Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / John Frusciante

Transcript

John Frusciante · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, y'all, today's the start of a month long
0:22
Speaker 1: run of episodes and celebration of the Red Hot Chili
0:25
Speaker 1: Pepper's newest release, Unlimited Love. You'll hear Rick Rubin in
0:29
Speaker 1: conversation with all four members of the band. It's a
0:32
Speaker 1: fascinating and oftentimes hilarious collection of interviews that showed just
0:36
Speaker 1: how close these guys are and all the emotional ups
0:38
Speaker 1: and downs they've been through together over the last thirty years.
0:42
Speaker 1: If you're a diehard fan, you know why this release
0:45
Speaker 1: is so exciting. Unlimited Love is their first record with
0:48
Speaker 1: guitarist John Frusciante in sixteen years. John's integal as any
0:53
Speaker 1: of the four members to unlocking the signature sound they've
0:55
Speaker 1: been building on since the release of Blood, Sugar, Sex Magic.
0:59
Speaker 1: In this episode, you'll hear John in conversation with Rick Rubin,
1:02
Speaker 1: who stepped back into the producer seat for this release.
1:05
Speaker 1: John tells Rick about his deep musical exploration as a
1:08
Speaker 1: young guitar player, how he fell in love with the
1:10
Speaker 1: Chili Peppers as a teenager, and what it was like
1:12
Speaker 1: joining the band he becomes such a fan of at
1:15
Speaker 1: just eighteen years old. Then, at the end of the talk,
1:18
Speaker 1: Rick and John are joined by a very special guest.
1:24
Speaker 1: This is broken record line of notes for the digital age.
1:27
Speaker 1: I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Rick Rubin and John Drushante. Let's
1:33
Speaker 1: go back up a long ways. Tell me about the
1:36
Speaker 1: first time you remember ever seeing or hearing about the
1:39
Speaker 1: Chili Peppers, first time you ever heard the name of
1:41
Speaker 1: the band. The first time that I remember hearing the
1:44
Speaker 1: name of the band was that I had a guitar
1:47
Speaker 1: teacher named Mark nine. He's the only guitar teacher who
1:52
Speaker 1: I ever was really excited about and that I feel
1:55
Speaker 1: like I really got some good things from. At the
1:58
Speaker 1: time that I started playing guitar, I was into punk,
2:01
Speaker 1: and every guitar teacher I took a lesson from would
2:04
Speaker 1: start insalting punk right away. I'd tell them that that
2:07
Speaker 1: was my favorite music, and they'd tell me that it
2:10
Speaker 1: wasn't music, and all this kind of stuff. Then this guy,
2:14
Speaker 1: Mark nine came along, and he had played with Nina Hogan,
2:17
Speaker 1: he'd been in her band for a period of time,
2:18
Speaker 1: and Pat Smir was the other guitar player. I guess
2:22
Speaker 1: Mark was the lead guitar player and Pat was the
2:24
Speaker 1: rhythm guitar player for a period of time, and he
2:28
Speaker 1: thought Pat Smir was a great guitarist. And Pat Smir
2:31
Speaker 1: was the main reason that I started playing guitar. The
2:34
Speaker 1: first things I learned were germs, and so the fact
2:38
Speaker 1: that I'd found a guitar teacher who like thought Pat
2:40
Speaker 1: Smir was a great guitar player was really exciting to me. Plus,
2:44
Speaker 1: he was into all this psychedelic music from the sixties
2:47
Speaker 1: and so he was playing with various things. He had
2:50
Speaker 1: a band called Underworld, He played with a guy called
2:52
Speaker 1: Randall Kennedy and Reconstruction and it was like a poetry
2:56
Speaker 1: arty kind of thing. And he had a ska group
2:59
Speaker 1: called Scotch And I was really into everything he did.
3:03
Speaker 1: I had cassettes tapes of everything. And at one point
3:06
Speaker 1: he came and said that there was a band called
3:08
Speaker 1: the Red Hut Chili Peppers that he was auditioning for
3:12
Speaker 1: and that he was hoping to get in and he
3:14
Speaker 1: played guitar and bass, and it got stuck in my
3:16
Speaker 1: head that he was auditioning for bass for this band.
3:20
Speaker 1: And then, probably about anywhere from like six months to
3:24
Speaker 1: a year after this, I saw the video for Trueman
3:27
Speaker 1: Don't Kill Coyotes on on MTV, and I was like, huh,
3:32
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have been a good replacement for this bass player, like,
3:36
Speaker 1: of course this Basela. Nobody could replace this guy. But
3:39
Speaker 1: as it turned out, it was guitar that he had
3:42
Speaker 1: been auditioning for. So yeah, so that there was a
3:45
Speaker 1: period of a few weeks where I remember him talking
3:47
Speaker 1: about how he hoped he would he would get hired
3:50
Speaker 1: to be in this band, but at the time they
3:52
Speaker 1: were choosing between Jack Sherman and Mark nine, and they
3:56
Speaker 1: wound up chosing Jack Sherman. How old were you at
3:59
Speaker 1: that time? Do you remember? Yeah, it had to be
4:02
Speaker 1: when I was thirteen or fourteen that he was auditioning,
4:04
Speaker 1: because Hellell and Jack were originally in the band for
4:08
Speaker 1: only six months and then they quit and that's when
4:11
Speaker 1: Anthony and Filey looked for new guys. So the band
4:14
Speaker 1: starts in eighty three, I'm not sure what month. And
4:16
Speaker 1: then how old were you when you end up joining
4:18
Speaker 1: the band? Eighteen? So you hear about them, you already
4:22
Speaker 1: know about the band for four or five years before
4:26
Speaker 1: you are okay, so like it's not like I found
4:28
Speaker 1: out about them and then I was suddenly a fan
4:30
Speaker 1: of them, like, yeah, like I just were aware of them. Yeah,
4:33
Speaker 1: it was aware of them that I think. The next
4:35
Speaker 1: step was I had a friend named Jerry who worked
4:37
Speaker 1: for the Frank Zappa family, and I used to spend
4:42
Speaker 1: a lot of time at his house listening to listening
4:44
Speaker 1: to music, listening to a lot of Frank Zappa like
4:47
Speaker 1: live tapes and stuff like that, and at one point
4:52
Speaker 1: Jerry gave me a compilation tape. It was mostly esoteric
4:56
Speaker 1: kind of avant garde music. There was like Meredith Monk
4:59
Speaker 1: on it. I think there was even some Funkadelic on it.
5:01
Speaker 1: He was he was the first person who mentioned Funkadelic
5:04
Speaker 1: to me. And one of the things on that cassette
5:08
Speaker 1: tape was the song Hurdled the Turtle from their second
5:12
Speaker 1: Holme Freaky Styley, and I thought that was really good,
5:15
Speaker 1: like loved everything about it. The drums reminded me of
5:18
Speaker 1: like a funk version of a Captain beefheart beat, and
5:20
Speaker 1: the walla pedal thing was so clever and the way
5:25
Speaker 1: that he incorporated it into the guitar part, and that
5:29
Speaker 1: song has this great way of each element coming in
5:32
Speaker 1: one by one, and so you really fully appreciate how
5:35
Speaker 1: great the guitar part is how great the drumbeat is
5:37
Speaker 1: because you hear each thing sort of one added to
5:40
Speaker 1: the next. But at that point, they weren't that different
5:44
Speaker 1: to me than the Residents or these other things, like
5:47
Speaker 1: their drummer had played with Captain Beefheart, and I was
5:50
Speaker 1: mainly at that time, like I was really intensely into
5:54
Speaker 1: Frank Zappa and Steve I and stuff like this, Like
5:57
Speaker 1: I was really trying. I'd been through many other phases,
6:00
Speaker 1: but at that period of time, I was really trying
6:02
Speaker 1: to just get to a point where nobody could tell
6:04
Speaker 1: me I wasn't a good guitar player. I was trying
6:06
Speaker 1: to really at a certain point, I was like, whatever
6:10
Speaker 1: people think is the hardest stuff to play, I'm gonna
6:12
Speaker 1: try to play that. But the Chili Peppers were just
6:14
Speaker 1: like an interesting band and fun to watch and stuff
6:18
Speaker 1: on these videotapes that I had, and I bought their
6:22
Speaker 1: first record when I was in Florida. I have this
6:24
Speaker 1: strange memory of I bought their record and then I
6:28
Speaker 1: went up to my step mom, who I would often
6:30
Speaker 1: just go to to tell weird little things, Like one
6:34
Speaker 1: day I'd come to her and I'd say, like I
6:36
Speaker 1: decided what my favorite ending to any album is. It's
6:40
Speaker 1: the ending to Rise and Fall of Ziggy Startus by
6:42
Speaker 1: David Bowie. You know, I just say things that she
6:44
Speaker 1: didn't care about at all, you know. But I remember
6:47
Speaker 1: listening to that Chili Peppers record and saying I could
6:50
Speaker 1: never be in a band like that. I could never
6:52
Speaker 1: be in that band because there's not enough musical variety
6:54
Speaker 1: for me. Like it was a strange thing to say.
