RHCP comin to town!

[Chowbotak]

By Tommy Wee

 

EARLY in their career in the 1980s, California's Red Hot Chili Peppers (RHCP) were infamous for two things: Their crackling, die-hard stage energy. And running socks. Or rather, what the band did with them.

 

Watching the Peppers perform then was like witnessing a riot act by four heavily-tattooed, stark-naked (almost) and raving-mad men. Save for one sock covering what little modesty each of them had, they did not need much in the way of stage wardrobe.

 

 

STAYING CLEAN: Part of the reason the Peppers are still winning fans around the world.

However, in an exclusive interview with Life!, the band's bassist, Flea, whose real name is Michael Balzary, 39, reveals: 'Now, I strip just before I go to sleep.'

 

Fans here will most likely catch only the band's other trademark - frenetic energy - when the punk-funk outfit performs at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Dec 8.

 

But Flea promises to be unpredictable. 'We'll see,' he says. 'I'll go naked when I feel like it.'

 

On the phone from Brisbane, Australia, where the band is playing eight shows, Flea sounds polite, sensible and disappointingly coherent. His voice is bright and high-pitched; he sounds like a spritely 20-year-old.

 

For someone with a history of flashing his privates at reporters, as well as his fans (see other story), he gives uncharacteristically sane answers.

 

But fans here have every reason to be grateful.

 

Since the tragic Bali bombings on Oct 12, British band Oasis, Aussie singer Darren Hayes and American boyband O-Town have been scrambling for cover. All pulled the plug on their concerts here.

 

But the Peppers are going ahead with their Singapore date, reaffirming that they are, after all, heroic punks.

 

Flea offers a more logical reason for the band's decision. He says: 'We don't want terrorists to run our lives. We're just here to play music and to bring joy into the fans' hearts.'

 

WEARING ONLY A SOCK

 

THE Peppers have struggled with drugs, death, in-band turmoil, mental breakdowns and eventually, rehabilitation in its 20 years which makes the way they wear socks in front of thousands seem like child's play.

 

For their Singapore show, however, Mr Michael Roche, director of concert promoter Lushington Entertainment, says: 'The band members are all sensible adults. Of course, we'll advise them to keep their trousers on.'

 

To date, the band has released eight albums and has gone through seven guitarists.

 

RHCP - which includes singer Anthony Kiedis, 39; guitarist John Frusciante, 32; and drummer Chad Smith, 39 - was formed after Kiedis met Flea in school at Fairfax High in California in the late 1970s.

 

The band, then called Anthems, but renamed Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1983, included original drummer Jack Irons and guitarist Hillel Slovak.

 

The latter died of a heroin overdose in 1988. This came as a rude wake-up call to the band, as everyone was an unabashed junkie. Were they even sure where they were heading?

 

Flea, a yoga practitioner, is defensive. He says: 'We grew up doing drugs, but the music has always been pure.'

 

 

RED HOT: The band with (from left) bass player Flea, drummer Chad Smith, singer Anthony Kiedis and guitarist John Frusciante performing in the bullfighting ring, Plaza de Toros, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in Mexico in September. -- AFP

Traumatised by the death, Irons left. Frusciante and Smith were roped in to record 1989's Mother's Milk, and subsequently, Blood Sugar Sex Magik in 1991.

 

Unable to cope with that album's commercial success - the album has sold more than 9 million copies and spawned well-known anthems like Under The Bridge and Give It Away - Frusciante left the band.

 

Frustrated and overworked, Flea himself was constantly on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

 

Frusciante's leaving derailed the band, and ex-Jane's Addiction Dave Navarro came in as a substitute guitarist to help RHCP record 1995's dismal One Hot Minute.

 

That relationship did not work out either. The band lapsed into obscurity for a few years.

 

Recalls Flea: 'Dave wasn't interested in doing what we wanted to do musically, which was to improvise at length when we play. There was little room for growth or creativity.'

 

In 1998, after much persuasion from Flea, Frusciante returned. The foursome then recorded their most successful album yet, 1999's Californication, which has sold more than 13 million copies on the back of hits such as the title track and Otherside.

