppers sell their publishing rights to the Hipgnosis Songs Fund for $150 million. However, those rights may well end up with someone else as Sony Music is reportedly looking to acquire Hipgnosis (who are now known as Recognition Music Group) in a multi-million dollar deal of their own. Got that? Good.

The band were among the first of a wave of A-list acts to sell their back catalogues. Since then, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Jack White, Queen, Pink Floyd, Deftones and Jack White have all made similar deals, though conversely, Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa have both bought back their masters.

It’s been four years now since the group’s most recent albums, Unlimited Love and Return To The Dream Canteen, which came out within a few months of each other in 2022.

However, in an interview with Zane Lowe to promote his solo album, Flea did say that the Chili Peppers were currently writing. “It’s different… really different,” he told the DJ. “We’re putting together music and it feels beautiful.”

Flea’s solo album Honora was released last week and the Chili Pepper has given an interview to Apple 1’s Zane Lowe about it, his recent collaborations and the next Chili Peppers' album.

One of the highlights of the record is a cover of Wichita Lineman with a guesting Nick Cave. “I’ve been a huge fan of his forever,” Flea said. “He always gets right down to it. Initially, it [the track] was going to be an instrumental – I had no plans for anyone to sing on it.”

As he explains, he had originally had just a trumpet there for the top line. “(But) I was sitting back listening to it and I recalled the few times in my life I had conversed with Nick, we had spoken about Jimmy Webb.. and I just thought ‘Oh man, maybe Nick would want to sing on this?’"

"(So) I sent it to him, and he responded within a half hour, you know, ‘I’m leaving to go on tour in two days but I’ll try to get in the studio right away tomorrow and do it’. And he did and he was like ‘it’s my gift to you – take it.’”

"He recorded it right away. He sent it to me and I'm, like, sobbing… in tears, because it was so… I mean, he's a poet"

“He’s such a kind, soulful, heartbeat of a man,” the bassist summarised, revealing that when he heard Cave’s vocal he ended up sobbing. “He was in touch with the narrative of the story, in a soulful real way. You can tell – he feels every word. He is a very humane, in-touch person.

"When I spoke to him afterwards, I could tell it meant a lot to him to do it and he really cared about it. And that he saw the song itself as this infinitely powerful vehicle, and to inhabit that vehicle meant he had to really bring it. And he did.”

Another guest was Thom Yorke, who appears on the track Traffic Lights. “Again I had no intention of having any vocal on this song. I was sitting listening to it through the speakers, thinking ‘this is cool’ and then having the thought ‘I can’t wait to play this to Thom – he’s going to love this. This is right up his alley’, which segued to the next thought, which is ‘maybe Thom would want to sing on this?’ And he did. And he sang and it was beautiful and everything that Thom does.”

And the inevitable Chili Peppers' question? The band are “writing” according to Flea. “(We’re) getting together, putting songs together, feels really good, feels different. All I can say is that it’s different… really different,” he says, wondering if he’s already said too much. “We’re putting together music, and it feels beautiful.”

The Netflix documentary about the early days of the Red Hot Chili Peppers premiered last week and fans may have noticed something, well, odd about it. The Rise Of The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel is part narrated by Antony Kiedis and Flea, but also Slovak himself, who died back in 1988. How so?

Well, even if you haven’t seen it yet, you might have already guessed: yes, the voice of Slovak has been AI-generated. The words that are spoken come directly from the guitarist’s own journals though.

Other voices in the film include the band’s early drummer Jack Irons, Slovak’s brother James and his girlfriend Addie Brik, as well as John Frusciante, who replaced him in the band after he died of a heroin overdose.

Despite being interviewed for the documentary, the Chili Peppers have semi-distanced themselves from it. In a statement, the band said: “About a year ago, we were asked to be interviewed for a documentary about Hillel Slovak. He was a founding member of the group, a great guitarist, and friend. We agreed to be interviewed out of love and respect for Hillel and his memory.”

“However, this documentary is now being advertised as a Red Hot Chili Peppers documentary, which it is not,” they clarified. “We had nothing to do with it creatively. We have yet to make a Red Hot Chili Peppers documentary.

“The central subject of this current Netflix special is Hillel Slovak and we hope it sparks interest in his work.”

The Rise Of The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel is available to stream on Netflix now.

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.”

On 25 June 1988, Hillel Slovak, guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, died of a heroin overdose at the age of 26.

It was a tragedy that had a profound effect on the other members of the band, as bassist Flea recalls in a new interview with MOJO magazine.

“It was devastating,” Flea says. “Just unbelievable. When it happened I was so shocked I just fell on the floor, gasping for air.”

Hillel Slovak was one of the four founding members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers alongside Flea, vocalist Anthony Kiedis and drummer Jack Irons.

Slovak was born in Haifa, Israel, but it was after his family relocated to the US, settling in Los Angeles, that he met Flea, Kiedis and Irons while attending Fairfax High School.

Flea was an accomplished trumpet player in his youth, but his friendship with Slovak proved hugely influential in shaping his future.

Speaking to MOJO, Flea says of Slovak: “He was the one who asked me to start playing the bass. I would never have played bass without him, and without him I would never have been in a rock band. He taught me so much.”

He recalls his first meeting with Slovak and acknowledges how he and Kiedis gained an education in music from the young guitarist.

“When Anthony and I met him, we were young,” Flea says. “We were out hitch-hiking the street and we saw him and he had a car. He was fucking 16 and he had a car! A Datsun 510.

“He had a stereo in the car and he was smoking weed and listening to [Led] Zeppelin. He gave us a ride and I think he gave us some weed. He showed me Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck and then the Gang Of Four, all this stuff.”

It was in 1982 that the four friends formed the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Slovak and Irons briefly left the Chili Peppers to focus on a new band named What is This?

As a result, the Chili Peppers’ self-titled debut album, released in 1984, was recorded with guitarist Jack Sherman and drummer Cliff Martinez.

But Slovak returned for the second album Freaky Styley – produced by Parliament/Funkadelic leader George Clinton and released in 1985.

Jack Irons also rejoined the band for the 1987 album The Uplift Mofo Party Plan.

This turned out to be the only Chili Peppers album to feature all four founding members. It was also the last album Hillel Slovak ever made.

Following Slovak’s death, the band recruited John Frusciante.

In an emotional tribute to Slovak, Flea tells MOJO: “I looked up to him. I was in love with him. He was a beautiful boy and troubled like all of us were, difficulties at home, difficulties everywhere.

“His guitar playing was beautiful, his hair, the way he dressed… everything. A beautiful friend. And really sadly a drug addict, heroin, and he didn’t make it through.”

Queen made so many great albums in the ’70s – Sheer Heart Attack, News Of The World, Jazz, A Day At The Races and, most famous of all, A Night At The Opera. But for Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, the best of them is Queen II.

“I love Queen,” Smith said, “and for some reason I just love that second record.”

Released on 8 March 1974, Queen II was described by esteemed British rock critic Malcolm Dome as “arguably the heaviest Queen album”.

It was recorded in August 1973 at London studios Trident and Langham 1, and co-produced by the band with Roy Thomas Baker and Robin Geoffrey Cable.

Beginning with the instrumental track Procession and ending with the hit single Seven Seas Of Rhye, the album had its two sides of vinyl named ‘Side White’ and ‘Side Black’.

The first, ‘Side White’, was comprised of songs written by guitarist Brian May, save for one track, The Loser In The End, written by drummer Roger Taylor, while ‘Side Black’ featured six tracks composed by singer Freddie Mercury, including a hard-rocking number in Ogre Battle and an early example of the band’s flamboyance in The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke.

In a 2009 interview with Classic Rock, Chad Smith named Queen II as not only his favourite Queen album but his favourite album, period.

“It’s a little more off the wall for Queen,” Smith said, “and I love how the record starts, with Procession – it creeps in, fades up, and I always turn it up and that’s a good trick. You crank the shit out of it, so by the time Father To Son kicks in, that’s the volume they want you to hear it at.”

He continued: “I don’t know if they toured so much with the first record, but the second one sounds more cohesive as a band. They had a sound!

“It says on the record: ‘No synthesizers’. That’s so cool. And I love Ogre Battle – danga-danga, ‘Waaaaah!’