6:58
Speaker 1: She was like, oh, you would never be in that band, okay,
7:01
Speaker 1: you know, like it was it seemed like the most
7:05
Speaker 1: far fetched thing in the world. That's some record I
7:07
Speaker 1: bought at the Big Peaches record store. I'd say I
7:09
Speaker 1: couldn't be in That still sticks in my hand. But basically,
7:14
Speaker 1: I had a friend in high school who was really
7:19
Speaker 1: into the Chili Peppers and he and he'd gone to
7:22
Speaker 1: see them at least a couple of times. I remember
7:24
Speaker 1: he went and saw them at Fender's Ballroom. That was
7:27
Speaker 1: before I was going to see them with Fishbone and
7:30
Speaker 1: Faith the More on the Best of the West tour
7:33
Speaker 1: and stuff. And he was also into the that License
7:37
Speaker 1: Tale album as well. Like he got me excited about
7:39
Speaker 1: music that was sort of outside of the spectrum of
7:42
Speaker 1: what I'd been listening to lately, music that was more
7:44
Speaker 1: like about fun, you know, because I was I'd gotten
7:48
Speaker 1: into such a technical frame of mind. And so he
7:52
Speaker 1: and I went to see the Chili Peppers at the
7:54
Speaker 1: Variety Arts Center downtown. And I'd been very happy at
8:00
Speaker 1: previous shows i'd been to, like Adrian Blue and Stanley
8:04
Speaker 1: Clark and things. I felt the feeling of joy at
8:07
Speaker 1: concerts before, but there was nothing in comparison to seeing
8:12
Speaker 1: that band. It was when the original lineup was back together,
8:16
Speaker 1: but they hadn't come out with their third record yet,
8:19
Speaker 1: and everything I'd heard of them, everything that i'd seen
8:22
Speaker 1: on videotape, did not prepare me for the intensity of
8:26
Speaker 1: that show. It it was so psychedelic they all had.
8:29
Speaker 1: They had the fluorescent paint everywhere on their bodies you
8:32
Speaker 1: couldn't see them, and the black lights. It felt so otherworldly.
8:38
Speaker 1: It felt like me and the other you know, however
8:40
Speaker 1: many people it was a thousand people who were there,
8:42
Speaker 1: like it felt like we just all went into a
8:44
Speaker 1: dream together or something, you know. It did not feel
8:47
Speaker 1: like reality. That I saw two shows where they did that,
8:51
Speaker 1: where they wore the paint and never had experienced anything
8:55
Speaker 1: where the audience and the performers felt like we were
9:00
Speaker 1: all one thing. We were all in the same place together.
9:02
Speaker 1: The rest of the world didn't exist. Everybody's completely happy,
9:06
Speaker 1: everybody's out of their minds, everybody's jumping around, you know.
9:10
Speaker 1: As I say, punk was the music I started with,
9:12
Speaker 1: but I was too young. I was into punk when
9:14
Speaker 1: I was nine, ten eleven, you know, so I was
9:17
Speaker 1: too young to be going to shows. But at their show,
9:21
Speaker 1: it was like I was feeling that same energy that
9:24
Speaker 1: I remembered imagining about punk shows, you know, where people
9:28
Speaker 1: call them mosh pitt Now we called it a slam
9:29
Speaker 1: pit pick. Then it was punk roft, the first music
9:32
Speaker 1: that you embraced. Well before that, I was into the
9:35
Speaker 1: stuff that every other kid in Santa Monica was into,
9:39
Speaker 1: you know, we were We liked Aerosmith and Alice Cooper
9:43
Speaker 1: and Van Halen and Kiss and like that was just
9:48
Speaker 1: the stuff that that any kid who was into skateboards
9:51
Speaker 1: and that was what the kids in the neighborhood liked.
9:54
Speaker 1: And at one point I moved from Santa Monica to
9:57
Speaker 1: mar Vista, and at that point I discovered carol Q
9:59
Speaker 1: radio station and Rodney Bingenheimer's show. There was where I
10:04
Speaker 1: first heard punk, and so it was definitely a adual thing.
10:09
Speaker 1: I remember like being really into Devo and the B
10:12
Speaker 1: fifty twos and stuff like that for a while and
10:15
Speaker 1: then discovered the Germs and sex Pistols. There was a
10:19
Speaker 1: girl lived next stoor to me for a couple of
10:22
Speaker 1: months who used to let me go through a record
10:24
Speaker 1: collection and tape record things and stuff, so I remember
10:27
Speaker 1: I went to her apartment and recorded like never Mind
10:31
Speaker 1: the Bullocks by the sex Pistols and more songs about
10:34
Speaker 1: buildings and food by the Talking Heads, and so yeah,
10:36
Speaker 1: I was basically into like new wave and punk rock,
10:39
Speaker 1: and that gradually turned into being specifically into hardcore punk,
10:43
Speaker 1: and then from there you moved into more technical stuff
10:45
Speaker 1: was at the next step. Yeah, it was a lot
10:47
Speaker 1: of little phases it went. Punk was what was what
10:51
Speaker 1: made me pull the acoustic guitar out of the closet
10:53
Speaker 1: and start learning songs, even though it wasn't an electric guitar.
10:57
Speaker 1: I'd wanted to play electric guitar years before that, but
11:00
Speaker 1: nobody would buy me one, and I just did not
11:03
Speaker 1: like the sound of an acoustic so so I put
11:06
Speaker 1: it off. But eventually I was like, Okay, if I
11:07
Speaker 1: just learned a bunch of punks here, maybe my dad
11:10
Speaker 1: will see that I'm dedicated and he'll buy me an electric.
11:14
Speaker 1: So I learned how to play like the entire Sex
11:17
Speaker 1: Pistols album and a lot of other songs, Black Flag
11:21
Speaker 1: and the Germs, and he bought me a stratocaster. And
11:25
Speaker 1: when I got the stratocaster, I started reading Guitar Player magazine.
11:28
Speaker 1: And I had had a friend at school who really
11:31
Speaker 1: liked Jimmy Hendrix prior to that, and I was always
11:33
Speaker 1: kind of messing with him, telling him that the Sex
11:36
Speaker 1: Pistols were far more important to music than Jimi Hendrix
11:39
Speaker 1: was and all this stuff. But we would play tapes
11:43
Speaker 1: for each other and stuff, and once I actually had
11:45
Speaker 1: an electric guitar, I just became obsessed with Jimmy Hendrix
11:50
Speaker 1: and that led me to just being into Jeff Beck
11:53
Speaker 1: and Cream. And there was this violence thing about punk
11:57
Speaker 1: at that point, this stigma to it, like people would
12:00
Speaker 1: find out that I was into punk and they wouldn't
12:01
Speaker 1: be friends with me anymore, and it was like their
12:04
Speaker 1: parents told them, You're not allowed to be friends with
12:07
Speaker 1: that guy anymore, or whatever. That happened to me multiple times,
12:10
Speaker 1: and so I moved from punk being the like the
12:15
Speaker 1: main thing I was into to being really into sixties
12:18
Speaker 1: music and the whole just the peacefulness of the of
12:22
Speaker 1: the ideals of it appealed to me at the time.
12:25
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, I was trying to get out of
12:27
Speaker 1: this angry, sort of violent state of mind that I
12:30
Speaker 1: could feel going on inside me. There was definitely a
12:34
Speaker 1: minute when punk rock turned like a new group of
12:38
Speaker 1: punks joined. It's like the Dead Kennedy's wrote the song
12:41
Speaker 1: Nazi Punks Fuck Off, you know. It was about that
12:43
Speaker 1: the punk movement, which started as this beautiful, peaceful, fun,
12:47
Speaker 1: high energy movement started turning dark for a period of
12:50
Speaker 1: time when new people got involved just to fight basically. Yeah, yeah,
12:54
Speaker 1: it was really there was a lot of fighting, and
12:57
Speaker 1: I felt that violence in myself, Like I liked that
13:00
Speaker 1: about it, you know, but I think it kind of
13:02
Speaker 1: scared me that I had this other part of me
13:05
Speaker 1: inside that was that I wasn't sure what was capable of.
13:09
Speaker 1: Always had concerns about was I saying completely or not,
13:13
Speaker 1: And there was definitely lots of times in my life
13:15
Speaker 1: where I was concerned that I might be crazy, and yeah,
13:20
Speaker 1: the violence thing felt like a screwy thing for me
13:23
Speaker 1: to be dabbling around with and feeding that part of myself.
13:28
Speaker 1: So gradually it was like sixties music. And then from
13:32
Speaker 1: there I got into like more already kind of seventies
13:35
Speaker 1: music like Brian Eno and Roxy Music and David Bowie
13:39
Speaker 1: and and progressive rock like Genesis and Yes and Kim Crimson.
