The funniest thing to happen to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith onstage
Although he often gets overlooked for his bandmates John Frusciante and Flea and the fact that he is Will Ferrell’s doppelganger, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith is one of the more eminent rhythmic masters out there. One of the reasons he often gets overlooked in the discussion of the funk-rock outfit is that he is primarily there to serve, always doing his best for the song and allowing his bandmates to deliver on top of his grooves.
However, if you were to take him out of the fold, they’d be a completely different band, which cannot be said for many drummers, a testament to his skill. From the swagger of ‘Give It Away’ to more downbeat moments such as ‘Scar Tissue’, Smith’s quality is there for all to hear, and there’s no surprise that his introduction to the band in 1988 was the start of their most fruitful period, kicking off with Mother’s Milk.
Around the time that Smith joined the band, so did Frusciante, injecting them with more creativity and passion than ever before. They quickly hit their stride, which went someway in helping to alleviate the pain of founding member Hillel Slovak’s death. The band embarked on an odyssey of artistic endeavours and hellraising that saw them rise to become of the most notable acts of their generation and cultivate an extensive mythos.
There are many insane anecdotes involving Smith and the band, and in 2014 when answering questions from fans in Rolling Stone, the drummer recalled the funniest thing to happen to him onstage, and it is quite unbelievable.
He said: “Back in the days when we used to play clubs and smaller venues, people would jump up onstage and stage dive. Once in a while, you get the overzealous fan that wants to get a little closer. And for encores, we used to play with socks [on our private parts and nothing else]. I had one female fan jump up onstage that was gung ho on trying to get my sock off. The other guys can run around a bit or put their guitars in front of them. For me, it was a battle for about two minutes, but I won. I stayed intact. It was very funny. She had balls… she almost had my balls.”
Smith was then asked why Red Hot Chili Peppers stopped doing the socks, to which he responded that they never did: “It’s not that we stopped or never would do that again. It was fun to play like that. And 20 years ago, we were known for that. Somehow in Europe, it overshadowed the band a little bit. Like, ‘Oh, the guys with the socks on their dicks.’ But it’s really just a spontaneous thing. We’ll be playing, and we’ll finish, and somebody will say, ‘Hey, socks? OK!’ It’s nothing really too planned out. You never know. I don’t know if anyone wants to see 50-year-old guys with socks on their dicks. That was a long time ago. But we like to entertain; we’re from Hollywood.”
