Category Archives: Chad Smith

The Band Death of a Klinghoffer… Josh Interview in Rolling Stone

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“My nature is to get up and go, but there’s a weight that’s keeping me here because it’s the last time it’ll be just the four of us and I just want to sit here for a minute.”

 

Former RHCP guitarist, Josh Klinghoffer, was interviewed a couple of days ago and the interview was posted online on the Rolling Stone website earlier today (US time/yesterday here).

The interview covers the day Josh was kicked out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in detail. Heartbreaking quotes reveal the stunned shock of what unfurled, without warning, that day, and how Josh himself felt. The article also covers how other members of the band reacted. As suspected, Josh was fired on the plotting and instigation of Flea who had been meeting John and jamming with him in secret for months before. Chad is described as being very upset at the meeting that took place at Flea’s house. (Josh received a text from Chad before he’d even made it home after the meeting). Anthony is described as being subdued and looking upset.

It was less than an hour after it happened and at the time I thought, “Wow, that is crazy.” Flea put it up there; it was very clearly his composition. I was totally surprised. “

Josh was given no time to process the bombshell decision, or notify his family and friends, as the announcement that he’d “parted ways” with the band was posted online just an hour after he was told. He was not forewarned. Josh attributes the wording of the announcement to Flea [it was originally posted on RHCP’s Instagram account, but then Flea posted it on his social media accounts and for a while he was the only band member doing so]. Josh goes on to liken the actual design (white lettering on a black background), to a funeral announcement.

The interview also contains a lot of detail about the friendship between John Frusciante and Josh and how if faded out when Klinghoffer joined RHCP. Josh explains that he tried to reach out to John in October last year, as he knew they would meet a weeks later at Flea’s wedding, but that attempt does not appear to have been successful.

Do you think they’ll just scrap whatever was written?
All of it.

How does that make you feel?
Sad.

 

Again, Josh confirms that a lot of material had been written for the new RHCP record and that he expects it to be effectively trashed now. He also talks about issues with working with Rick Rubin and how he would have liked his third album with the band to have sounded.

You can read the full, in-depth, interview on Rolling Stone.

 

Many thanks to Jenn 🙂 

Another Chad Smith Interview: SiriusXM

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RHCP’s drummer, Chad Smith, was interviewed by Lindsay Parker for the Volume West show on Sirius XM in Los Angeles.

Chad used to promote on the program (in 2018?), so he knew the presenter well and there’s a lot of chit chat between them throughout the show. Chad talks about many things including working with Ozzy and Elton John (Elton took royalties for the RHCP’s Sick Love song that he played piano on, and so did Bernie Taupin although he had nothing to do with it at all. They didn’t discuss charges; Elton played and then they got a letter a few days later asking for half the royalties!)

Chad actually returned to talk about his new art show in Austin, Texas, and there’s a lengthy discussion of how it was made made (including knives, DNA and getting oiled up in Vegas…!).

There are a few mentions of RHCP which might answer a couple of questions kicking around right now (although again, nothing on why Josh is no longer in the band).

Background Summary:

The band were working together at the end of 2018, but the process was literally stopped by the Wolsey fire in the Malibu area as the house where they were based was in the fire path. [A certain guitarist told me he didn’t know if his guitars had been destroyed as there was no knowledge on the fate of the house they were working in as nobody could access that area]. Progress did not really resume then because of the physical damage and aftermath in Malibu; e.g. Anthony had to move out of his home for an extended period and went to his other property in Hawaii for a while.

 

What RHCP Material was already recorded:

Presenter talking about Chad, having to put stuff [presenting the show] on hold ostensibly because the band were working on the new album. Then she starts to comment on the Wolsey fire:

Presenter: Then you had to put that on hold because of what was going on with the Wolsey fires; something happened where you couldn’t get to your HG, or whatever…

Chad: Our HQ?

Presenter: I don’t know! Your bunker, your jam… your monkey style house that you…

Chad: That’s what we had. We had a HQ.

Presenter: And you couldn’t get to it because the road as burned out or something…

[Talking about when; November 2018]

New RHP Album

Presenter: So where is the next RHCP album now? Did you start over? Are you picking up? What can you tell us because I thought it was supposed to come out last year. I think even though you are busy with other stuff, I think people are hoping for a new record in 2020

Chad: Yeah, I think so.

Presenter: You think so?

Chad: Yeah. I don’t know. I think so.

Presenter: Are you working on it now? I know there’s certain things you can’t talk about.

Chad: Yes [I can’t talk about some things]

Presenter: Tell me what you can say.