“Queen II has a lot of power, it has wonderful orchestration, and it has incredible playing. Brian May is a genius!”

Smith also recalled how was introduced to this album as a teenager.

“I lived in Chicago,” he said, “and my friend’s older brother, we used to hang out in his basement, and he had Queen II. He was like, ‘Hey, these guys are supposed to be the next Led Zeppelin!’ So I was like, ‘Oh shit, I gotta hear that!’

“I hadn’t heard the first Queen album. And when I saw the cover of Queen II – these guys looked like they’re dead! It was very mysterious.

“I have great memories of smoking pot and playing pool and listening to Queen II over and over.”

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have made it clear that an upcoming documentary about their founder member guitarist Hillel Slovak is not an officially sanctioned film about the band.

The band were interviewed for the Netflix show, which is somewhat confusingly titled The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but have put out a statement saying they "nothing to do with (the documentary) creatively".

That statement reads: "Dear people of the universe, about a year ago, we were asked to be interviewed for a documentary about Hillel Slovak. He was a founding member of the group, a great guitarist, and friend.

"We agreed to be interviewed out of love and respect for Hillel and his memory.

"However, this documentary is now being advertised as a Red Hot Chili Peppers documentary, which it is not. We had nothing to do with it creatively. We have yet to make a Red Hot Chili Peppers documentary."

The band added that they hoped “it (the documentary) sparks interest in him and his work."

Slovak was the band’s guitarist during much of their early years, playing on their Freaky Stylee and The Uplift Mofo Party Plan albums (though not their self-titled debut, as he had temporarily left during its recording).

He participated in the infamous promotional shot around this time, which saw the band pose stark naked but for socks covering their male members – the moment many people around the world first became aware of the Chili Peppers - but died of a heroin overdose in June 1988.

Meanwhile, the film’s director Ben Feldman has put out his own statement, saying: "It’s a true honour to partner with Netflix to bring The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to a global audience.”

"At its heart, this is a deeply relatable story - about the friendships that shape our identities and the lasting power of the bonds forged in adolescence.

"What’s less relatable, of course, is that here those friends went on to create one of the greatest rock bands in history. I’m profoundly grateful to the band and to Hillel’s family for their trust and generosity, and to Netflix for helping bring this story to the world stage."

Other than the four current Chili Peppers and the band’s first drummer Jack Irons, the doc also interviews George Clinton and other figures close to the band during their early years. Fans don’t have long to wait to see it either – The Rise Of The Red Hot Chili Peppers drops on Netflix on March 26.

Flea has been part of one of the world’s biggest bands for over four decades, but one thing he has never done in all that time is a solo album.

That will change next year – the bass icon’s solo debut is in the works and the first single from it has been released this week. It's called A Plea. You can see the video below.

Don’t expect it to get heavy radio rotation though. It’s a seven-minute track, with plenty of bass (surprise!) which includes a three-minute intro before Flea’s spoken word vocals come in. And as you can hear, it’s seriously jazz.

The video – directed by Flea’s daughter Clara Balzary – is something else. For the long intro, the Chili Pepper indulges in a bit of mime artistry before indulging in some impressive dance moves. With his pink hair and bright yellow DUB T shirt, the 63-year-old looks very much the original rave grandad.

The bassist has also talked a bit about the lyrics. In a statement accompanying the single, Flea said: “(They tap into) yearning for a place beyond, a place of love, for me to speak my mind and be myself. I’m always just trying to be myself. I don’t care about the act of politics.

"I think there is a much more transcendent place above it where there’s discourse to be had that can actually help humanity, and actually help us all to live harmoniously and productively in a way that’s healthy for the world. There’s a place where we meet, and it’s love.”

Also featured on the single are Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker and percussionist Mauro Refosco, who’s best known for his work with David Byrne.

It’s not technically Flea's first solo release – that was a 2012 benefit EP for the Silverlake Conservatory Of Music. He has had a few extracurricular side projects in his time though – with Thom Yorke in Atoms For Peace and in Damon Albarn’s shortlived band Rocket Juice And The Moon. And over the years there have been plenty of guest slots on other people’s records by Alanis Morissette, Tom Waits, Jane’s Addiction and Patti Smith.

Students from Flea’s Silverlake Conservatory of Music have shown their appreciation of their school’s founder in the shape of an EP called Our Loving Tribute to Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It’s a four track release and was executive produced by the bassist himself, alongside Merck Mercuriadis, the founder of Hipgnosis Songs. The four Chili Peppers songs the kids cover are Subway To Venus, Sick Love, Hump de Bump and Soul To Squeeze.

The EP was attributed by the SCM All Stars, a collective of the top students at the school. As you can see below, the group performed their version of Hump de Bump on Good Day LA recently with a guesting Flea on trumpet.

Anyway, Flea sounded made up by the tribute, saying in a statement: “The kids! I’m so grateful that our music can be a vehicle for their spirits to fly. This is what music is for. I am so proud of them.”

Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis was impressed too saying, “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be tributized by.” (Is ‘tributized’ a word?)

“Student musicians are the best,” he added. “Let’s all take a listen to how they interpret these tunes. Thank you Flea and good work Merck.”

The Chili Peppers release is the third in a series of tribute EPs the Conservatory students have put out this year. They previously released Our Loving Tribute to The Pretenders in May and Our Loving Tribute to Neil Young in July.

Flea founded the Conservatory way back in 2001 with sometime Chilis member Keith ‘Tree’ Barry. The bassist has maintained close links with the school since – he released his first solo EP via the Conservatory’s website in 2012 and the Chili Peppers played a charity event there in 2019 which turned out to be their final performance with guitarist Josh Klinghoffer.

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.

Funk rock pioneers Red Hot Chili Peppers have penned their fair share of stadium-conquering hits across the years, but Under The Bridge undoubtedly stands as their most impactful.

Initially written as a poem by singer Anthony Kiedis, it was producer Rick Rubin who found the lyrics in Kiedis’s notebook and convinced him to take it to the rest of the band.

What happened next would be a life-changing moment for the four members of the band, as well as early ’90s rock music in general.

Rubin, who had a front-row seat for the creative process, revealed it was “wild” to witness the birth of an international anthem.

“They’d never done a song like that before,” Rubin recalled in a 2024 interview with Rick Beato. “It was a poem that Anthony had written. I said, ‘What’s this one?’ and he said, ‘That’s not for the Chili Peppers’.

“I said, ‘It’s really beautiful, why would you say it’s not for the Chili Peppers?’ And he said, ‘That’s not what we do’.”

Thankfully, Rubin helped Kiedis appreciate the power in the words he’d written, and eventually persuaded him to take it to guitarist John Frusciante and then on to bassist Flea and drummer Chad Smith.

Kiedis’s initial hesitance came from the fact that his band were known for playing loud, uptempo party music. He struggled to see how such a soulful ballad could exist within the template of their collective sonic vision.

“Historically, they were a band that played funk music with rap vocals,” Rubin explained to Beato. “That was the Chili Peppers sound.

“I said, ‘What about singing it to the other guys?’ and he was shy about it. He sang it for John, who came up with the guitar part. John and Anthony sang it to Flea and Chad who said they loved it, and it became a Chili Peppers song.”

It was a pivotal moment in the group’s evolution.

Rubin continued: “Because of that, it then broke open the frame of what the Chili Peppers were. They could be anything. Knowing that they were more than a sound, if the four of them liked what they were making, that’s what the Chili Peppers are.”

The lyrics in Under The Bridge explore Kiedis’s years as a heroin addict, documenting the loneliness and isolation that came with addiction.

And though he’s never disclosed which bridge it was that he frequented, the song’s title refers to the place he would visit to score drugs and get high.

With tensions between Frusciante and Kiedis escalating one day at rehearsal, the singer found himself driving home on the 101 Freeway and feeling triggered by memories of his past, having turned his life around by this stage.

As revealed in his 2004 autobiography Scar Tissue, Kiedis recalled a time when he “had this beautiful angel of a girl [Ione Skye] who was willing to give me all of her love, and instead of embracing that, I was downtown with fucking gangsters shooting speedballs under a bridge.”

He decided to channel those feelings into creativity and ended up singing the song’s main melody all the way home. When he got back, he immortalised the words in his notebook as a way to deal with all the lingering trauma and anguish.

