Flea Reveals The RHCP Album He Wants To Record Again
Flea has spoken with the the Los Angeles Times about his new podcast, his Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmates and the Chilis album he’d love to re-record.
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The first series of the bassist’s podcast, A Little Light, is set to wrap up with an interview with Chilis singer Anthony Kiedis. When asked what the podcast has taught him about interviewing people, Flea reflected, “The big lesson I learned before I ever interviewed anybody, just from having been interviewed 10 million times, which is that there’s nothing worse than being interviewed by someone with an agenda. You can feel it right away. Or someone with just a list of questions. ‘What’s your favorite color?’ ‘I like blue because it reminds me of eggs.’ Then the next question is, ‘Do you like eggs?’ ‘I just told you I do!'”
When asked which episode was his favourite, Flea picked the upcoming episode featuring his bandmate, “A really good one was with Anthony. We were both kind of in tears because I’d never talked to him about stuff like that. Anthony doesn’t really consider himself a musician or that he’s had any music education whatsoever. He used to say we should change the band’s name to Idiot and the Three Geniuses. And people would be down on him, you know? Eddie Vedder’s up there like f— Pavarotti, but the resonance is different with Anthony.”
“I think he’s a great singer,” Flea went on. “And he’s always learning and getting better. When we started the band, he couldn’t sing a note — he just yelled. Now he’s got melodies, and he doesn’t even stick to them. He flows around and improvises. Look, I know who the great singers are: Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Roger Daltrey. But for me, all I care about with any musician is that a person sounds like themselves. And nobody sounds like Anthony Kiedis.”
After saying that his favourite Red Hot Chili Peppers album is Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Flea revealed the album by the band he’d love to re-record, “I always regret the way we made the first one. I think the songs are really good. Our band was smoking at the time. But [drummer] Jack [Irons] and [guitarist] Hillel [Slovak] quit, and we hired these two other guys: Jack Sherman and Cliff Martinez. Both were great musicians, but the connection just wasn’t as profound as we had with the guys we started with. I’ve often wanted to go back and re-record that album, but I can never talk anyone into it.”