13:45
Speaker 1: Kim Crimson, Yeah, like they became my favorite band. I
13:49
Speaker 1: got really into Adrian blues guitar playing. I was obsessed
13:52
Speaker 1: with him, and so this is all I'm like thirteen
13:56
Speaker 1: years old at this point, twelve thirteen years old, you know,
13:59
Speaker 1: And so every all the stages went very fast. And
14:02
Speaker 1: it's not like I ever stopped liking anything that I'd
14:04
Speaker 1: like previously, but I got I would get really excited
14:06
Speaker 1: about a new thing and be focused on that at
14:09
Speaker 1: So I think when I was about fifteen was when
14:12
Speaker 1: I got obsessed with Frank Zappa. And that's any guitar
14:15
Speaker 1: player who was related to him. So Warren Coucarulo and
14:18
Speaker 1: Steve Ye and Adrian Blue also happened to be in
14:22
Speaker 1: his band for a while, but I'd already been into
14:24
Speaker 1: him for a while and then yeah, like the Red
14:28
Speaker 1: Hot Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys. That was like
14:30
Speaker 1: this fun music that I was into, largely through this
14:34
Speaker 1: kid that I knew at school. And then when I
14:36
Speaker 1: moved to Hollywood when I was seventeen, I realized I
14:40
Speaker 1: had to make a switch. I had been into all
14:42
Speaker 1: this music that I was into because I thought it
14:44
Speaker 1: was going to make me a quote unquote better guitar player.
14:47
Speaker 1: And I decided, I'm just gonna start listening to only
14:52
Speaker 1: the things that give me the best feelings. I'm going
14:54
Speaker 1: to put aside this idea of what's technically good or
14:58
Speaker 1: anything like that. I'm gonna just listen to the music
15:04
Speaker 1: that gives me the strongest feelings inside. And so at
15:07
Speaker 1: that time, that was like the New York Dolls, Susie
15:10
Speaker 1: and the Band Cheese, David Bowie, t Rex, stuff like this.
15:15
Speaker 1: If I was honest with myself, that was the music
15:18
Speaker 1: that I liked the most out of any other music.
15:21
Speaker 1: And the Red Hot Chili Peppers was also part of that.
15:24
Speaker 1: And in their case, that was somebody who I could
15:27
Speaker 1: go see live all the time. So before I was
15:30
Speaker 1: in the band, I probably saw them about six seven
15:33
Speaker 1: times or something wow, all within about a you know,
15:36
Speaker 1: a year and a half or something like that. And
15:39
Speaker 1: over that year and a half did they change at all?
15:41
Speaker 1: Did you notice, like as a fan, did you see
15:43
Speaker 1: them changing? Were they getting better, were they getting worse?
15:46
Speaker 1: Anything different? Not that I can remember. They seemed pretty
15:49
Speaker 1: consistent to me. Great. There was a couple of shows
15:52
Speaker 1: that got shut down and stuff like either after a
15:55
Speaker 1: few songs, and you know, their shows got pretty crazy
15:58
Speaker 1: at that time. But yeah, they were always great. And
16:01
Speaker 1: the other thing is that I would have necessarily known
16:05
Speaker 1: details about them because every time I ever went and
16:07
Speaker 1: saw them, after the first time, I would tell myself, Okay,
16:10
Speaker 1: this time, I'm gonna I'm just gonna watch the show,
16:13
Speaker 1: because every time they started playing, I just started jumping
16:15
Speaker 1: around in the audience like crazy, and I barely I
16:19
Speaker 1: would see little glimpses once in a while. I would
16:22
Speaker 1: look up at the stage, you know, or I'd somehow
16:25
Speaker 1: wind up close to the stage for a second and
16:27
Speaker 1: I'd look up at hill l or whatever you know
16:29
Speaker 1: I like, and I and this memory would be etched
16:32
Speaker 1: in my brain forever of like one of them from
16:35
Speaker 1: that angle. But like people, I would I would bring
16:39
Speaker 1: to their shows, those people would actually watch the show,
16:43
Speaker 1: so they'd have some thoughtful comments after the show about
16:45
Speaker 1: the show. For me, it was that dream state that
16:48
Speaker 1: I was talking about at their first show. That's what
16:49
Speaker 1: every show I saw of Theirs was for me, because
16:52
Speaker 1: I felt so part of the experience that I couldn't
16:56
Speaker 1: resist the temptation to just jump around the audience like
16:59
Speaker 1: a crazy person. Amazing. So yeah, I didn't have too
17:03
Speaker 1: critical of a sense of what was going on up
17:06
Speaker 1: there because I would mostly see them in between songs
17:10
Speaker 1: when they were talking in between songs, and they were
17:12
Speaker 1: so funny at that time. They would always be saying
17:14
Speaker 1: funny things in between the songs and stuff. The thing
17:17
Speaker 1: you're describing about going to a Chili Pepper show and
17:20
Speaker 1: that being taken away is the experience that I have
17:26
Speaker 1: when I watch you guys play in the studio or
17:28
Speaker 1: in rehearsals, like it feels like we're entering a different
17:33
Speaker 1: dimension and the music somehow we get to have this
17:38
Speaker 1: transcendent experience where when it's happening, it feels like nothing
17:44
Speaker 1: else in the world is happening, but the music being
17:46
Speaker 1: played in this moment, and it's different every time. It's
17:49
Speaker 1: another part of it. It's not like it's so structured. Yes,
17:53
Speaker 1: the order of the things that happen in the song
17:55
Speaker 1: might be the same order, but the energetic peaks and
18:00
Speaker 1: the trip that it takes us on musically always I
18:06
Speaker 1: feel a whole new way thing every time it happens.
18:09
Speaker 1: It's an amazing experience, jaw dropping to watch still to
18:13
Speaker 1: this day. So I understand exactly what you're talking about.
18:17
Speaker 1: It was really important to me when I joined the
18:19
Speaker 1: band to try to keep that same energy going that
18:22
Speaker 1: I that I remember feeling at their shows. And there
18:25
Speaker 1: was definitely a thing that appealed to me about them
18:28
Speaker 1: in comparison to other artists. They seemed to have more
18:31
Speaker 1: conviction than other people like they it seemed to mean
18:34
Speaker 1: more to them. And that was the original thing that
18:36
Speaker 1: made me like throw away my Kiss records and become
18:41
Speaker 1: you know, obsessed with the germs and Black Flag and
18:43
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Was I could tell that it really
18:46
Speaker 1: meant something to these people and Kiss I got. I
18:49
Speaker 1: realized when I was about nine years old that like,
18:53
Speaker 1: I felt strongly about them, but I wasn't sure that
18:55
Speaker 1: they felt strongly about as strongly about themselves or about
18:59
Speaker 1: any kind of connection they could have to a person
19:01
Speaker 1: like me, you know, whereas those other people, it felt
19:04
Speaker 1: like we were breathing the same air we were. We
19:06
Speaker 1: were seeing the music from the same angle, not two
19:09
Speaker 1: opposite angles. It wasn't the seller and the consumer. It
19:12
Speaker 1: was this thing that we're all clinging to as as
19:16
Speaker 1: like a thing that's, I don't know, saving us from
19:19
Speaker 1: all the confusion of life. And so I saw that
19:23
Speaker 1: same conviction, and you know, I just always got the
19:25
Speaker 1: sense that music really mattered to that band, you know,
19:29
Speaker 1: and so always wanted that to be the center of
19:32
Speaker 1: what we did, that we felt strongly about about the
19:36
Speaker 1: music and a better connection to each other. We'll be
19:38
Speaker 1: right back with more from John Fushante and Rick Rubin.
19:41
Speaker 1: After a quick break, We're back with more from John
19:48
Speaker 1: Fushante and Rick Rubin. How did you find out that
19:51
Speaker 1: they were looking for a guitar player before you ended
19:53
Speaker 1: up joining How did that happen? So when I was
19:56
Speaker 1: when I was seventeen, I was living on Yucca and
19:58
Speaker 1: Argyle in Hollywood, and I became friends with with a
20:02
Speaker 1: girl named Sarah Cox who was from New York, and
20:06
Speaker 1: she she introduced me to dh Calego from the Dead
20:11
Speaker 1: Kennedy's and so I started playing with him and a
20:14
Speaker 1: bass player friend of mine named Robert, and we started
20:18
Speaker 1: doing a band that was pretty Chili Peppers inspired. In fact,
20:21
Speaker 1: the song Stone Cold Bush was originally that band wrote
20:25
Speaker 1: that song Wow. And we never played any shows or anything,
20:29
Speaker 1: but but we played together a fair amount and one
20:32
Speaker 1: day DH just called me up and Flee had just
20:35
Speaker 1: gotten back from their last European tour, and he said, Fleeze.
20:39
Speaker 1: He knew I loved Flee, you know, and so he said,
20:42
Speaker 1: Fleeze here, you want to you want to come over
20:43
Speaker 1: and jam with us? And so I went over there
20:47
Speaker 1: and played with him, and we played the Funkadelic song
20:51
Speaker 1: Alice and Alice and My Fantasies, and I think we
20:56
Speaker 1: even tried to do a cover version of Higher Ground,
20:59
Speaker 1: which was what we wound up doing on Mother's Milk.