Under The Bridge also deals with the singer’s relationship with Los Angeles – the so-called City Of Angeles that his family relocated to when he was 12 years old.

“It really repulses me these days,” he told Goldmine in 1996. “Just sucking in that toxic cloud of hellish smog every day that I live… not a pleasant thought. But I do have a strong family tie to that city that I’ll probably never be able to sever.”

The accompanying parts written by John Frusciante are a great example of how guitar players can benefit from understanding the CAGED system, designed to help us memorise different shapes of the same chord across the neck.

It begins with a D chord played as a C shape with the root note on the fifth fret of the fifth string before resolving with an F# chord positioned around the second fret, using a classic E shape barre.

The embellishments on the fourth and fifth strings help guide one chord into the next.

An Emajor7 based around the seventh fret is then left to ring before we arrive at the first verse, which borrows heavily from the Jimi Hendrix rulebook – with its generous helping of G shape CAGED ideas, mini melodies inside certain chords and his thumb fretting root notes in places.

The same Emajor7 chord takes us into the chorus, which Frusciante starts on the second beat of the bar with an F#min chord on the ninth fret, leading into an E chord two frets down and an upper register B chord using the D shape from the CAGED system.

He chose to include a lot of rakes and scratches to add motion to his part, so even where there was no chord being played or left ringing, the Strat-wielding guitarist was still contributing some musical information to the choruses and filling space.

As for the outro section, Frusciante uses an E shape triad on the second, third and fourth strings with the first string ringing, going from A to Amin and then G to F. The idea is simple but incredibly powerful.

Released as the second single from the Blood Sugar Sex Magik album, Under The Bridge performed well across the world, topping the singles charts in Australia, Belgium, Mexico and the Netherlands.

In 1998, British pop group All Saints released an uptempo cover of the song reworked into an R&B style, resulting in their second No.1 single on home soil.

The song was also covered by Carlos Santana in 2010, with the Mexican-American guitarist adding some fiery A minor blues not heard on the original.

All these years later, Under The Bridge remains not only one of the definitive songs of the ’90s, but arguably one of the greatest rock ballads ever recorded.

Is AI ruining music as we know it? Is it gradually destroying musicians’ livelihoods? Or is it essential harmless and doing nothing worse than filling the Internet up with time-wasting gunk?

Perhaps it’s time we took a more nuanced view of it. That seems to be the message of a new TED talk that’s been given by Dustin Ballard, the creator of There I Ruined It, the YouTube channel that has regularly used AI to, in its own tagline, “lovingly destroy your favourite records.”

Ballard makes the argument that AI is simply another tool for musicians and draws comparisons with other technological breakthroughs over the last century – the advent of sampling in the 1980s, the launch of the synthesizer in the late 1960s, even the invention of the phonograph (that’s a record player, kids).

Indeed he plucks out a revealing quote from the 19th century composer of military marches, John Philip Sousa, who described recorded music as “a substitute for human skill, intelligence and soul. [Phonographs] reduce the expression of music to a mathematical system.”

In the talk Ballard provides a number of examples of how he has used AI – getting an AI version of 1950s country singer Conway Twitty to ‘sing’ 50 Cent’s In Da Club and the Red Hot Chili Peppers shopping list in which ‘Antony Kiedis’ appears to be rattling off grocery items as the band plays Can’t Stop behind him.

All good fun, of course. But Ballard does say that he has three guardrails for how to use AI.

First of all - is it deceptive? Can people actually believe it is real? Secondly, is there artistic intent behind it? “If you’re one of those people who’s mass producing hundreds of AI songs and uploading them to Spotify, your intent is probably not artistic,” he suggests.

Then there’s the question of how musicians are affected. “Oftentimes the ‘victims’ of the songs that I create actually end up sharing those same songs on social media,” Ballard argues, before showing a baffled Snoop Dogg reacting to a mashup he’d made called The Bare Necessities Are Gin And Juice.

“There are ways to use AI that can actually increase human creativity,” Ballard concludes.

Anyway, food for thought. You can access Ballard’s talk on the TED website.

Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer has avoided jail time for vehicular manslaughter by accepting a plea deal.

Klinghoffer, who recently toured with Pearl Jam, accepted the deal to resolve the allegations that he accidentally struck and killed a pedestrian last year.

The guitarist was in court in Alhambra, California, yesterday, and entered a no-contest plea in the case. It was brought after the vehicle he was driving in March 2024 hit a 47-year-old pedestrian, Israel Sanchez whilst he was on a crossing. Allegedly, Klinghoffer was talking on the phone whilst driving. Sanchez subsequently died in hospital from his injuries. The cause of death was ‘blunt force trauma’.

The no-contest plea means that Klinghoffer has accepted the conviction but does not plead or admit guilt. He was sentenced to 60 hours of community service and a year of probation, and also has to attend a driver safety class.

During the proceedings Klinghoffer was warned by the prosecutor about his future conduct: "If you continue to drive while distracted, and as a result of your driving someone is killed, you can be charged with murder."

Addressing Klinghoffer, Sanchez’s daughter said his actions had caused her "deep and lasting trauma".

Klinghoffer played with the Chili Peppers between 2007 and 2019, before he was fired to make way for John Frusciante to return once more to the band. Since then, he’s worked with Pearl Jam, Iggy Pop, Jane’s Addiction and on his own Pluralone project.

The Fender Custom Shop has teamed up with John Frusciante to create a stunning replica of the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist’s battle-scarred and much loved 1962 Stratocaster, recreating every “ding and dent” of the original on its 3-Color Sunburst finish.

Designed and put together by Master Builder Paul Weller, this limited edition signature guitar is the Custom Shop showing off, honouring one of Fender’s most high-profile Strat icons on the model’s 70th anniversary.

There are several headline items here, not least that finish. No matter where you stand on the business of relic’d guitars, the job that has been done on this one is uncanny; it would be fascinating to see if Frusciante or his bandmates could tell the difference. Weller says a “ton of work” went into this high-end replica.

“Frusciantes’ Strat is right up there with the most iconic Fenders of all time,” he says. “Being able to work on his first-ever signature model was a true privilege. Recreating this instrument’s many beautiful imperfections was no easy feat, but behind every ding and dent is a story and it’s our job to make sure that this guitar’s narrative is told in full, stunning detail.”

The Strat features a two-piece alder body that will grab all the focus when it comes to the pictures but we would bet good money that it will be the neck that will live long in any guitarist’s mind who is lucky enough to play this. Setting aside Frusciante’s wear and tear, this is first and foremost a 2024 replica of a 1962 Strat, which in many Strat fancier’s opinion was the model’s golden year.

As such, the neck has fashioned from rift-sawn maple and shaped into an early ‘60s style Oval “C” shape. This is topped with a 7.25” radius slab-style fingerboard of AAA rosewood fingerboard, inlaid with white dots and featuring 21 narrow-tall frets. Waller says it is a delight.

“The whole team is tremendously proud of how this thing plays,” he says. “The neck has that singular worn in quality that is usually only attainable with a pre-owned vintage guitar and the Abby hand-wound pickups really speak to Frusciante’s expressive, crystalline tone.”

The electric guitar pickups Waller speaks of are a ‘60s Strat single-coil set that has been hand-wound by the “Queen of Tone” Abigail Ybarra, who first started working at Fender in 1956. According to this 2017 interview with She Shreds, Ybarra retired in 2013. It’s hard to see how you could get a more vintage-accurate ‘60s pickup than getting the guru who made them the first time around to make them.

This trio of single-coils is wired to a five-way switch – so it’s not exactly just as a ’62 Strat would be configured – and there is also an Ilitch Electronics hum-cancelling system in the circuit so that you can go bananas with your pedalboard without the background noise.

Elsewhere, there are vintage-style tuners and synchronized tremolo, a bone nut, a wing string tree with metal spacer. Inside the guitar case you will find a COA. The Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt John Frusciante Stratocaster is priced $20,000.

Hmm... We might just have to wait and see if Fender release a Mexican-built version like they did with Mike McCready’s Strat. For more details, head over to the Fender Custom Shop.

