When Chad Smith auditioned for The Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Red Hot Chili Peppers could never claim to have the most stable of lineups. When going through their back catalogue, both bassist Flea and singer Anthony Kiedis have been the only consistent members of the group, with most of the rest of the group being filled out by different drummers and a pretty much never-ending rotating spot in the guitarist’s chair. Although the deaths of key members like Hillel Slovak cast a dark shroud on the band in their early days, they started to get somewhere once John Frusciante and Chad Smith came into the picture.
After Slovak was found dead of a drug overdose following the tour for The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, drummer Jack Irons decided to quit the band because he didn’t have the heart for it anymore. Now looking for a drummer and a guitarist, Frusciante was first in line behind the fretboard, having been a massive Chili Peppers fan for years before he joined the band.
When talking about drummers, the band auditioned drummers when a hair-metal type strutted into the room named Chad Smith. Frusciante was originally really hesitant about even giving him a shot behind the drum kit, saying: “Chad walked in and he had a Metallica shirt on and his hair was all frizzy. I just thought, ‘Oh let’s just get this guy out of here’”.
Frusciante wasn’t the only one with cold feet, either. In his book Scar Tissue, Kiedis remembered not being thrilled by Smith’s look, saying: “we let this drummer come down to audition. I spied this big lummox walking down the street with a big Guns N’ Roses hairdo and some clothes that were not screaming, ‘I’ve got style’. I had already decided against this guy based on how he looked, but he came in and we were all business”.
Once he stepped behind the drumkit, though, the band knew they were working with a monster drummer. In previous auditions, Flea would start a jam between the members before Smith came along, as Frusciante explains, “Chad walked in and all of a sudden he was carrying us. He was just speeding up and screaming ‘FUCK YOU’ at all of us”.
It didn’t take Smith long to realise that he had a great act on his hands, too, as he remarked, “We’re speeding up and slowing down and then John breaks a string. And I’ve never seen anyone change a string that quickly in my life because he didn’t want to miss out on the jam we were doing”.
Although Smith had the same drive and passion that came with some of the local bands from LA like GNR, his penchant for funky grooves mixed perfectly with Flea’s basslines, making every song breathe on the next handful of records. Despite deciding on him as their new drummer, Kiedis had one condition for Smith: that he cut his hair.
After a standoff, Smith was able to keep his hair for their next album Mother’s Milk, which saw them have some of their first major hits with tracks like ‘Knock Me Down’ and their cover of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Higher Ground’. Even though his stage appearance belonged with a band like Dokken, Frusciante remembered the golden rule, saying, “It’s about what someone has on the inside. It’s not one’s outer presentation”.
