How Parliament-Funkadelic changed the way Chad Smith approached drums
Chad Smith has one of the most unique approaches to drums in the world of rock music. Thanks to the genre-hopping style of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smith has needed to be funky, subtle, and aggressive whenever the mood called these approaches. Whether he’s bringing punk-infused drive to songs like ‘Torture Me’, channelling old-school jazz on the band’s cover of ‘They’re Red Hot’, or simply keeping delicate time on ‘Under the Bridge’, Smith is a man of many rhythms.
The most prominent rhythm, naturally, is funk. As the Chili Peppers are inherently a funk-focused band, Smith has had to translate the syncopated rhythms and off-beat accents that make the genre what it is into the world of rock. When Smith was first hired as the Chili Peppers’ drummer in 1988, his wild mane of hair, preference for black leather, and previous experience made the other band members believe that he was a heavy metal meathead.
However, thanks to growing up just outside of Detroit, Smith had been exposed to everything from the soul-pop tones of Motown to the driving power of Parliament-Funkadelic. “Growing up in Michigan, probably listening to the radio and Motown, had a lot to do with it,” Smith told Modern Drummer in 1999. “I loved Sly and the Family Stone records with Greg Errico and Andy Newmark.”
“Flea comes from a real funk background. He influences me, and it’s a hard funk,” Smith added. “It’s not like Zig[aboo Modeliste, drummer of The Meters], it comes more from a rock base. I’m not pretending to be a funk guy who is all of a sudden going to try to play like Clyde Stubblefield.”
However, Smith did have an important funk influence that predated Flea: former Parliament-Funkadelic percussionist Larry Frantangelo. “My earlier funk experience was not just from listening. I played with former P-Funk percussionist Larry Frantangelo in a band called Pharaoh for a year,” Smith said. “I was twenty years old when I joined the band, and Larry really helped me with the finer points of playing. He turned me onto Tower of Power, P-Funk, and George Clinton and really took me under his wing. That must have been where the funk seeped in.”
“I think up until then, I was a drummer,” Smith later recalled to Drum! Magazine in 2011. “Once I studied with Larry, I turned into a musician.” The influence of funk probably didn’t register as anything important at the time, but once Smith moved out to Los Angeles, it became a required pre-requisite when he auditioned for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Check out ‘Hump De Bump’ down below.