Flea has named the person he thinks is the "greatest rock bass player", and some might see it as a slightly surprising choice for a man whose name is most closely associated with funk and out-and-out rock.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers man appeared on Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson’s podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name (I wonder where they got the inspiration for that title from?) and he got talking about Paul McCartney, whose bass playing skills are often overshadowed by his songwriting and the immense weight of his achievements whilst part of the Beatles.

“I think Paul’s the greatest rock bass player,” Flea said. “He’s just great. I mean, there are so many guys that are great in different ways, but Paul’s bass playing is so lyrical and melodic, and it’s just so beautiful. One of the things I’ve heard is that he put the bass on after. A band like mine, the bass sometimes the song starts with basslines, so coming first, or the music comes first.”

He continued: “Whereas I think Paul and John and George when they wrote songs and Paul would do the bass. And after multitracking came in, at the beginning of them, they just went and played live and would do it after, like ‘Sgt Pepper’s, the melody is already there. So then he’s doing, like a counter melody, so the bass is like a melody as opposed to just rhythm, and that’s amazing. He’s amazing.”

Separately, Flea took to Twitter/X and a propos of nothing named his favourite female rock singer in a single sentence: “Chrissie Hynde is the greatest female rock singer of all time.”

The Chili Peppers played to their biggest ever audience on Sunday night when they were part of the Olympics closing ceremony. Their 2002 hit By The Way was heard as Tom Cruise took the Olympic flag from the Stade De France and was seen roaring through the streets of Paris on his motorbike. Then, when the flag – through the magic of television – appeared in Los Angeles seconds later, the action moved to a live gig at Venice Beach where the band played Can’t Stop before handing over to fellow Los Angeles artists Billie Eilish and Snoop Dogg.

Details have leaked about the Olympics Closing ceremony this coming Sunday. Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are all expected to perform as the Games officially hands over from Paris to Los Angeles where it will be held in Summer 2028.

A Variety article reports that the ceremony will be a mixture of live and pre-taped performances. Eilish, Snoop and the Chili Peppers will apparently perform their parts from LA. The location for the concert is being kept secret for the moment, in the light of the cancellation this week of Taylor Swift’s Vienna dates because of a terrorist threat. Representatives of the Olympics and the artists concerned have so far declined to comment.

You can see why the organisers chose the three acts – each in their own way is emblematic of LA. Eilish is an LA native whose 2021 concert film was entitled Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter To Los Angeles; Snoop is synonymous with West Coast hip-hop; and the Chili Peppers have hymned their home state and the City of Angels on many occasions during their long career.

Snoop, of course, has already been a memorable part of the Paris Olympics. He’s been over in Europe as NBC’s Special Correspondent, and has been seen at many of the events in an array of, er interesting outfits, cheering on Team USA and doing what he does best: being Snoop Dogg.

It has already been trailed that actor Tom Cruise will have a big part to play in the Closing Ceremony. The Mission Impossible star will apparently descend from the top of the Stade de France on a rope. This live broadcast will then be cut with pre-recorded footage of him careering through Paris on a motorbike, before he ‘magically’ reappears in LA and parachutes down from the iconic Hollywood sign. All in a day’s work for an action hero.

Rolling Stone, meanwhile, reports that H.E.R. will sing the US National Anthem.

Other than that, more than 100 performers will take part in the final spectacle. Musical performances, an original soundtrack and acrobats will all be a feature to take spectators on "a journey through time, both past and future." 

There will be more, of course. These things are generally long-drawn affairs. You may recall that the London Closing Ceremony in 2012, which featured an array of musical artists from Ray Davies to the Spice Girls, from Fatboy Slim to the Pet Shop Boys, went on for nearly three hours.

Ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer is in deep trouble. He’s being sued for wrongful death and negligence, after his car hit and killed a pedestrian earlier this year.

The incident happened in March when 47-year-old Israel Sanchez died after being hit crossing the road in Alhambra, east of Los Angeles. The suit was taken out on Wednesday by Sanchez’s daughter Ashley.

The plaintiff alleges that Klinghoffer was driving a black SUV with no license plates and turned left at an intersection with a marked crossing area. Video footage that the plaintiff has submitted shows a black car hitting a man whilst it is turning. The car then pulls over. It is also alleged that Klinghoffer was on his cellphone whilst he was driving and indeed the footage shows the driver holding an object above the steering wheel.

Sanchez suffered force trauma to his head and died of his injuries in hospital later.

“My dad was known for being a great chef, the most talented of his family, the greatest grandpa always full of love and joy,” Ashley Sanchez said in a press release. “His smile was so infectious. His life was taken by a careless act of a person who didn’t bother to look where he was driving.”

For his part, Klinghoffer’s attorney, Andrew Brettler has called the incident “a tragic accident.”

He told NBC news: “After the car struck the pedestrian, Josh immediately pulled over, stopped the vehicle, called 911, and waited until police and the ambulance arrived. He is fully cooperating with the traffic investigation.”

As yet no arrests have been made and Alhambra Police spokesperson Sgt Brian Chung said that as the case is still active he could make no further comment.

Klinghoffer has had a long career spent in or around the centre of LA’s music scene. He spent a decade in the Chili Peppers, joining in 2009 and remaining until 2019 when John Frusciante rejoined. 

At the time he later admitted in an interview with Sirius XM that he was “surprised” by his ejection, though “grateful for all these incredible experiences I’ve had with them for the last ten years.”

He’s played with Pearl Jam – with whom he’s currently on tour – as well as Warpaint, Jane’s Addiction and the Butthole Surfers. He’s also played on records by figures as varied as Iggy Pop, Morrissey, Gnarls Barkley and Cate Le Bon.

As yet, Klinghoffer has made no comment about the case.

Nickelback have 'won' out as America’s leading ‘dad rock’ band in a trolly new survey.

'Geek merchandise’ firm Merchoid asked 3000 people one simple question: ‘Which band truly epitomises dad rock today?’ Over 26% of respondents voted for the Canadians, over twice as many as their nearest rivals, Van Halen and Blink 182 who were on 12% each.

Yes, that’s Blink 182, the pop punkers who used to sing about zits and teenage angst. They’re now a ‘dad rock’ band. I know…

Chad Kroeger’s crew also topped the chart for the ‘Ultimate Dad Rock Song’, with their 2001 hit How You Remind Me beating Van Halen’s Jump, Under The Bridge, Smells Like Teen Spirit and Sweet Child O’ Mine. Limp Bizkit’s Break Stuff and What’s My Age Again by Blink 182 also made the top ten.

If nothing else, the survey reveals the changing nature of male musical taste. Back in the 1970s dads, if they listened to anything at all, went for Perry Como and Sinatra. In the 1980s the face of dad rock, at least in the UK, was Chris Rea. Now the list encompasses acts like Linkin Park, Nirvana and Limp Bizkit and perhaps more predictably, Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses.

The survey also shows where in the US these acts are most popular. As you’d expect Red Hot Chili Peppers were top of the, ahem, pops in their home state of California. But interestingly, middle-class Brits Coldplay won out in South Dakota of all places. Nickelback are seemingly big wherever you go in the States.

If a similar survey was to be compiled in the UK it’s a fair bet that many of those punk pop bands would be replaced by the likes of Oasis, Blur, Travis and the king of British dad rock, Paul Weller.

The survey also threw up some interesting stats. Over 57% thought that music today is worse than it was in the past, with only 3% thinking it’s better. 40% believe that today’s songs are just as good as the classics.

As for the phrase ‘grandad rock’, 86% of respondents associated it with the 1960s, whereas only 6% linked it to the grunge era. Over 41% feel that you 'become out of touch with modern music by the age of 35', whilst 30% said you 'never get out of touch'.

For more information on the survey go to www.merchoid.com  

Brendan O'Brien's CV as a producer, engineer and mixer reads as a who's-who of rock in the last 30 years. He's a crucial figure in the discographies of Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Stone Temple Pilots and Red Hot Chili Peppers especially, and engineered the latter's masterpiece, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Until now he's rarely spoken about any of his work. But Rick Beato has put that right. 

In a rare in-depth three-hour interview with the YouTuber, O'Brien dug into his remarkable history working with artists in studios around the US. And we got some revelations; including what is really going on in the iconic John Frusciante intro for RHCP's Under The Bridge. 

