BRIEF ENCOUNTER Everything you need to know about… Red Hot Chili Peppers

22, 23, 24… I didn’t know you liked doing sums.

I don’t. I’m just working out how many songs there are on this new Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Hmm, you could have just looked at the numbers by the tracks.

No need to be smart. I’m trying to make a point about their huge double CD, 28-track release. This would be Stadium Arcadium, correct,

That’s the one.. It’s a monster. Yep, and set to be another monster high on the never-ending rollercoaster known as the Chills’ career.

Love Rollercoaster, their song for the Beavis And Butt-Head movie? Nope, although Beavis and Butt-Head nicely sums up their initial style when Anthony Kiedis and co formed back in the 1980s. It was psychedelic funk mixed with a stoner, couldn’t-care-less approach; the band are probably best remembered for taking all their clothes off at live shows and putting socks on their genitals. Quite outrageous, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Well, as long as there’s a party going on, who cares? Ah, but as with any good-time band, tragedy will always ruin the fun. Continued drug users, the band lost their guitarist Hillel Slovak when he cited of a heroin overdose in 1988. Replacement John Frusciante had his own problems with narcotics, eventually leaving the band soon after the Rick Rubin-produced album Blood Sugar Sex Magik and the single Give It Away made them very popular.

Sigh, the good times always end. It’s all right, this is a comeback story perfect for TV movie adaptation. Frusciante eventually returned to the fold and they made the smash hit album Californication, following that up with radio-friendly By The Way. Et voila! A new, younger audience to add to the dedicated fanbase.

Hurrah! Now that really is Maglk! Yeah, careful with the spelling there. But you spelt ‘chili’ wrong. Not for a US band, I didn’t. More examples of the continued degradation of the English language.

Spare me the rant. I’m gonna go and listen to Stadium Arcadium. See you in six hours.

David Baldwin

Stadium Arcadium is released on VVEA on Monday.