 

'The success meant a lot to us, as we weren't the flavour of the month. We weren't the Limp Bizkits at that time,' says Flea, the single father of a 13-year-old daughter, Clara.

 

In fact, much of today's rap-metal music, from the likes of Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit, does not impress him.

 

'I don't hear anything these days which gives me goosebumps or makes me want to cry,' he says.

 

But their music still thrills millions of fans around the world. In June, the Peppers topped the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart for 14 weeks with their latest effort, By The Way. They were also named Best Live Act and Best Rock Act at the recent MTV Europe Music Awards.

 

Flea is surprised that the band is not just around today, but snowballing with success. Admitting that he is a spiritual person, he says: 'It's a combination of things in the universe. I believe God plays a hand and this is our fate. To play together. Of course, there's a lot of hard work too.'

 

Part of that hard work, one suspects, involved staying clean and sober for 10 years. Now, both Flea and Kiedis are off drugs, and do not drink or smoke.

 

Flea has also set up a school in California's Sunset Boulevard, called the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, which offers affordable music lessons to children.

 

He says the most important role for him now is that of father to Clara, who is his only child from his marriage to high-school sweetheart Loesha Zeviar. They divorced in 1990.

 

 

DARE TO BARE: Flea on stage.

'I try to teach her to love herself, so that she'll make the right decisions in life,' he offers on fatherhood.

 

That newfound sensibility, says Flea, translates into the band, which he regards as more of a family rather than a 'bunch of business partners'.

 

Still, with all the rock band's stock answers, all is not lost. The world-renowned bassist still considers himself an exciting, if unsure, performer.

 

'You never know, I might just go naked on stage in Singapore,' he says cheekily. 'But is nudity okay there? I wouldn't want to go to jail.'

 

 

The Red Hot Chili Peppers' By The Way Tour takes place at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Dec 8 at 8 pm. Tickets at $60, $75, $99, $150 and $175 are available from Sistic. Click on www.sistic.com.sg or call 6348-5555 for details.

 

 

 

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NAUGHTY ANTICS

 

FEW bands are as comfortable with their bodies as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They go nude, flash reporters and even spank female fans' butts on occasion. Life! revisits the defining moments in the band's colourful 20-year history.

 

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

 

WHEN the band made the R(A) cover art for its fourth album, 1988's Abbey Road EP, they had the British band The Beatles as inspiration.

 

The Peppers shot the album sleeve wearing only woollen socks over their privates and posing in the exact same way the Fab Four did for their 1969 album - in mid-stride going across London's famous Abbey Road.

 

Singer Anthony Kiedis told reporters at that time: 'There was this old woman on the street, so I went up to her and said, 'Are you okay with this?', and she said, 'Eh, it's nothing that I haven't seen before'.'

 

HOT FLASHES

 

AT A video press conference held to promote their album One Hot Minute here in July 1995, an 'extra member' popped up with the band.

 

During the band's interview with more than 50 reporters from Singapore, Taiwan, Hongkong and Malaysia - conducted live via satellite from Los Angeles - bassist Flea unzipped his jeans, pulled down his underwear and 'hung around' in front of Asia for seven whole seconds.

 

Their record label, Warner, had to apologise to the media.

 

The flashing incident led to a direct ban of One Hot Minute in Malaysia. In Singapore, however, the album was allowed to be released on condition that one track, Pea, which has explicit lyrics, was removed.

 

GIVE IT AWAY

 

WHO can forget the four members of RHCP gyrating and hopping like popcorn out in the desert, wearing nothing more than loin-cloths and drenched from head to toe in silver paint?

 

The video vaulted the band into the mainstream, helping them clinch Best Breakthrough Video and Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Awards in 1992, and even netting a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1993.

 

FAN SPANKERS

 

DURING a 1990 MTV Spring Break performance in Daytona Beach, Florida, Flea threw a 20-year-old female fan over his shoulder and drummer Chad Smith tried to remove her bikini bottom.

 

After the fan fell to the ground, Flea knelt on her legs, yelling obscenities and spanking her buttocks.

 

Both members of RHCP were fined US$1,000 each and ordered to donate US$5,000 to the Volusia County Rape Crisis Center in Florida. The two were also required to write letters of apology to the victim.