Rick Rubin is credited as the producer of the 1991 album, and requested O'Brien as engineer for the sessions with Frusciante, Anthony Kiedis, Flea and Chad Smith.  "This is the way I've always worked," explains O'Brien of his role. "When you're in a studio making records, and things are different in different situations, but when you're a producer with an engineer, in my mind the engineer kind of runs the sessions. They handle the assistants, they handle the organisation and everything… I've got to deal with the artist, and sometimes be the dream crusher – that's part of your job sometimes."

O'Brien had worked on the Black Crowes' Shake Your Money Maker but wasn't yet a big name in engineer circles when he walked into The Mansion in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles that was formerly rented by Harry Houdini (and is now owned by Rubin). In fact, Rubin had neglected to even introduce O'Brien to the Chili Peppers beforehand.

As a results, in addition to the undertaking of bringing a working studio setup into a house, there were personal challenges to overcome. 

"It started off a little nervous because Rick was not always great at introducing people," O'Brien remembers. "I literally showed up on the first day and [they're asking], 'Where's Rick?' – 'He'll be here when it's ready, we've got to get this all working first.'

"An intro would have been nice. So they kind of hated me right away – not Flea and Chad, but John and Anthony didn't like me right away. I won them over soon, but it took a minute."

Things soon turned around, and the sessions ended up being "fun". They worked with the layout of the house; cabs were mic'd downstairs with amps upstairs, but when it came to adding an intro onto Under The Bridge after it had been recorded, Frusiante's tone was different enough that it had players wondering for years. It turns out it was an acoustic guitar compression setup, but for the guitarist's 1966 Jaguar.

 "I think his rig was maybe a 57 and maybe a mic a little further away," O'Brien says of the setup for most of the Blood Sugar sessions. "It wasn't anything complicated. I would tell anybody that great guitar tones are the player. You can have a great rig and everything miked up a special way… if the guitar player's got no tone, it's not going to sound very good. 

"You can just throw a 57 or any kind of mic that works in front of a good amp, with a good player and a little EQ – it's going to sound great."

It became clear to O'Brien early on that he was dealing with a gifted guitarist with John Frusciante, but the Under The Bridge intro required a different setup. 

"We'd done the song already, that intro was done later," explains O'Brien. "And there's an edit there, and I can't remember how I did the edit. But I remember it was John or one of the other guys said, 'We've got this intro we want to put on this song'. We'd already done the song, and he wants to play it free hand – there's no time code."

The workaround was O'Brien had Frusciante play and let the first chord of the song's verse ring out to sustain at the end of the intro and join the new and existing track. "Then we went back on the original tape, on the same track we did it on and I said, 'Play the last two chords into it so the cut works', and it worked.

The notable compression on this clean intro came about for a very specific reason - it was something being used elsewhere, but setup for acoustic guitar at the time. "We had this little setup that ended up working for everything – I don't know why, and it became kind of a thing," recalls O'Brien. "It was a [Neumann U] 87 and it went through one of the Neves and an LA-2A [Teletronix compressor] and I would rarely touch it. He had, it might have been a little Music Man amp or a little Fender that he played it on and we put that in front of it.

"It's overcompressed because it had been set up for an acoustic guitar."

The core is Frusciante's performance though. "I remember being super-impressed with him," says O'Brien. "I didn't really know anything about them beforehand… I didn't have any history with them. But one of the first things we did, the first couple of days we worked [I thought], that guy knows his parts, they sound great. He seems kind of all over the place but this thing [his guitar] is spot on. He was eight them with Flea. Those three guys together – and Anthony too. That was one of the first times he was really singing more than rapping, and he's fearless."

Check out the full interview above where Brendan O'Brien talks producing Pearl Jam, Springsteen, engineering The Black Crowes and mixing Soundgarden's Superunknown.

In this episode of our signature artist chords series we're focussing on a player whose inventive approaches to rhythm work are sometimes overlooked, and we're delighted to see John Frusciante bringing that creativity back with the Red Hot Chili Peppers following his return to the band in 2019. 

G

John Frusciante’s chord style is heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix and one of the features of his playing is thumbing the 6th string root note. One cool benefit of this is that it frees up the fourth finger, which you can use to add melodic notes on the highest three strings.

Am add9

Here is a minor alternative to a thumbed root note chord. Here the fourth finger is adding a 9th interval to the Am triad, but you can experiment by moving that note to other tones in the minor pentatonic or Dorian mode.

E9

Also known as the James Brown chord, this funky shape brings to mind percussive playing in songs such as Suck My Kiss or By The Way. Experiment with changing the pressure on the strings to alternate between percussive mutes and the full chord.

Dmaj7

The Maj7 is a warm, rich sounding chord which crops up in Under The Bridge. Adding the Major 7 interval to the Major triad evokes classy jazz vibes. Make sure each note rings clean by keeping your fingers arched and out of the way of the adjacent string.

Four John Mayer chords to try 

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!  

After a decade in the band, Red Hot Chili Peppers asking Josh Klinghoffer to move aside for the return of John Frusciante must have been a bitter pill to swallow. Kilinghoffer bounced back with stints in Eddie Vedder's solo band (alongside Chad Smith) as well as Pearl Jam's touring lineup, but he's now weighed in with his thoughts on what RHCP did without him.

The multi-instrumentalist confirmed to Brazilian podcast 5 Notas (via Exclaim) that he'd heard both double albums Red Hot Chili Peppers released with John Frusciante in 2022, and he was underwhelmed.

"I had to listen to the new albums… because I was hearing little things about them," Klinghoffer admitted when asked if he'd heard Love Unlimted and Songs From The Dream Canteen.

By his own admission, Klinghoffer didn't finish listening to the latter. "I don't think I finished the second one," he said. "I was trying to cram it in once before leaving on a plane, and I got as far as maybe the ninth song, and I don't think I listened to the rest."

But by that point, he may well have heard enough.

"It's tough, only because I honestly think we were doing cooler music," he told 5 Notas, in reference to the new music he was working on with the band when he was asked to leave to make way for Frusciante's return. "I would love for it to have been finished. I never want to sound negative about anyone doing music," Klinghoffer added, "but I was shocked when I heard their new record."

Nevertheless, Klinghoffer is open to collaborating with his old (former?) friend Frusciante again, like they did in the early 00s. 

"Many times I've envisioned one day, even if we don't talk much during the process, I feel like it would be fun to play some of those songs again," Klinghoffer hoped "Or play them live – we never played them live."

"We don't talk much these days," Klinghoffer admitted. "But I've always maintained that I still have an enormous love for him. He's one of my favourite musicians; one of my favourite writers. I'm not against the idea."

Hear Klinghoffer's comments about his former band for yourself in the video below – they come at around the 23-minute mark. 

• Classic interview: John Frusciante – "The only album I remember feeling totally and completely confident on 100 per cent was By The Way, and I wasn’t actually challenging myself on that album"

What is a record producer? You will get a different answer according to who you ask, but it's clear Rick Rubin is on the arrangement side of the role – sometimes moving in and out of a band's studio sessions to offer his insight into song structure before an artist even gets to the stage of soundscaping. And it looks like that side of Rubin's talents affected a young John Frusciante's guitar playing in profound way. 

"It really comes from trying to figure out what I can do that makes Flea and Chad sound as good as they can," Frusciante tells Guitar Player in its new cover story of his often minimal approach to parts in songs such as Eddie and Shoot Me A Smile from current album Return Of The Dream Canteen, as well as classics such as Scar Tissue, Californication and Otherside from the very late '90s.

”Back in the time of [1989 album] Mother’s Milk, I was trying to fill up more space and it just sounded too busy," Frusciante says of the origins of the shift to the sparser approach he applies to some Red Hot Chili Peppers songs. 

"It wasn’t as busy as Flea, but Flea has a way of being busy on the bass that never sounds too busy. It always sounds like he’s doing what he’s doing in support of the song. I felt after making that record that I wasn’t supporting the songs and my bandmates as well as I could have."

That shift began on the follow-up record, when Rubin entered as producer and the results gave the band a global breakthrough.

"Another thing there was that Rick Rubin, when he started producing us at the Blood Sugar time, he kept adding ideas to the arrangements," explains Frusciante. "Like, 'Have no guitar for the first verse,' or, 'Have no bass for the second verse.' He came from this hip-hop experience, so he was essentially muting the instruments in certain sections. 

