Gigwise have interviewed Andy Gilll (Gang of Four)  for the release of a new live album and during the interview, Gill’s time producing the Red Hot Chili Peppers was mentioned:

But Gill’s highest profile producing assignment wasn’t always such a love-in. When Gill produced The Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s eponymous debut, things reportedly got so bad members of the band defecated on his desk. He recalls the origins of some of the frustrations.

“They were these kids who’d never been in the studio before so had no idea how anything worked,” he says. “So there was one time I tried to put compression on Anthony (Kiedis’s) vocals and he couldn’t understand what I was trying to do. He’d say ‘I was it to sound bigger, not smaller!’. And I had to try and explain to him that it would make it sound bigger. So it was tough trying to explain the process.”

A large source of friction came from the young Californians’ insistence that everything had to be “real and organic”, according to Gill.

“Another time I tried to get the drummer (Cliff Martinez) to play along to the click track and they wouldn’t have it because they say it was playing with a machine and not a human’” he says.

“So we reached a compromise where they drummer played a cowbell along to the click track and they’d play along to that.”

This absurd agreement perhaps explains why the marriage of Gang of Four, a band whose aesthetic couldn’t have less to do with protecting the man against machine, and Red Hot Chilli Peppers was not always a happy one.

Source and full article: Gigwise

Many thanks to Graeme for the link.