21:01
Speaker 1: But Flee had that idea already at that time, what
21:04
Speaker 1: you know, a heavy metal version of Higher Ground and
21:08
Speaker 1: Jane and stuff, and I guessfully enjoy jamming with me.
21:12
Speaker 1: He gave me his phone number and told me, you know,
21:15
Speaker 1: like you know, I'd love to play more. And a
21:18
Speaker 1: few weeks later I called him up to see if
21:22
Speaker 1: he wanted to jam again, got my nerve up to
21:24
Speaker 1: call him up, and he was crying and he just said, like,
21:27
Speaker 1: I can't talk right now. My guitar player just died.
21:30
Speaker 1: And we got off the phone real quick. Then I
21:33
Speaker 1: think he might have gotten in touch with me after
21:35
Speaker 1: that at some point and just was saying he's trying
21:38
Speaker 1: to get get back into the headspace of making music again.
21:41
Speaker 1: Not sure if the band's going to continue or anything
21:44
Speaker 1: like that, but did I want to come jam with
21:46
Speaker 1: him and his friend Dick's garage, And so we just
21:49
Speaker 1: played the two of us without a drummer or anything,
21:52
Speaker 1: and he told me, you know, if I'm not sure
21:56
Speaker 1: if we're going to keep, if the band's just going
21:58
Speaker 1: to stop at this point, but but if we are,
22:01
Speaker 1: you'll definitely get an audition, you know. And then at
22:05
Speaker 1: one point he called me up and told me, hey,
22:08
Speaker 1: I know there's this guy Blackbird who he'd been in
22:12
Speaker 1: the band for like a week at one point and
22:15
Speaker 1: when hellel had quit and then we'd fired him when
22:18
Speaker 1: Helle decided he wanted to rejoin, and we felt kind
22:20
Speaker 1: of guilty about it. So we feel like we've got
22:24
Speaker 1: to we've got to give him this chance. We kind
22:27
Speaker 1: of owe it to him. So Blackbird was in the
22:30
Speaker 1: band for several months. But I had a feeling that
22:33
Speaker 1: I would wind up being in the band, and that
22:37
Speaker 1: was what eventually happened. Tell me what you remember about
22:40
Speaker 1: the first two jams. Let's start with the first one,
22:43
Speaker 1: you Pellegro and Flee. What do you remember about that experience?
22:48
Speaker 1: How long was the jam? It was in a garage
22:50
Speaker 1: at a house that DH and Walt from Fishbone lived in,
22:55
Speaker 1: and it was in the garage. I passed that garage
22:57
Speaker 1: many times, but yeah, we jammed for a couple of hours.
23:00
Speaker 1: It seemed like, you know, sat in the car. He
23:02
Speaker 1: fully played us Alice in my fantasies and I think
23:06
Speaker 1: higher Ground. I remember definitely like talking about it, but yeah,
23:09
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't have much memory about it. I
23:11
Speaker 1: was so nervous, and again that that very fast state
23:15
Speaker 1: of mind just went through, just like Yeah. My memories
23:18
Speaker 1: are inconsequential things like like Flee going up to DH
23:23
Speaker 1: while we were playing and whispering something to him, and
23:25
Speaker 1: me wondering, I wonder if he's saying something good about me?
23:28
Speaker 1: Is he think you know? Do you think something negative
23:29
Speaker 1: about you? Know who knows. I mean, I felt like
23:31
Speaker 1: he was probably thinking something good about me, but it
23:33
Speaker 1: could have been something totally unrelated. But I remember that
23:36
Speaker 1: moment of wondering what he was whispering in DH's ear.
23:40
Speaker 1: Do you remember thinking he was playing great? Like, were
23:42
Speaker 1: you impressed with him? Oh? Yeah, he was my favorite
23:45
Speaker 1: bass player, you know, so it was incredible to be Yeah,
23:49
Speaker 1: to'd be playing and you were not disappointed in the experience.
23:52
Speaker 1: It was all that you imagined it would be. Yeah, amazing, Yeah,
23:56
Speaker 1: it felt really good. Amazing. And then the second time
23:59
Speaker 1: when it was just you and him, what do you
24:00
Speaker 1: remember about that one? It was just kind of it
24:03
Speaker 1: was low energy, you know, we were we were both
24:05
Speaker 1: sitting like the first time, we're wearing straps and we're
24:08
Speaker 1: like rocking out, you know. Like the second time we
24:11
Speaker 1: were just kind of sitting there, and the mood was
24:13
Speaker 1: definitely somber, and I remember feeling a little like disconnected,
24:18
Speaker 1: Like I think, you know, as good of a guitar
24:20
Speaker 1: player as I thought I was at the time, Like,
24:23
Speaker 1: I think I had a long way to go in
24:24
Speaker 1: terms of really understanding how to how to gel with him,
24:29
Speaker 1: because in a lot of ways I was afraid to
24:31
Speaker 1: play simple. There was so much kind of eighties disease
24:35
Speaker 1: in people's heads at the time, and I was definitely
24:38
Speaker 1: a victim of that, Like like, if I'm not playing
24:40
Speaker 1: something fancy, I'm I'm not giving enough or something, or
24:45
Speaker 1: I'm not or people aren't going to like what I'm
24:46
Speaker 1: playing or something. And what I realized once I'd been
24:50
Speaker 1: in the band for a bit was just like the
24:54
Speaker 1: way to compliment someone like Flees bass playing it really
24:57
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with showing off because he sounds
25:00
Speaker 1: like he's showing off when he's not. Yeah, people who
25:02
Speaker 1: are impressed by fanciness naturally hear his bass playing and
25:06
Speaker 1: go like, wow, he's really good. But from Fleece perspective,
25:10
Speaker 1: coming from playing jazz and trumpet and all that, and
25:14
Speaker 1: jazz kind of being the main kind of music that
25:16
Speaker 1: his brain formed being into, his playing is a simplification,
25:20
Speaker 1: a big simplification of his natural taste, you know. So
25:24
Speaker 1: in his own way, his whole style on bass is
25:27
Speaker 1: a simplification of his basic mental concept of music. And
25:32
Speaker 1: for me to simplify to that same amount meant playing
25:35
Speaker 1: way less than I had imagined myself. So yeah, so
25:38
Speaker 1: I think probably I might have been playing too much
25:41
Speaker 1: on that somber day and afterwards feeling like I could
25:45
Speaker 1: have been more supportive of him or something. What was
25:48
Speaker 1: the first time he played with the whole band? Or
25:50
Speaker 1: tell me about that experience. Showing up for an audition.
25:52
Speaker 1: I imagine that was the next step. Well, we'll see. Well,
25:56
Speaker 1: that's why I was saying when Fleet called me up
25:58
Speaker 1: to tell me they were hiring Blackbird, I had an auditioned.
26:00
Speaker 1: He told me I could audition, and then he went back.
26:03
Speaker 1: It never happened. It never happened. Then what happened next, Well,
26:07
Speaker 1: there was an audition, but I didn't know it was
26:10
Speaker 1: an audition when it was happening. Fleet had cooked up
26:13
Speaker 1: this idea. So one day I get a call from him.
26:16
Speaker 1: You know, we're friendly around this time. We see each
26:19
Speaker 1: other at a party. You'd come over to my girlfriend's
26:21
Speaker 1: birthday or whatever. So just friendly with each other. And
26:24
Speaker 1: one day he just calls me up and he says, hey, man,
26:27
Speaker 1: I'm making these four track recordings. I have a drum
26:30
Speaker 1: machine here in this cassette four track, and do you
26:33
Speaker 1: feel like coming over and playing some guitar on the stuff.
26:37
Speaker 1: And so, of course I said yes, and I went
26:39
Speaker 1: over to his apartment. So we had like three songs
26:41
Speaker 1: of him playing bass to a drum machine, and I
26:45
Speaker 1: made up guitar parts on the spot, plugged directly into
26:48
Speaker 1: the four track and played the parts I made up,
26:53
Speaker 1: and we had fun doing that for a while, and
26:56
Speaker 1: then we sat around I think we watched some Funkadelic
26:59
Speaker 1: videos for a bit, and we're hanging out with his wife, Louisia.