That was inspiring for me, because I was already going in the direction of playing less and seeing how much better that made the band sound as a whole. So I just got to a point where I really saw the musical value of space of all types, whether it’s the distance between one point in the bar line and another point in the bar line, or the distance between two sounds, in terms of using wide intervals or creating a chord out of me playing one note on my guitar and Flea playing one note on his bass. It just seemed to make the band feel more whole. And to be honest, the other guys liked it when I started playing that way, and I felt supported."

Frusciante also elaborates on how he uses intervals in his dynamic with Flea so effectively.

"I think a lot of people play guitar a certain way, and it may be because they’re just playing with bass players who play simple root-note bass lines. But because Flea plays in such an interesting way, I think of intervals not only as the relationship between two notes on my instrument but as the relationship between what I’m doing and what he’s doing.

Take something like the intro to By The Way or the verses of Otherside: I’m not thinking of my guitar as the centre of it; I’m thinking of my guitar as a portion of it. I’m thinking of the pitch of Flea’s bass line and the pitch of my guitar. If Flea’s playing a note and I’m playing a note, we’ve got a two-note chord right there. And the interval is the space between that. 

"So then it’s like, 'How can I move in a way that’s different from how he’s moving?' If he goes down, maybe I go up. And we start creating different little harmony things where we imply chords without either of us playing the whole chord, that kind of thing. Or there’s things like Scar Tissue, where I’m doing those wide, two-note intervals on my own, but I’m really thinking of it as two separate parts."

• Check out the full Frusciante cover interview in the new issue of Guitar Player magazine – on sale now here.

Classic interview: John Frusciante – "The only album I remember feeling totally and completely confident on 100 per cent was By The Way, and I wasn’t actually challenging myself on that album"

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have history with the Seattle scene – they were instrumental in Eddie Vedder making contact with the fledgling Pearl Jam, and played with Nirvana back in the day. So why has it taken this long to hear them covering one of the grunge giants? Well here they are now to entertain us…

Footage is emerging (via YouTube and Chad Smith's Instagram stories) of the band covering Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit at a benefit show for the Silverlake Observatory Of Music in California as a set closer – and it's a full bore, though short verse and chorus, rendition with Anthony Kiedis (with a t-shirt pulled over his head) taking the verse and bridge while John Frusciante takes the chorus.  

Frusciante opts for his ever-present 1962 Sunburst Strat, and engages what we assume to be his Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble pedal. 

Come on guys, let's have a full version next time! 

Classic interview: John Frusciante – "The only album I remember feeling totally and completely confident on 100 per cent was By The Way, and I wasn’t actually challenging myself on that album

When it was announced in 2009 that John Frusciante was once again exiting the Red Hot Chili Peppers, fans had potential call for concern. After all, the first time Frusciante left the group in ’92, it resulted in the then-longest delay between studio albums for the group, as well as several guitarists coming and going, before the band formed a one-off album union with guitarist Dave Navarro and made the most controversial album of their career, 1995’s One Hot Minute.

But doubters’ fears were silenced But doubters’ fears were silenced when the band’s first album with guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, 2011’s I’m With You, dropped. Lead-off track, Monarchy Of Roses, juxtaposes one of the most tribal grooves the Chilis have ever committed to record with a ‘sunny’ disco complexion. 

The verse has a real gritty Iommi sound, with the ascending minor 3rd calling up Iron Man then ringing on the b5, just like Black Sabbath, while Josh uses partial chords and 16th note rhythms for the light, bright disco chorus, which is pure Nile Rodgers. So how do you go from Black Sabbath to Chic? According to Klinghoffer, the contrasting parts were planned ahead of time.

“That song is the only song that really was born out of a conversation rather than anything to do with music or musical instruments,” Josh told Total Guitar in 2012. “Flea and I – before I started playing with the band – got in the habit of going on morning hikes in the summer of ’09, and just talking and getting to know each other more. Although we’ve known each other for 10-plus years, we hadn’t really spent any concentrated time together. 

"So we were just hanging out more, talking about music, and we thought it would be a great juxtaposition to have a sort of Sabbath-y riff, a really heavy ‘dun-duh-duh-dun’ kind of thing, and then break into a joyous disco chorus. So we talked about that, and kept that model in our minds when we got into the writing room. Monarchy Of Roses was the result.”

It was a good start, but the song went through a transformation between its original structure and the version that ended up on the album. “[Producer] Rick Rubin was really involved in the arranging process with the Chili Peppers, so he and Anthony [Kiedis] helped edit it down to a nice, concise pop-length and form,” Josh told Total Guitar. “That’s an example of band members and writers of the song hearing it differently. 

"I always heard it more how it wound up being, and the ‘dun-duh-duh-dun’ Sabbath-y part being the verse. But Anthony never really heard it that way. He always heard it as a really sparse musical intro kind of thing. It took him a minute, and then he came up with the melody for that a little later… It took a little back and forth, tug of war with that, but with Rick Rubin’s help, it made it as it is now – and everyone loves that song.”

Despite Josh being “the new guy on the block”, the band made it quite clear that they had full trust in their new guitarist’s playing and songwriting skills during the song’s creation.

“We were looking for the very end of the song, the outro bridge, and Flea said, ‘I think Josh should write it right now!’ and he pointed at me. I just threw those chords out and didn’t think about it. That was a wonderful day at rehearsal, because it just showed me they have complete trust in me, and they respect my ear and my writing and my ability to hear a song. They’ll follow me if I have an idea or thought.”

There’s a similar theme to that opening feedback in the bridge, but while it’s a melody on record, Josh lets rip onstage, bashing his guitar and improvising another ‘noise’ section for the crowd.

Monarchy Of Roses doesn’t just demonstrate Josh’s guitar suitability to the Chilis, then, it also signifies a real connection with the band and their sound.

He concludes: “If you count backwards, like I said, to those conversations while we were hiking in California, it’s kind of the beginning of the I’m With You journey. It’s great that it starts the record.”

Josh Klinghoffer on Red Hot Chili Peppers: "I did a perfect 10 years with them, but for as much as I love those guys and loved playing with them, it was also enormously stifling creatively"

Josh Klinghoffer has been surprisingly revealing about his decade in Red Hot Chili Peppers in a new interview for the current issue of Guitar World. 

Klinghoffer was Josh Frusciante's collaborator on his solo albums and an additional musician on the Stadium Arcadium tour before taking over from Frusciante following his second departure from RHCP in 2009. He would record two studio albums during his decade with the band, before being asked to leave in 2019 when Frusciante returned. Klinghoffer revealed to Guitar World's Joe Bosso his time with the band was often creatively challenging.

“Obviously, it’s sad when something is taken from you,” Klinghoffer reflects on his parting with RHCP. “I did a perfect 10 years with them, but for as much as I love those guys and loved playing with them, it was also enormously stifling creatively. They’re an established band with an established sound, and I learned over time how little deviating from that was possible.”

When Bosso pushed Klinghoffer on what that meant in terms of guitar approach, the musician elaborated…

“When I first joined, I wouldn’t use certain chords when I was writing if they sounded like something John would play. Or if it sounded like a choice they would have made on their last album, I purposely went the other way.” 

But these efforts to explore new territories didn't always work out.

“I thought I was doing a good job of writing music with them, but it wound up not kind of becoming part of my story, or if it is part of my story with them, it’s a small part. As much as I thought they were up for experimentation, they generally stayed in their own lane."

Nevertheless, Klinghoffer looks back on his time with the band as "a blessing and a beautiful experience" and is obviously on good terms with RHCP Chad Smith drummer as they both toured as a part of Eddie Vedder's Earthlings solo band just recently.

He's now a touring member of Pearl Jam too and is enjoying the experience, musically and personally. "I’m honoured to say that these guys are my friend," Klinghoffer told Guitar World. 

The new issue of Guitar World can be purchased at Magazines Direct.

Eddie Vedder covers The Cure's Just Like Heaven with Chad Smith and Josh Klinghoffer 

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have shared the latest single from their forthcoming studio album, Return Of The Dream Canteen, and it was written to honour the memory of Eddie Van Halen.

