2016/06 Kerrang! (1625)

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Transcript:

Kerrang! 1625 June 2016

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

THE GETAWAY

HALF-NAKED CALIFORNIAN FUNK-ROCK LEGENDS RETURN WITH HALF-DECENT 11TH ALBUM

THE AUSTRALIAN singer Nick Cave’s observation that, every time he hears a song he hates blaring from someone else’s stereo, he guarantees that its authors are the Red Hot Chili Peppers remains a stinging rebuke. It stings because sometimes it’s true. At least part of this band’s DNA is comprised of qualities that appear increasingly less appealing the older its members become. We mean the emphasis on sex, the jerking and propulsive rhythms. The fact that The Getaway arrives 32 years after the band’s eponymous debut album means that, today, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are in the middle of their middle years. This is a band that no longer looks as good on the dancefloor as they once did.

But do they sound any good? Fourteen years ago, Kerrang! described the group’s funkier moments as being about as funky ‘as cold sick’. In 2016, on the track Dark Necessities, we’re shown that this can still sometimes be the case. The song follows the album’s title-track, also its opening song, which sounds like the work of a band half-asleep. This is not a winning first impression: early doors. The Getaway’s vital signs do not look at all good.

Fortunately for them, and for us, a lot of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ DNA is comprised of pure brilliance. This we know from tracks such as 1999’s Californication as well as the hidden gem Wet Sand from 2006’s Stadium Arcadium. It’s a pleasure to report, then, that when The Getaway reaches points of elevation, it doesn’t merely fly, it positively soars. The case for the defence arrives in the form of songs like The Hunter, with its rolling yet uncertain piano-led rhythm, folded into which are strange images like. ‘Strawberries left to decay.’ The shadow of decay is also a theme of the rather wonderful Detroit, a song as troubled and turbulent as the city from which it takes its name.

As with most Red Hot Chili Peppers albums. The Getaway is a bouquet garnet of confusion; it is a mixed bag. Some of the tracks judder with a rhythm to which you can only dance when in the throes of an electric shock. But as wearisome as these sections tend to be, they are almost wholly redeemed by moments of musical brilliance, moments which border on the sublime. It’s a case of you paying your money and taking your choice. Of course, it’s been decades since the Red Hot Chili Peppers needed your money, and at some points during The Getaway, it shows.

DOWNLOAD: Detroit. The Hunter.

 

THE INSIDER

ANTHONY KIEDIS

(VOCALS)

THE GETAWAY HAS BEEN A LONG TIME COMING – IT’S BEEN FIVE YEARS SINCE YOUR LAST ALBUM. EXCITED?

“It’s a day we’ve been waiting for, and the anticipation is coming to a full, frothy head. Last night I was trying to fall asleep and I was like, ‘Whoa! This moment is upon us!”‘

AFTER DOING THIS FOR SO MANY YEARS, AND HAVING DONE SO MANY ALBUMS, IS THAT ANTICIPATION STILL THE SAME?

“It is! Maybe a little more than ever, in some ways. We worked very hard – I woke up early and hacked out lyrics… We care!”

WAS DANGER MOUSE, YOUR PRODUCER, A HARD TASKMASTER?

“Yeah! He’s no joke! He’s not afraid to go to work himself. He would get there early, leave late, go home and work some more, and then he would call me first thing and say, ‘I’ve got three other songs I want you to work on before you come in.’ He wasn’t afraid to tell us what he didn’t like, either!”

The interview:


 

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