27:04
Speaker 1: And it turns out I knew the only way after
27:08
Speaker 1: the fact that what Flee had done was he recorded
27:12
Speaker 1: Blackbird playing making up his guitar parts and recording them
27:15
Speaker 1: on that same four track tape, and then he erased
27:19
Speaker 1: those parts and recorded me on the same tape, so
27:23
Speaker 1: he had mixes of both and he could compare whose
27:26
Speaker 1: guitar parts are better. Little did I know. After I
27:29
Speaker 1: left that night, Loisha said to Flee, she said, that's
27:33
Speaker 1: the guitar player for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He
27:35
Speaker 1: has to be your guitar player. For Flee, he was
27:38
Speaker 1: feeling definitely a lot of guilt about the idea of
27:40
Speaker 1: getting rid of Blackbirds. So I guess, even though I
27:43
Speaker 1: guess I won that contest or whatever. A couple of
27:47
Speaker 1: weeks went by and nothing more happened, and then one
27:51
Speaker 1: day Flee gives me a call and he tells me
27:54
Speaker 1: Bob Forrest from Felonious Monster is looking for guitar players
27:58
Speaker 1: and things aren't going super well with Blackbird. But he's like,
28:03
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where that's going with Blackbird or if
28:06
Speaker 1: it's working out, And so I told Bobby could have
28:10
Speaker 1: your number, But I also told him that I have
28:14
Speaker 1: first DIBs on this guy if if if we decide
28:17
Speaker 1: we want him in the Chili Peppers, like like, I've
28:21
Speaker 1: got first dibbs, and you can't be angry if I
28:23
Speaker 1: take him from you, you know. So I talked to Bob.
28:27
Speaker 1: I go down to the Felonious Monster rehearsal and I
28:31
Speaker 1: had auditioned for them, and they hired me right away.
28:34
Speaker 1: But the thing about that rehearsal was Anthony Jetis was
28:37
Speaker 1: there at the rehearsals, so I don't know him, and
28:40
Speaker 1: Flee must have talked. Flee was like, you should, you
28:42
Speaker 1: should go check this guy out, and so Anthony was
28:46
Speaker 1: watching the whole time. So I auditioned, they hired me,
28:50
Speaker 1: then Anthony left there and went to Flee and then
28:52
Speaker 1: They both called me up at like six o'clock in
28:54
Speaker 1: the evening and they were they were like, we've been
28:58
Speaker 1: talking a lot about it, and we've decided we'd like
29:02
Speaker 1: you to be the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
29:05
Speaker 1: Is this what you want? And I said, yeah, I
29:08
Speaker 1: want this more and anything in the world. And they
29:11
Speaker 1: had to figure out the ordeal of telling Blackbird about
29:14
Speaker 1: it and stuff, so they wanted to be sure that
29:15
Speaker 1: this was definitely what I wanted to do. Yeah, and
29:19
Speaker 1: I called I called Bob and told him, you know,
29:22
Speaker 1: I'm happy to play whatever gigs you have scheduled right now,
29:26
Speaker 1: keep playing with you now. But but they asked me
29:28
Speaker 1: to join the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So that's what
29:30
Speaker 1: I'm doing. And he said, yeah, I figured that was
29:33
Speaker 1: going to happen, and yeah, so I kept I kept
29:37
Speaker 1: playing shows with them, but started rehearsing with the Chili
29:41
Speaker 1: Peppers a few weeks later. And at this point I
29:43
Speaker 1: don't know if I mentioned Dh Polgro who I'd been
29:45
Speaker 1: playing with who introduced me to Flee. He was the
29:47
Speaker 1: drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers at this time,
29:50
Speaker 1: so he'd stop playing with me as a result of
29:55
Speaker 1: being in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you know as well.
29:58
Speaker 1: So you were in the Chili Peppers before Chad was
30:00
Speaker 1: in the Peppers. Yeah, I didn't know that. For some reason,
30:03
Speaker 1: I thought I thought you were last to come, but
30:06
Speaker 1: maybe just because you're younger, so that was probably what
30:08
Speaker 1: I thought. Yeah, so you were in the band and
30:11
Speaker 1: what happened. So me and DH and Anthony and Fleet
30:14
Speaker 1: we were the band, and you know, we did some
30:16
Speaker 1: small tours. We did a tour called the Turdtown Tour
30:19
Speaker 1: which was through the Midwest, and and that didn't go
30:23
Speaker 1: so well. But but yeah, there it was very inconsistent.
30:28
Speaker 1: DH was great, like energy wise, he was a great drummer,
30:33
Speaker 1: is a great drummer, but he wasn't as devoted to
30:36
Speaker 1: the concept of the band as the rest of us were.
30:40
Speaker 1: For me, it just felt like this is my whole life.
30:42
Speaker 1: If I fail at this, like my whole life is over.
30:44
Speaker 1: Like I've got you know. For Dh, he had an
30:47
Speaker 1: arms distance relationship to it in some ways. And it
30:51
Speaker 1: was a strange tour. Sometimes shows would have a lot
30:53
Speaker 1: of people, but there was like there was a show
30:55
Speaker 1: at a cowboy bar for instance that I remember somewhere
30:58
Speaker 1: that it's like only people there were, the people that
31:01
Speaker 1: go there every night to drink. Like Anthony was so
31:03
Speaker 1: mad that our manager had even scheduled us to be
31:05
Speaker 1: playing at this place, and we had such a bad
31:09
Speaker 1: show and we had to restart songs, like because we
31:13
Speaker 1: got so messed up time wise from each other that
31:16
Speaker 1: we had just hopefully had to stop the song and
31:18
Speaker 1: start over. There was low points like that, but we
31:22
Speaker 1: were also really great friends sometimes. You know, recently I
31:25
Speaker 1: saw a picture of the four of us together, and
31:27
Speaker 1: we really you can see that we're all friends, you know,
31:30
Speaker 1: you can see like that we all come from. Like
31:32
Speaker 1: Chad came into the band. He was like a foreigner,
31:35
Speaker 1: you know. He was like from Detroit. He was more
31:37
Speaker 1: from a hard rock He probably expected to come to
31:39
Speaker 1: la and be in a band like Guns n' Roses
31:41
Speaker 1: or something like that, and so he we were definitely
31:45
Speaker 1: a mismatch thing with Chad, whereas with DH, you could
31:48
Speaker 1: see that we were all sort of from the same
31:50
Speaker 1: walk of life or whatever. You know. Well, we fired
31:53
Speaker 1: DH and we auditioned a ton of drummers and Chad
31:58
Speaker 1: came along. The story of that is Denise Zoom, who
32:02
Speaker 1: had been married to Billy Zoom from X She she
32:05
Speaker 1: walked up to me at a show of Fishbone and
32:07
Speaker 1: Public Enemy at the at the Santa Monica Civic and
32:11
Speaker 1: which turned out to be a very violent show. I
32:13
Speaker 1: think there was some guns and stuff at that show.
32:15
Speaker 1: But at one point she comes up to me and
32:19
Speaker 1: she says, John, I've got your new drummer. He eats
32:21
Speaker 1: drums for breakfast. And I told everybody that afterwards that
32:26
Speaker 1: they were like, go to corny line, like eats drums
32:28
Speaker 1: for breakfast. And then he came to audition for us,
32:32
Speaker 1: and then after he left because he just wrote us
32:35
Speaker 1: the whole time. We were used to DH kind of
32:37
Speaker 1: following us, and Chad came in and he drove the
32:41
Speaker 1: whole thing. He started he started by playing a slow,
32:44
Speaker 1: funk groove and he just gradually sped up and sped
32:46
Speaker 1: up and sped up until he was playing like crazy fast,
32:49
Speaker 1: you know, speed metal kind of thing. He was very impressive.
32:52
Speaker 1: There was another couple of drummers who seemed good, but
32:55
Speaker 1: Chad just seemed like he could be the driving force
32:58
Speaker 1: in the band in his own way, you know, like yeah,
33:01
Speaker 1: And so after he left, Flee said he really does
33:04
Speaker 1: eat drums for Breakfast because he seemed so out of
33:08
Speaker 1: his mind. He was just because when he was speeding up,
33:11
Speaker 1: he was going, fuck yo, fuck yo. He was really
33:14
Speaker 1: putting a lot of energy into it. And yeah, how
33:16
Speaker 1: hard he hit and everything, and how funny he was.
33:20
Speaker 1: Because that's how it struck us. I think the second
33:23
Speaker 1: he started playing, Anthony started having a laugh attack. And
33:27
Speaker 1: when Anthony has a laugh attack, it goes on for
33:30
Speaker 1: you know, minute, like ten minutes or something, and that's
33:32
Speaker 1: what happened when Chad played. He just couldn't stop laughing,
33:35
Speaker 1: and I got you know, that was contagious. I started laughing.
33:40
Speaker 1: So yeah, we were like falling on the floor laughing
33:42
Speaker 1: at how intense he was. Amazing. So yeah, there was
33:47
Speaker 1: only a couple of months really rehearsing with Chad just
33:49
Speaker 1: given him the chance to come up with his own
33:51
Speaker 1: drum parts to the tunes that we'd already written and stuff.