Titled Eddie, the track came together the day after the guitar icon’s death, and while it does not mention him explicitly in the lyrics, it references his life and legacy, from creating an all-new sound and style for electric guitar, to creating a body of work with Van Halen that influences millions of players across generations.

“Sometimes we don’t realise how deeply affected and connected we are to artists until the day they die,” said RHCP frontman Anthony Kiedis. “Eddie Van Halen was a one of a kind.”

Kiedis said Eddie “effortlessly unfolded”, and it all coalesced around a bass guitar motif.

“The day after his death, Flea came into rehearsal with an emotional bassline,” Kiedis said. “John [Frusciante, guitar], Chad [Smith, drums] and I started playing along and pretty soon with all our hearts, a song in his honour effortlessly unfolded. It felt good to be sad and care so much about a person who had given so much to our lives. 

“Although the song doesn’t speak to Eddie by name, it talks about his early days on the Sunset Strip and the rock ’n’ roll tapestry that Van Halen painted on our minds. In the end, our song asks that you not remember Eddie for dying but for living his wildest dream.”

Eddie arrives a month after the release of Tippa My Tongue, the first single that accompanied the surprise announcement that the California stadium-rockers were releasing a second studio album in 2022, with the platinum-selling Unlimited Love being followed by Return Of The Dream Canteen on 14 October – an album the band describe as “everything we are and ever dreamed of being”.  

You can learn how to play Tippa My Tongue here, and take it as read that the return of John Frusciante on guitar has revitalised the band. Once they started jamming old songs, the groove returned and they started writing – one album turned into two, with long-time collaborator Rick Rubin returning to produce them.

“Once we found that slip stream of sound and vision, we just kept mining,” wrote the band in a statement. “With time turned into an elastic waist band of oversized underwear, we had no reason to stop writing and rocking. It felt like a dream. 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. Two double albums released back to back.”

Return Of The Dream Canteen is available to pre-order now, out 14 October via Warner Records.

In the video lesson below we’re learning how to play John Frusciante’s guitar parts to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ brand new single Tippa My Tongue, from their forthcoming album Return Of The Dream Canteen. But first, let's look at the tones and techniques you'll need.

Get the tone

When it comes to Frusciante's core guitar tone here, a Strat single-coil neck position is a huge part, Tippa My Tongue also features tremolo bar dips in the first solo. 

Your guitar amp should be set just on the very edge of break up, and from there this is a great example of how to tastefully stack gain stages. 

The main rhythm part should sound almost clean when playing the single notes, but it breaks up a bit more when strumming chords. I’m using the Zvex Box of Rock but you can use any overdrive pedal that will give you a light boost to add a touch of gain/body. Even some compression pedals can get you there. 

I hear a slight slapback delay throughout so I’m using the GFI System Orca Delay with the repeats set to about 100ms and the delay mix level pulled back, really makes a difference. Then in the chorus you need to up the gain again, so next in the chain would be a medium overdrive pedal on top – in the video I’ve used the Funny Little Boxes 1991, but another option would be the Boss DS2 Turbo. 

For the last solo just add on any Big Muff-style fuzz pedal to the base rhythm tone, I’ve plumped for the Jam Pedals Red Muck. 

Technique tips 

Tippa My Tongue is in standard tuning and the intro has a nod to the dynamics used in Can’t Stop, so make sure to put some feel into those 16th notes by playing some quieter than others. 

The main riff has a bunch of different funky fills (you can noodle about in C Blues over this), but John tends to add in percussive parts that aren’t clear in the album mix. He’s also strumming away in the video so I’m going to hazard a guess that’s what he’s doing here. They’ll also help you stay locked into the groove. The end of the verse has some gorgeous chord extensions over Flea’s G#-F-A# line. 

Play the chorus part with some light palm muting and a relaxed feel in your right hand, John likely plays the G# to A# chords with his thumb over the top, which also makes it easier to hit any fills. 

The solo is short and sweet, and the trickiest part is in the second bar with a full bend and using the tremolo arm to do a couple of dips that resolves into a tasty little triplet lick. Have fun! 

Learn to play Smashing Pumpkins song Mayonaise from their classic album Siamese Dream

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.

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea has saluted the return of John Frusciante, describing the prodigal guitarist as having a “profound impact” on all aspects of the Chili Peppers’ sound.

With the Californian rock institution having recently shared new single Black Summer as they prepare to release their long-awaited 12th studio album, Unlimited Love, on 1 April 2022, Flea spoke to K-ROQ’s Kevan Kenney about the impact of Frusciante’s return, and how it has revitalised the band and allowed them to tap into rich seam of creativity.

“John Frusciante has a profound impact on everything that we do, and even when we wasn’t in the band he had a profound impact on everything that we do,” said Flea. “He is just the most focused, dedicated, tapped-in musician who’s able to muster this diligence and focus about doing what he does consistently, that just uplifts us. 

“Really, the big thing is that we all speak the same language, and when he is in the band we are able to communicate with each other without speaking and create a lot of music in a really fluid way.”

Unlimited Love is the first album to feature Frusciante since 2006’s Stadium Arcadium. Frusciante was replaced in 2009 by Josh Klinghoffer and returned exactly 10 years to the date. Flea reveals that those first rehearsals with Frusciante were all about having fun and jamming on cover songs.

“The day of our first rehearsal was – wildly – exactly 10 years from the day he announced he was leaving the band,” said Flea. “Instead of just getting back into trying to write songs right away, or going to play old Chili Peppers songs to get in the groove, it was fun to just play covers, to do it in a real gentle and easy way, to just have fun, play songs from bands that you love – and it was more to loosely get back into what we were doing without feeling like we had to go to work.”

• Learn 4 John Frusciante Red Hot Chili Peppers guitar chords

Then the ideas came, and they just kept coming. Produced by Rick Rubin, Unlimited Love is a considerable piece of work, featuring 17 tracks, each sharing credits between Flea, Frusciante, drummer Chad Smith and vocalist Anthony Kiedis.

“We started writing and when we opened that tap it just didn’t stop,” continued Flea. “We wrote so much music, man. We have a lot of songs we recorded and our hearts are in every one of them.”

Speaking to the NME, Flea said letting Klinghoffer go was “emotionally difficult.” Klinghoffer had played on two studio albums, 2011’s I’m With You and 2016’s The Getaway, and his talent with an electric guitar is beyond question, but the creative chemistry between Frusciante and the band was too good to pass up.

“Not only was he a great musician, he was also a thoughtful, supportive team-player – a communally-minded, kind and intelligent person,” said Flea. “But artistically, in terms of being able to speak the same [musical] language, it was easier working with John.”

Klinghoffer has since joined Pearl Jam as a touring guitarist, and will feature on Eddie Vedder’s forthcoming solo album. i beyond question, but the creative chemistry between Frusciante and the band was too good to pass up.

Unlimited Love is out on 1 April through Warner, and is available to preorder now.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are officially back with new song Black Summer, ahead of the album Unlimited Love, that will follow on 1 April. It's their first studio album with John Frusciante since 2006's Stadium Arcadium. 

The clip of John Frusciante's guitar part that the band posted earlier this week is indeed from the song and serves as its intro, shifting into the chords of the verse. 

The Californians are withholding the funk for now, and Keidis even takes a folk kilter with his vocals on the verses (is that an Irish accent in the beginning?) before an anthemic chorus that could have easily fitted on Frusciante's last album with the band. Strat tones abound with the guitarist delivering a fuzz-soaked solo break at 1:52.

“Our only goal is to get lost in the music,” say the band in a statement. “We (John, Anthony, Chad and Flea) spent thousands of hours, collectively and individually, honing our craft and showing up for one another, to make the best album we could. 

"Our antennae attuned to the divine cosmos, we were just so damn grateful for the opportunity to be in a room together, and, once again, try to get better. Days, weeks and months spent listening to each other, composing, jamming freely, and arranging the fruit of those jams with great care and purpose. The sounds, rhythms, vibrations, words and melodies had us enrapt.

"We yearn to shine a light in the world, to uplift, connect, and bring people together. Each of the songs on our new album Unlimited Love, is a facet of us, reflecting our view of the universe. 

