The one Red Hot Chili Peppers album that “troubled” Anthony Kiedis
For good reasons, Anthony Kiedis is one of the most famous contemporary rock frontmen. From his scat-like vocals to his frenetic on-stage performances, the long-term frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has continuously poured his colourful character into the band, giving them the vitality that has made them so timeless.
This energy and dedication have also enabled Kiedis to go toe to toe with three of the most revered musicians in contemporary culture. Bassist Flea, guitarist John Frusciante, drummer Chad Smith and Kiedis all have their own vital roles to play in the funk-punk goliath, and without either one, they would not be the same, as witnessed after both of Frusciante’s stints away from the band.
Duly, imagining the Los Angeles outfit without Kiedis is simply unfathomable. He gives the band their edge and keeps us engaged whilst the rest of the band dazzle with their virtuosity. Very much an anti-musician, he provides the necessary raw, human foil to the rest of the band’s cerebral technical panache.
“I think the original idea of having a singer like Anthony was that everybody saw him as being very much like a non-musician,” Frusciante explained in a 2003 interview. “He comes at it from a standpoint of someone whose feelings for music are very concise, and he has a big capacity for feeling music, but he doesn’t know anything about music, or notes, or anything of these things.”
Given that he is not musically trained, or as Frusciante tactfully put it, a “non-musician”, he has to tread his own path in approaching music. When creating lyrics and melodies for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he draws on a variety of sources, allowing the band artistic dexterity, meaning they are not tied down by any particular zeitgeist and continue to tread their own path to this day.
The story of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is a famous one. Comprised of many twists and turns, including a shifting lineup, deaths of members and friends, addictions and the rest, they are one of rock’s greatest success stories in the sense that they can be categorised as some of rock’s most extraordinary survivors. They’ve invariably weathered the storm, imbuing their music with an odd bit of magic you can’t quite put your finger on.
One of the most polarising moments in their career came in the form of 1995’s One Hot Minute. The only album of theirs to feature Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro after the first departure of John Frusciante, unsurprisingly, it is one of their most experimental, comprised of flecks of metal and psychedelia. Arguably, it is also their most underrated, but for large swathes of their fanbase and the band members themselves, it represents a misfire, coming from a very testing time.
Discussing the album in a 2002 interview with Rolling Stone, Kiedis looked back on the record, revealing that it “troubled” him. He was questioned on the inter-band relations in 2002 now that Frusciante was back in the fold, and whether it felt as if he’d never left at all.
Kiedis explained: “I could forget that he had ever been gone. But, I mean, I get reminded of it all the time. I’ll run into Dave Navarro out in front of a restaurant, or some kooky kid will come up to me on the streets of San Francisco and say, ‘Oh, I love One Hot Minute. That was my favourite.’ And I’m like, ‘Really?'”
It was then put to Kiedis that the band’s Dave Navarro record wasn’t his favourite album, to which he said: “One Hot Minute? It was a troubled time for me.”
It seems that a lot of the problems Red Hot Chili Peppers had with the Navarro period and One Hot Minute was that it just didn’t compare to John Frusciante’s tenure. Asked if it was different without John, Kiedis wasted no time in comparing it to a divorce.
He said: “Yeah, that’s like asking someone, ‘Would your family unit be any different if you were married to a different girl?’ You started off by asking how the band relations are, and, in a nutshell, I would say better than ever.”