33:54
Speaker 1: But he was very fresh to the band. We offered
33:57
Speaker 1: him a chance to do a recording with us. We
33:59
Speaker 1: recorded the song Taste the Pain for a movie soundtrack,
34:02
Speaker 1: and I remember it was December of eighty eight, and
34:06
Speaker 1: this is before we decided to hire him. We thought
34:08
Speaker 1: this would be a good chance to see how it goes,
34:11
Speaker 1: and he said, I can't. I've got to go to
34:14
Speaker 1: Detroit to be with my family for Christmas. I was like,
34:17
Speaker 1: what the hell is wrong with this guy? Doesn't he
34:19
Speaker 1: realize like the chance that he has here, Like there
34:23
Speaker 1: was definitely a concern that there was a lack of
34:25
Speaker 1: appreciation from Chad about realizing from my perspective, like what
34:30
Speaker 1: a great band this was, what a great chance this was.
34:33
Speaker 1: He didn't seem particularly like floored by the idea. He
34:36
Speaker 1: seemed very indifferent and nonchalant about the whole thing, you know.
34:39
Speaker 1: Whereas for me, I was so scared every move that
34:42
Speaker 1: I made that like I would do something wrong and
34:45
Speaker 1: not be in the band anymore, you know. But Chad
34:48
Speaker 1: was just like very casual about it, which to his
34:51
Speaker 1: credit in a way. But yeah, So we used Fish
34:54
Speaker 1: from Fishbone for that session, But in the end we
34:58
Speaker 1: did decide that Chad was the drummer. Do you do
35:02
Speaker 1: any gigs with Chad before that recording the album? Definitely
35:05
Speaker 1: played with him during the recording of the record. I'm
35:08
Speaker 1: not sure if we play with him before. We were
35:09
Speaker 1: definitely doing little weekend jaunts all the time at colleges
35:14
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah, it'll be a club show
35:17
Speaker 1: here and there. But yeah, it's funny. I don't have
35:19
Speaker 1: any memory of what the first show with Chad was.
35:22
Speaker 1: It was definitely during the album. We were continually going
35:25
Speaker 1: out and doing these little weekend shows to pick up
35:28
Speaker 1: extra money and stuff, and he was always really good.
35:30
Speaker 1: It was so it was great to play with somebody
35:33
Speaker 1: who played stuff the same way basically every not. I mean,
35:37
Speaker 1: he improvised and he was responsive, but you could depend
35:40
Speaker 1: on him for tempo. He would definitely help the show
35:44
Speaker 1: be the solid show that it could be every time,
35:46
Speaker 1: which is great. Yeah, we'll be right back with more
35:50
Speaker 1: from John Fasante. We're back with the rest of Rick
35:56
Speaker 1: Ruban's conversation with John Fasante and a special guest who
36:00
Speaker 1: joins the chat. So tell me the experience of making
36:03
Speaker 1: the first album. Was that the first time you ever
36:05
Speaker 1: recorded in a proper studio. Yeah, that was the first time.
36:09
Speaker 1: Well you know that that we did that song Taste
36:11
Speaker 1: the Pain, and that went really smoothly that. I remember
36:14
Speaker 1: the bass and the guitar and the drums, what we
36:17
Speaker 1: played when we did the basic track, that was what
36:20
Speaker 1: was on what wound up on the record, you know,
36:22
Speaker 1: like like the live take was the full guitar take
36:25
Speaker 1: that I played, which was how I expected that I
36:28
Speaker 1: would play in a studio. But but I was real
36:30
Speaker 1: glad that everything locked in so so well and that
36:33
Speaker 1: I was as good as I thought I could be.
36:35
Speaker 1: But when we did Mother's Milk, Michael Beinhorn had this
36:39
Speaker 1: concept of the producer. Michael Binhorn had this concept of
36:44
Speaker 1: really exaggerating the heavy metal funk aspect of the band,
36:50
Speaker 1: and he wanted everything to be fast and pushed, like
36:54
Speaker 1: in timing. For people who don't know, it's when you're
36:57
Speaker 1: in the studio you talk about things being laid back
37:01
Speaker 1: or pushing. Usually when you say that someone's pushing, it
37:05
Speaker 1: means they should redo it and lay back a little better,
37:08
Speaker 1: you know. But in Michael Bienhorn's case, he was wanting
37:11
Speaker 1: us to push everything. And I never even heard these
37:14
Speaker 1: expressions before laying back, pushing. I wasn't quite sure what
37:18
Speaker 1: they meant. I thought that you just played on time
37:21
Speaker 1: and that was the object, And if the concept had
37:25
Speaker 1: just been to lay back, I think that was what
37:27
Speaker 1: I was doing naturally when I thought I was playing
37:29
Speaker 1: on time, but he wanted everything to be pushed extra hard,
37:33
Speaker 1: and we were playing all the songs. When I hear
37:35
Speaker 1: the album now I hear I feel like we're playing
37:37
Speaker 1: them about ten fifteen vpm faster than we would play
37:41
Speaker 1: those songs live, like we really He would make us
37:45
Speaker 1: redo a take because we weren't pushing hard enough, and
37:47
Speaker 1: he would come out to the live room and he
37:49
Speaker 1: would jump up and down and shake his hand in
37:51
Speaker 1: the air and get all sweaty and stuff. He was
37:54
Speaker 1: trying to make us push extra hard. And I think
37:57
Speaker 1: that's what a lot of people, you know, I know,
37:59
Speaker 1: people who come from like the jungle drumming bass, you know,
38:04
Speaker 1: break core kind of music, that they loved that album
38:07
Speaker 1: when they were kids for that reason, because it was
38:11
Speaker 1: this really fast, intense, pushed version of funk, which not
38:16
Speaker 1: that different in some ways from what happens when you
38:19
Speaker 1: speed up a breakbeat. You know, I didn't know what
38:24
Speaker 1: pushing was, and I couldn't do what he was wanting
38:27
Speaker 1: us to do. Chat and Flee seemed to understand what
38:30
Speaker 1: it was that he wanted, but it got to the
38:32
Speaker 1: point where I couldn't track with Flee and Chat anymore.
38:36
Speaker 1: And I thought this is just because I'm I suck
38:38
Speaker 1: and I'm a failure and I'm the worst one in
38:40
Speaker 1: the band. And so almost everything, if not everything that
38:44
Speaker 1: I played on that album I did as an overdub
38:46
Speaker 1: because I couldn't get into that groove. It just felt unnatural. Yeah,
38:51
Speaker 1: it felt unnatural. It felt you know, like I say
38:54
Speaker 1: to this day, but definitely at that time, it felt
38:56
Speaker 1: like we were playing every song faster than we had
38:58
Speaker 1: and the groove of it wasn't supposed to sit in
39:01
Speaker 1: a pocket, but was supposed to be constantly pushing forward,
39:05
Speaker 1: and that was just an awkward thing, you know. So, Yeah,
39:08
Speaker 1: it was difficult album for me to make, like, you know,
39:11
Speaker 1: not knowing anything about the recordings to a lot of
39:13
Speaker 1: a lot of my work on it was just me
39:15
Speaker 1: and Michael Beinhorn sitting there with me playing and sort
39:18
Speaker 1: of being in the dark about what he was gonna
39:21
Speaker 1: think was a good take and what he wasn't. Yeah,
39:26
Speaker 1: definitely had a really difficult time making making that record
39:30
Speaker 1: for that reason. Like it was definitely a forward thinking
39:33
Speaker 1: concept at the time, you know that. I think a
39:36
Speaker 1: lot of people were influenced by in different ways. It
39:39
Speaker 1: felt like he had such a strong vision that it
39:41
Speaker 1: didn't feel like there was any room for me to
39:44
Speaker 1: find what it was that I had to say or
39:47
Speaker 1: to fit into that in a way that was comfortable.
39:50
Speaker 1: And he kind of took over the project during the
39:52
Speaker 1: mixing process, like like none of us were there, none
39:56
Speaker 1: of us. It wasn't until we had the finished copies
39:58
Speaker 1: of the record that we even heard the thing like,
40:01
Speaker 1: and songs were re edited and things like that in
40:04
Speaker 1: ways that were totally unlike the way that we wrote
40:07
Speaker 1: the songs and stuff. Yeah, that was a pretty intense experience.
40:11
Speaker 1: And then you went on tour after that. Yeah, then
40:13
Speaker 1: we toured for like a year and a half. Oh
40:16
Speaker 1: there's Anthony. Hi John, Hey, Hey, what's happing in Hi? Rack?
40:21
Speaker 1: I hope I'm not interrupting. No, oh good. We just
40:24
Speaker 1: got a history lesson that was fascinating for me. I
40:28
Speaker 1: loved it. I think you would enjoy it too. You
40:31
Speaker 1: might not know the backstory that you weren't part of
40:35
Speaker 1: two John, the backstory of John. Yeah Jack John before
40:40
Speaker 1: the band's interesting. I had met John. Oh yeah, I
40:47
Speaker 1: didn't even tell that story. There's a couple of Anthony
40:49
Speaker 1: and I connection stories that I didn't mention. Anthony what's
40:52
Speaker 1: your what's your meeting? John's story, It's kind of gruesome.