"This is our life’s mission. We work, focus, and prepare, so that when the biggest wave comes, we are ready to ride it. The ocean has gifted us a mighty wave and this record is the ride that is the sum of our lives. Thank you for listening, we hope you enjoy it."

John Frusciante added that the band had begun the process of the reunion after a decade of him out of the band by playing covers of songs they loved. 

“When we started writing material, we began by playing old songs by people like Johnny “Guitar” Watson, The Kinks, The New York Dolls, Richard Barrett and others," adds Frusciante. “Ever so gradually, we started bringing in new ideas, and turning jams into songs, and after a couple of months the new stuff was all we were playing. 

“The feeling of effortless fun we had when we were playing songs by other people stayed with us the whole time we were writing, and for me, this record represents our love for, and faith in each other."

Unlimited Love tracklisting 

1. Black Summer
2. Here Ever After
3. Aquatic Mouth Dance
4. Not The One
5. Poster Child
6. The Great Apes
7. It's Only Natural
8. She's A Lover
9. These Are The Ways
10. Whatchu Thinkin'
11. Bastards Of Light
12. White Braids & Pillow Chair
13. One Way Traffic
14. Veronica
15. Let 'Em Cry
16. The Heavy Wing
17. Tangelo

Preorder Unlimited Love

BEST OF 2021: Rick Rubin has deep history with a number of legendary musical acts and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are arguably top of that list. So it isn't a surprise to find out he had a front row seat to the band's reunion with guitarist John Frusciante in late 2019. Even so, it sounds like the guitarist's return still affected him deeply.

The legendary producer / songwriting coach / bearded musical sage was the guest on the 800th episode of Chri Jericho's Talk Is Jericho podcast, and he had some tasty tea to spill on the band's comeback album with Frusciante too. 

"We're finishing their new album right now actually," Rubin revealed to Jericho. "Frusciante's back in the band and it's unbelievable."I went to the first rehearsal, that I was invited to after John rejoined the band and it made me cry. It was so thrilling to see that group of people back together because they made such great music for so long together and it really hit me in an emotional way."

Rubin also elaborated a little on his working dynamic with the LA band.

"With the Peppers we talk about songs. They have really good habits in that they write lots of songs which is something I think we developed from the beginning – this idea of overwriting. If there's going to be 12 songs on an album, they might write 50, they might write 100 to find those 12. They'll play them for me in rehearsal and we'll talk about them; about song's strengths, weaknesses, how to make them better. What we can do. Where they work, where they don't, and you try different stuff. 

"I don't necessarily have the way to fix them," Rubin conceded, "But I notice where the weaknesses are and just say, 'This part going into this part doesn't sound so good, is there a better way to do it? Then they come up with a better way."

As for how the new album sounds, Rubin dropped a little hint that suggests it could be eclectic. When Jericho expressed his love for the band's 2006 double album Stadium Arcadium, Rubin concurred. 

"It's great, and I hope you like the new stuff. I think if you like Stadium Arcadium, you might like this," Rubin suggested in the interview you can hear in full below. 

As for Frusciante's second return to the Chili Peppers and the specific dynamic it brings, Rubin has his own perspective as an insider and a fan.

"I would say that it's the combination," he explained. "When Flea and John play together something magic happens. When Chad plays with Flea and John, something magic happens. When Anthony sings, based on what those guys play, it sounds like the Chili Peppers. 

"There are some flavours on the new album and when it happens it's like, oh my god - nobody sounds like that. It's so quintessentially Chili Peppers."  

Don't feel too sorry for Josh Klinghoffer, though he departed from the Red Hot Chili Peppers after a decade to make way for John Frusciante's return he's now in the touring lineup of his other teenage heroes, Pearl Jam. Though guitar is only part of the equation now. 

"It’s enormously gratifying," Klinghoffer tells Consequence of Sound regarding his new role. "My bedroom wall when I was like 11, 12, 13 years old was all these people. I feel like I’ve known these guys for 30 years already, I don’t know if that will make it work better or not."

Klinghoffer is also playing on Eddie Vedder's forthcoming solo album but has already made live appearances with both the Pearl Jam singer and the full band at October's Ohana festival. But he's still feeling his way into the Pearl Jam sound. 

"I mean obviously the role that I’m filling in their band is kind of funny at the moment, just in terms of the music that they’ve recorded in the past and the songs that I know really well," Klinghoffer explains. "I’m sort of doing a new role, playing a lot of percussion or background vocals, predominantly with the new stuff. And then anything that’s an older song that has a harmony, extra little things that they sort of get by without, I have free range to add if it makes sense to.

"I generally don’t go up there for one little teeny part," the former Chili Pepper continues. "I try to make my being onstage matter instead of just popping in and out for one little word. But they’ve been incredibly welcoming and generous to me, and have just sort of let me find my place."

The idea of Pearl Jam with four guitarists is certainly an interesting prospect, but multi-instrumentalist Klinghoffer suggests that will be the exception rather than the rule as he hangs back onstage near Mike McCready's guitar amps. 

"I play guitar on a few songs, but it’s usually a tiny part," explains Kinghoffer. "There is a song called Seven O’Clock that I play guitar on, and Eddie is playing guitar, but he doesn’t really play ‘til the end. So there are four guitars up there, but it’s sort of like the minute he takes over on guitar, I put mine down."

Instead Klinghoffer is playing additional percussion and mainly providing backing vocals when he's not playing guitar.

"I have a couple concert toms up there, but predominantly my role is helping with the background vocals, of which there’s more than in the past perhaps, particularly on the song that was their single, Dance Of The Clairvoyants, there was a bunch of BVs that Eddie added that the rest of the band wasn’t involved in when they recorded. 

"Background singing is kind of particular in that band where the guys who do it, they do it when they come up with a part, but it’s not really something that they focus on."

The Pearl Jam / Chili Peppers connection continues with Pluralone, his solo project that features Jack Irons on drums as his cloest collaborator, who has played in both bands just like Klinghoffer. 

"I was seeing him a lot that week," Klinghoffer says of the time he was asked to tour with Pearl Jam, "and he was saying, 'You couldn’t have fallen in with a greater group of people.” I particularly love the records that Jack made with Pearl Jam — those two were so important to me.'"

Read the full interview at Consequence of Sound. 

Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante has revealed that the band is writing and rehearsing for a new album.

Frusciante was speaking to Tim Shiels of the Australian digital radio station Double J about a range of topics, including his recovery from drug addiction, his late cat Maya, and how electronic music changed his perspective on the guitar. 

But the big news is that the Chilis are in writing mode. There are no titles or word of a release date. Like most bands around the world, the pandemic temporarily shut down the sessions. 

"We were rehearsing for a couple of months and then the quarantine started, and then we stopped rehearsing for a couple of months and then we went back to rehearsing," he said. "We are moving ahead with what we are doing and writing new music.”

Frusciante rejoined the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2019 and played his first show on 8 February 2020, at memorial service for late film producer Andrew Burkle. He said being back was like "returning to family."

In a September interview with Modern Drummer Chad Smith talked about the positive mood in the camp after Frusciante's return, and how the band had locked themselves in a room to write after their run of live dates were cancelled due to the pandemic.

"Having John come back into our group is a new shot of energy," said Smith. "We’ve been in and out of each other’s lives since 1988, and it’s been ten years since we played with John, but during that time we all continued to grow as people and as musicians."

Frusciante didn't go into as much detail as Smith – who mentioned Rick Rubin as a potential producer – but he did say that writing electronic music and sequencing drums had given him a new appreciation of Smith's talents behind the kit.

“I am in involved in the drums in a different way than I have been," said Frusciante. "Chad and I have an interactive thing, different than we did before. Before, I didn’t even know the difference between a ride cymbal and a crash cymbal. Now, I am a drummer in my own way through breakbeats and drum machines, so a lot of the drums are crazier than what we have done before."

Just don't expect electronic elements to creep into the Chilis' material. Frusciante promises that "drum ’n’ bass pop music" is not on the menu. 

Though, just at did when the Chilis were writing Californication, electronic music – and specifically its capability to go beyond what a human player can do – is inspiring him to get more from his instrument.

"What I found exciting when I started playing with them and still am finding exciting, is just seeing what I can do with a guitar," he said. "That idea of how many different worlds that you could pull out of a Stratocaster."