Chad: That we’re excited.. [lots of mumbling and laughter]

Presenter: It’s just us, Chad… [joking].

Chad: We’ve had some changes, and we’re really excited about it. With respect to people on our band [some mumbling], I’m looking forward to writing new music. We’re going to start working on it very soon. Flea’s like on honeymoon and riding elephants in Thailand … so when he comes back, we’ll start up again

Presenter: So is the stuff you were doing before the fires happened, is any of that going to make it into the record.

Chad: I don’t know. We’ll just.. have to…

[Mumbling again] Goes on to talk a bit about Bottlerock being announced.

Chad: That might be the first real gig.

 

Pyramid Show/ Documentary

Chad and Lindsey started talking about the show RHCP did at the pyramids in Cairo, Egypt last year. Note: This is paraphrased/shortened as there was a lot of chat and mumbling especially at the beginning of this section when the two were joking about Chad standing on top of a pyramid playing his drums!

Presenter: You literally played on a pyramid in like Egypt

Chad: No! Like in close proximity

Presenter: I want to envisage you standing right on top, bouncing drum sticks…

Chad: Bouncing drum sticks..

Presenter: Proximity is still pretty bad ass!

Chad: Nobody has done it since the Grateful Dead…  We filmed it, did the whole thing. I think it’s coming out in… one of the Ms…March or May…

 

Many thanks to Sister Witch for all of her help with this, and especially to Midnight_Slump on Reddit for posting the clip and the download. Much appreciated! 

Discussion on Reddit with clip 

Download of whole interview

New Interview With Chad Smith

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Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith has spoken to Rolling Stone about his latest collection of art work, The Art of Chad Smith, currently on display at the Russell Collection Fine Art gallery in Austin, Texas, USA.

Smith talks about how the art, “… is a fun, new way to express myself.” The interview also talks about the process of creating the art and mentions it’s his second such project (Parallax was released in 2016).

Obviously, the interviewer broached the RHCP topic of the moment and asked about the recent change in line-up of the band with Josh Klinghoffer being replaced by John Frusciante. His reply was, “I was given strict orders for this interview: ‘DON’T TALK ABOUT THE BAND,’”and he just confirms that the band are working now with John; they will be concentrating on making a new record and that their only other commitments are the festivals that have been booked during the summer. Smith refused to be drawn into further comment and was clearly sticking to the official line on this.

You can read the full interview here: Rolling Stone: Chad Smith Talks About New Art Exhibition.

Update…

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I’ve been updating several things on the website over the last few days. The John and Josh band member pages have been updated (re-written for John) with the latest information. In fact, I’ve tidied all of the band member pages information up deleting old links and updating information. I realised during that that the page on Chad’s tattoos is so old it was on the old forum site. That has been rectified! There is a brand new, up to date, page on Chad’s tattoos – any info on the letters I haven’t been able to identify, etc. would be gratefully received!

 

An Update: Josh Klinghoffer Leaving RHCP and John Frusciante Returning

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Adding this an announcement for anyone who doesn’t know the latest band news, and also to summarise the events now we’ve had time to process shock announcement.

Last weekend, a post appeared on the official band Instagram thanking Josh for his contribution over the last 10 years and saying he was no longer the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It also stated that John Frusciante was returning to the band.

Initially, people thought the account had been hacked and that this announcement was a hoax as it was so sudden and unexpected. To add to the confusion, it didn’t appear on the band’s other social media accounts at the same time, including the official website (it was posted there the following day- UK time at least).

Flea posted the same announcement on his personal Instagram and Twitter accounts shortly afterwards, but many people still weren’t sure it was genuine until James Slovak* publicly confirmed it was. Chad posted the same announcement a few hours later. (* Hillel’s brother. James, I believe, works for QPrime, RHCP’s management team, and that’s the most likely reason he knew the post was genuine).

No details are given on the announcement and it merely states the band is “parting ways” with Josh. No mention is even given of Josh leaving to pursue his solo career which would have been the logical explanation given the recent release of his Pluralone CD.

As for details, the same account is circulating from numerous sources and that is John requested to rejoin the band and since that was agreed, there was no longer a position for Josh. If true, whether Josh left of his own accord, or was asked to leave, isn’t known. The only definite is that John was photographed with Flea in the summer (July) so they have been back in contact recently.

How long John has actually been back in the band again isn’t known. It might be starting with the announcement, or they might have been together for a while, or he might have been working with just one band member initially and it led from there.