40:56
Speaker 1: It's gnarly, it's not a So the Red Hot Chili
41:00
Speaker 1: Peppers had a show in Pasadena, yep, Perkins Palace. At
41:06
Speaker 1: Perkins Palace, which was a storied venue. A lot of
41:09
Speaker 1: great shows there, including King Crimson. We're fleet passed out,
41:13
Speaker 1: but we had a show there. And I was going
41:15
Speaker 1: through a very nebulous period in my life where I
41:20
Speaker 1: was doing a lot of narcotics and sometimes I would
41:24
Speaker 1: show up late to shows, or sometimes I would miss
41:26
Speaker 1: the occasional show because I was just lost in a haze.
41:31
Speaker 1: On this particular show, I was running late because I
41:34
Speaker 1: was downtown Los Angeles buying narcotics. And I showed up.
41:41
Speaker 1: It was dark out, and there was a park in
41:43
Speaker 1: front of Perkins Palace, and I was going to go
41:46
Speaker 1: fix somewhere in this park to kind of take the
41:50
Speaker 1: sick edge off myself, and I ran into these two beautiful, excited, vibrant,
41:58
Speaker 1: stoked for the show fans, or at least you know
42:02
Speaker 1: from my point of view. And one was John and
42:05
Speaker 1: it was at Bill No. This was a guy named Matt.
42:08
Speaker 1: The guy, Yeah, Matt, So John and Matt approached me
42:13
Speaker 1: and they were like, oh my god, we're here for
42:14
Speaker 1: the show. We can't wait. You know what songs? Are
42:16
Speaker 1: you gonna play? This kind of thing? And I was like, oh,
42:18
Speaker 1: it's so nice to see you. Yeah, I'm just gonna
42:20
Speaker 1: be in there in a minute. I'll see you guys inside.
42:23
Speaker 1: You actually didn't brush us off. You actually like like
42:26
Speaker 1: like we like I think that guy Matt. I's like, hey, Anthony,
42:30
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You know, and and and You're like, oh,
42:32
Speaker 1: I'm just taking a contemplative walk, a little too contemplated
42:39
Speaker 1: to be honest. So we had our interaction and they
42:42
Speaker 1: did make a large impression on me. I was I
42:45
Speaker 1: was touched by the enthusiasm and just the the beautiful
42:50
Speaker 1: aura of these people that were so into the show
42:53
Speaker 1: that I felt honestly a little bit demoralized about because
42:57
Speaker 1: I was going through this weird time and I knew
43:00
Speaker 1: I would not be at my best, which mattered to
43:04
Speaker 1: me a lot. Yeah, but I had this this addiction
43:07
Speaker 1: thing going on. And so we parted ways and I
43:10
Speaker 1: went and found a staircase and I sat down and
43:13
Speaker 1: I literally took care of my business on the staircase,
43:18
Speaker 1: just to be well enough to go and play. And
43:21
Speaker 1: as I looked up afterwards, I realized I was on
43:24
Speaker 1: the stairs of the passage in police department, that that's
43:28
Speaker 1: the location I had chosen to do my dirty work,
43:33
Speaker 1: and I was I was foggy. Then I went inside,
43:37
Speaker 1: went backstage prepared full of day glow colors in black light,
43:43
Speaker 1: and you know, madness and a girlfriend and my band
43:46
Speaker 1: was kind of mad at me, and we did the
43:49
Speaker 1: best we could, but it was subpar, and from my standpoint,
43:54
Speaker 1: I was not on fire. But that's the first time
43:57
Speaker 1: I met John. What was the second John. Well, there's
44:00
Speaker 1: this funny thing in about nineteen eighty six, I think
44:03
Speaker 1: it was my stepdad came home one day and told
44:06
Speaker 1: me a story that he was driving on the freeway
44:09
Speaker 1: and the cars were all stopped. It was a lot
44:12
Speaker 1: of traffic, and he was eating a banana and he
44:14
Speaker 1: threw the banana peel out the window, and some guy
44:17
Speaker 1: jumps out of his car, picks up the banana peel
44:20
Speaker 1: and stuffs it back through the window at him and
44:23
Speaker 1: makes some intense remark about about littering, and makes a
44:27
Speaker 1: remark about the banana and him and gets back in
44:30
Speaker 1: his car. Then I'm driving in a car with Anthony
44:34
Speaker 1: about two years later, and Anthony tells me the same story,
44:37
Speaker 1: only he's the guy who gets out of the car
44:39
Speaker 1: and picks the banana peel up and stuffs it back
44:41
Speaker 1: through the window. Amazing crazy. Yes, yes, that was my
44:47
Speaker 1: m o. You know, a bit self righteous. And I'm Leabrea.
44:53
Speaker 1: One time, way earlier, I saw somebody throw a bag
44:56
Speaker 1: of McDonald's out their window, and fries and paper and
44:59
Speaker 1: cups went flying all over. And I did the same thing.
45:02
Speaker 1: I collected it all up and stuffed it back in
45:04
Speaker 1: their car, and they ended up chasing me north on LaBrea,
45:09
Speaker 1: rowing hamburgers like weapons, and I remember like dodging and ducking,
45:14
Speaker 1: and I don't know, when I was a kid, I
45:16
Speaker 1: also did the same thing. I saw young people throwing
45:19
Speaker 1: their candy rappers into bushes and I was like, no,
45:21
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, no no, that's a bush. You cannot
45:24
Speaker 1: harm the bush. So then there was this period of
45:28
Speaker 1: time where hellel. Slovak had died, Jack Irons had quit
45:33
Speaker 1: the band and flee and I as was our kind
45:37
Speaker 1: of energetic momentum where like we you know, we love
45:40
Speaker 1: these people, but we must continue playing music. Together. And
45:47
Speaker 1: it's hard to find the right people to play music with.
45:51
Speaker 1: You know, it's the chemistry. It doesn't matter. They could
45:53
Speaker 1: be the most brilliant people on earth, but you have
45:56
Speaker 1: to find that weird, soulful, guttural connection. And we had
46:02
Speaker 1: tried playing with Blackbird McKnight as a guitarist and DH
46:06
Speaker 1: Pelegro as a as a drummer, and and that wasn't
46:09
Speaker 1: totally working out. And then Flee had mentioned that there
46:14
Speaker 1: was this sort of prodigious young person from the valley
46:17
Speaker 1: who was supposed to be a real sensation of guitar playing,
46:22
Speaker 1: and I was intrigued. And then Bob for said, Hey,
46:25
Speaker 1: I'm going to get this this young guy, John Fraschante
46:28
Speaker 1: to join Felonious Monster. And all these kind of bells
46:31
Speaker 1: and whistles were going off in my head. And I
46:34
Speaker 1: had a conversation with Flee and he's like, yeah, this
46:36
Speaker 1: I jammed with this this young person, and he was
46:40
Speaker 1: he was on point. So then I went and saw
46:42
Speaker 1: John audition for Thelonious Monster in a garage on Fountain
46:47
Speaker 1: and saw him play, and I was like, I just
46:49
Speaker 1: I have to intervene here. I can't let this happens
46:53
Speaker 1: he's too perfect for what we are doing. And I was,
46:57
Speaker 1: you know, I was probably a selfish punk at that
47:00
Speaker 1: phase of my life. And I remember having some conversation
47:04
Speaker 1: with John in the driveway like that was a great audition,
47:07
Speaker 1: But you know, would you consider maybe joining our band
47:09
Speaker 1: instead of this band? That that's my hazy memory. John
47:13
Speaker 1: probably has a clearer picture. Yeah, yeah, I mentioned it.
47:17
Speaker 1: You did. Yeah, same same, same basic, same basic series
47:23
Speaker 1: of events. Yes, And you know, like I said, finding
47:28
Speaker 1: that person, these people who you really connect with on
47:32
Speaker 1: an invisible level and that you know can hear you
47:36
Speaker 1: and you can hear them and somehow put your musical
47:40
Speaker 1: energies together to make sound and song and and have
47:44
Speaker 1: a life together. It's you know, it's that's some kind
47:47
Speaker 1: of divine intervention when this happens, because I've just seen
47:52
Speaker 1: many times that's it's a hard fit to find. Absolutely, Yeah,
47:56
Speaker 1: how did What do you remember about that rehearsal that
47:59
Speaker 1: that thelonious rehearsal with John? What do you remember? I
48:02
Speaker 1: remember being mesmerized by John's personality and prowess. So he
48:10
Speaker 1: got up on stage with all of these much older,
48:13
Speaker 1: more experienced guys and really was kind of the dominant force,
48:19
Speaker 1: and it was just full of energy. He was just
48:21
Speaker 1: young and no one had thwarted his love or enthusiasm
48:28
Speaker 1: or you know all of that stuff about music and
48:31
Speaker 1: entertainment and just you know, being a person on stage.
48:33
Speaker 1: And I was like, that would be a fun person
48:35
Speaker 1: to interact with. And he just knew how to play.