As for the forthcoming expected RHCP album, Flea recently stated during one of his promotional interviews for his memoir, ‘Acid For The Children,’ that an album will be released next year in 2020. There have been various mentions that the band are working on an album. The most recent comment about the actual process was, ironically now, from Josh at the Ohana Festival a couple of months ago (29th September), stating work was slow due to family commitments of the other band members. It certainly sounded like he was part of the process then and people at that point assumed he was as there was no reason to think otherwise. Some fans are now speculating that work has already begun with John, but there is currently no actual evidence for this.

An interview with Josh is due to be aired on 5th January so maybe more details about his departure will be made public then. No member of the band has commented publicly at the time of writing this. Flea has tweeted a few things about loving Josh and about his solo work, but nothing about the reasons for his departure.

As for Josh, for those of you concerned about him, I’ve had word back saying he is fine and I know a couple of other fan pages have had the same message too.

The Announcement:

The Red Hot Chili Peppers announce that we are parting ways with our guitarist of the past ten years, Josh Klinghoffer. Josh is a beautiful musician who we respect and love. We are deeply grateful for our time with him, and the countless gifts he shared with us.

We also announce, with great excitement and full hearts, that John Frusciante is rejoining our group.

Thank you.

RHCP on Tour 2019: Silverlake

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Source: Chad Smith’s Instagram

 

Date: Saturday 2nd November, 2019

Location: Silverlake Conservatory of Music, LA

Notes: The annual benefit gala for the music school the RHCP’s Flea set up (Anthony Kiedis is on the Board of Directors).

Setlist:

Can’t Stop

The Zephyr Song

Dark Necessities (Setlist gives choice between this and Snow ((Hey Oh)) but DN was played)

Purple Stain

Don’t Forget Me

Suck My Kiss

Soul To Squeeze

By The Way

Source: Heirloom LA Catering (story videos)

Billboard Article:

Billboard have an article that features a detailed overview of the event which can be read HERE

There are a number of videos as posts on these pages:

Official RHCP Instagram
Gavin Polone

Thanks to everyone who posted and shared things from the night- so appreciated (sorry we can’t use it all!). A big thanks to David Mushegain for the Instagram livestream and to my Sisterwitch for researching the best links for me to use.

RHCP: Boys on Film

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It has been rumoured and whispered about for some time that the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been filming a documentary. It was originally believed that the documentary was about the special RHCP concert at the pyramids in Cairo earlier this year, but speculation and some reliable sources have since suggested it contains more than that with recording taking place at other events too. However, the whole thing, rumours and gossip, have recently dried up… Until now. David Mushegain has just posted:

such a rad day previewing our new @chilipeppers documentary and hanging with @chadsmithofficial on his bday

Really hope this is going to be made public soon! Before Christmas release to hit the Christmas market? Would be perfect! We can only hope…

RHCP on Tour 2019: ‘Rebel With a Cause’ Charity Fundraiser

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Date: 24th October, 2019

Location: The Water Garden, Santa Monica, California

Notes:

Held in support for research by the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC (“Ellison Institute”).

Setlist:

Unknown but videos on social media showed that they played:

By The Way
Dark Necessities

Rehearsals:

Photos:

Embed from Getty Images

Both Getty Images and Zimbio have galleries of the event.

RHCP on Tour 2019: Oceana Benefit Concert

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Date: Saturday 12th October, 2019

Location: Somewhere in Hollywood, California

Details: This was a fundraising event headlined by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for Oceana (a maritime conservation charity). The concert was held in a private garden. Tickets cost between $2500 and $50,000 for a table.

Setlist:

Source: Event Eleven story on Instagram

Dark Necessities

Zephyr Song

Aeroplane

I Like Dirt

Californiction

Higher Ground

Don’t Forget Me

(By The Way Not played due to technical issues)*

Give It Away (shown on several videos)

Notes:

*Article on  Billboard Website about the event and also detailing the song change from the set list:

By the way… how does it go again? 

The finale of the night provided the lucky guests with a bizarre rarity: the Chili Peppers forgetting how to play one of their biggest hits. Flea and Klinghoffer turned to face each, apparently to start their 2002 smash “By the Way,” but looked completely perplexed by the horrendous, out-of-tune racket they created. For a good minute, the duo looked utterly stumped as guests giggled (“I blame the bass tech” quipped Kiedis) before Flea switched out his instrument and the band launched into a note-perfect “Give It Away.” As back-up plans go, it’s a pretty good one to have up your sleeve.

 

Embed from Getty Images

Social Media Posts:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Californication!! @oceana

A post shared by Ashlan Gorse Cousteau (@ashlancousteau) on

Thanks to people for posting on social media so we fans could see something of the concert! 🙂