48:39
Speaker 1: I mean, he learned songs very quickly. And I liked
48:43
Speaker 1: him as a person. You know. I became very close
48:45
Speaker 1: to John at that point in my life, and yeah,
48:48
Speaker 1: I just liked being around him. Do you remember the
48:50
Speaker 1: first time you and John played on stage together? Well,
48:55
Speaker 1: I remember the Holy Gully stage where we were hearsed
48:59
Speaker 1: quite quite vividly. John was playing Were you playing in Ibanez? Yeah?
49:04
Speaker 1: I was yeah, yeah, which which was different and new
49:08
Speaker 1: for us. I think it had been collaged. Well, I
49:12
Speaker 1: had two guitars. I had one guitar that had naked
49:14
Speaker 1: ladies all over it under the finish, and then I
49:16
Speaker 1: had this. I guess I didn't have the abends with
49:19
Speaker 1: the naked lady guitar. Was what I had when I
49:21
Speaker 1: joined was that it was a performance guitar. It's made
49:24
Speaker 1: by this guy in North Hollywood. So now I'm trying
49:27
Speaker 1: to think of our very first show. That would have
49:30
Speaker 1: been Texas. What right, No, Arizona, Arizona, Phoenix, like a
49:38
Speaker 1: one off. Yeah, we did one show in Phoenix. Then
49:40
Speaker 1: we played the John Anson Ford. That was the second show. Wow. Yeah,
49:46
Speaker 1: so yeah, the Arizona show, i'd really just remember that
49:50
Speaker 1: we had to go there. But the John Anson Ford
49:52
Speaker 1: I remember very well because we decided to wear costumes. Yes, yeah,
49:57
Speaker 1: we were like superhero costumes, except for our drummer DH,
50:02
Speaker 1: who wore a Bumblebee costume, much to his chagrin that
50:07
Speaker 1: he hated it and we couldn't understand and why why
50:09
Speaker 1: is he hate the bumblebee costume so much? You know,
50:11
Speaker 1: he looks amazing and there's a giant bee playing drums
50:16
Speaker 1: and he was uncomfortable. And it turns out that John Belushi,
50:20
Speaker 1: who had also dressed up as a Bumblebee on Saturday
50:23
Speaker 1: Night Live, also detested the Bumblebee costume. Do you remember, Anthony,
50:30
Speaker 1: do you remember the first gig with Chad? Oh? Wait, yes, yes, yes,
50:34
Speaker 1: I do? Is that the roxy? Oh? Is that true? Well?
50:38
Speaker 1: It was either first or second? I think you're right, yeah,
50:42
Speaker 1: I think yeah, And he was late. He was really late. Wow.
50:49
Speaker 1: Chad is such a force of nature himself. His audition,
50:54
Speaker 1: which took place with John and Flee at the Holy Gully,
50:58
Speaker 1: was so profound and unforgettable. We had played with this
51:02
Speaker 1: series of drummers and they were interesting. They could do
51:06
Speaker 1: certain things, okay, And then Denise Zoom, the former girlfriend
51:10
Speaker 1: of Billy Zoom, had suggested this guy from Detroit, Michigan.
51:15
Speaker 1: And Chad walks in very cavalier, nonchalant, you know, could
51:22
Speaker 1: could really care less of who we thought we were,
51:24
Speaker 1: and we thought we were quite a lot at that moment.
51:27
Speaker 1: And he sat down and just blew everybody's mind with
51:33
Speaker 1: his power and his attack. And you know, Flee was
51:37
Speaker 1: used to kind of leading the dance, and suddenly he
51:40
Speaker 1: had this drummer, Chad Smith, who wait drums for breakfast,
51:44
Speaker 1: apparently taking over the dance. And we were all laughing
51:50
Speaker 1: hysterically trying to keep up with Chad's race on the drums.
51:56
Speaker 1: Then we called him up and you know, he had
51:57
Speaker 1: this this giant poof of hairsprayed glamorrock hair or something,
52:02
Speaker 1: and we said, shave your head and you have the
52:05
Speaker 1: job in the band, and he was like, I think
52:07
Speaker 1: I'll pass. Like, wow, no, no, no, you get the job.
52:11
Speaker 1: You just have to shave your head. That's all right,
52:14
Speaker 1: thanks though, And at that moment we were like, this
52:18
Speaker 1: guy is strong enough in his own conviction of self
52:23
Speaker 1: that he doesn't want to shave his head to join
52:25
Speaker 1: our band, which kind of maybe made us like him
52:28
Speaker 1: even more. And then he was late to his first show.
52:33
Speaker 1: I was so mad at him for not shaving or
52:36
Speaker 1: being late, for being late. I just remember because I
52:38
Speaker 1: already had those feelings like this guy just does not
52:40
Speaker 1: realize what a great band, you know, what a great
52:43
Speaker 1: situation this is, and yeah, he doesn't appreciate it. And
52:47
Speaker 1: then when he showed up late, I just write, what
52:48
Speaker 1: the hell is wrong with this guy? It's so funny,
52:54
Speaker 1: it is it is. I remember he was going to
52:57
Speaker 1: continue going. He was he was enrolled at the music
52:59
Speaker 1: school g I T Or the Drum Institute or whatever.
53:02
Speaker 1: And at his first rehearsal with us after he joined,
53:05
Speaker 1: I was like, so, you're gonna quit the music school, right,
53:07
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, no, my parents paid for it
53:09
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep going with that.
53:11
Speaker 1: And I was like, don't you understand this is a
53:13
Speaker 1: world famous band here like like like like you can
53:18
Speaker 1: make a living doing this now, you don't need to
53:20
Speaker 1: go to a music school, you know. He just it
53:24
Speaker 1: was really hard to get on board. Let's let's talk
53:26
Speaker 1: about where you're self effacing is like saying, yes, this
53:31
Speaker 1: is the best band in the world, but but in reality,
53:33
Speaker 1: at this point in time, are the Chili Peppers the
53:37
Speaker 1: most popular band in in LA? Would you say we
53:41
Speaker 1: were world famous in Hollywood? I mean, it really depends
53:49
Speaker 1: on who you ask, because you know, we are very
53:53
Speaker 1: first show in nineteen eighty three, we played one song
53:58
Speaker 1: because that's the only song that we had. And after
54:02
Speaker 1: that that performance, if you would have asked me who
54:05
Speaker 1: is the most popular band in law, what is it? Yeah? Obviously,
54:10
Speaker 1: so we had an inflated sense of who we thought
54:14
Speaker 1: we were. But but it wasn't coming from a purely
54:18
Speaker 1: narcissistic standpoint. It was kind of in our world. We
54:22
Speaker 1: could feel that we were gonna do something special and
54:26
Speaker 1: it felt that special within ourselves. So by the time
54:30
Speaker 1: John joined, you know, we had had some real highs
54:33
Speaker 1: and lows, some ups and downs, and but we were
54:36
Speaker 1: certainly in the conversation as far as you know la popularity,
54:41
Speaker 1: I would say, were we not, John, Yeah, Like I
54:44
Speaker 1: would say, the other bands at that time that were
54:46
Speaker 1: that seemed to be at a similar sort of level
54:48
Speaker 1: of popularity were like Jane's Addiction and Fishbone At least
54:52
Speaker 1: in that world, I guess there were like heavy metal
54:54
Speaker 1: bands and stuff, but that was a completely different world
54:57
Speaker 1: that often played at completely different venues and stuff like that. Like,
55:01
Speaker 1: but as far as like the things that seemed to
55:04
Speaker 1: be rooted in punk to some degree, like, yeah, it was,
55:07
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was those three bands that we're
55:10
Speaker 1: sort of playing at the same basic size places and
55:14
Speaker 1: stuff like that. When you say, yeah, yeah, but we
55:18
Speaker 1: were not truly world famous at that point. But I
55:21
Speaker 1: think the band could play The band hadn't played everywhere
55:23
Speaker 1: in the world, but I think the band could play
55:25
Speaker 1: clubs pretty much everywhere that we wanted to play. You know, yeah,
55:30
Speaker 1: we could play ding walls and in the UK. Thanks
55:36
Speaker 1: John Vashonta and Anthony Keatis for talking about the early
55:39
Speaker 1: days of the band. Make sure to check out next
55:42
Speaker 1: week's show, where Rick will continue this conversation with both
55:45
Speaker 1: Anthony and John. We'll hear about how John we joined
55:48
Speaker 1: the band as well as the stories behind the songs
55:50
Speaker 1: on their new album, Unlimited Love. You can hear Unlimited
55:54
Speaker 1: Love and all our favorite red Hot Chili Pepper songs
55:56
Speaker 1: on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com. Be
56:00
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot
56:02
Speaker 1: com slash broken record Podcast. We can find all of
56:05
Speaker 1: our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at
56:09
Speaker 1: broken Record. Broken Record is produced Helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell,
56:13
Speaker 1: Bent Holladay, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help
56:17
Speaker 1: from Nick Chafield. Our executive producer is Mia LaBelle. Broken
56:22
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56:25
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56:45
Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats, I'm justin Richmond,