Red Hot Chili Peppers member Flea recently spoke about his working relationship with bandmate Chad Smith. Red Hot Chili Peppers has gained a lot of popularity and rose to mainstream prominence. The famous Californian rockers’ career has proven to be a genuine emotional rollercoaster, and as one of the best-loved rock outfits of the past several decades, most of it was highly publicized.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers members, Anthony Kiedis, Flea, and John Frusciante were never afraid to talk about their relationships and the feelings behind them. As a result, the fans understood and cherish “Mother’s Milk”, “Californication”, “Unlimited Love”, and others through what these albums meant for the band at the time, as much as through the iconic music they brought forth.
The band’s drummer Chad Smith often tends to be left out in discussions surrounding the emotional aspects of the Chili Peppers’ career and music, despite being just as essential for the band’s overall Chili Pepper-ness as the other three.
Flea opens up on Chad Smith
Instead, Smith is often perceived as the composed figure in the background who provides stability in real life just as he does in the band’s music – and Flea seems to agree.
While discussing his relationship with the drummer on the Broken Record Podcast, Flea said:
“With Chad, It’s funny because my relationship with Anthony is very personal, and very much brother-like, and my relationship with John is also very personal, very emotional, very intuitive, very connected. But my relationship with Chad is that we don’t hang out outside of the band, never have, I’ve probably been to his house once, It’s like this different thing.
“It’s just this very grounded, rhythmic thing, there’s no bullshit about it. Not that the other ones have bullshit on about it either, but it’s just like, we get down, we look at each other, and that’s how we talk. Very rarely do we speak about emotional things, about spiritual things, even things that trouble us or things we aspire to. It’s just, we get down and fucking hammer out some grooves. [laughs].
“I remember, It might have been Chad’s 50th birthday, 10 years ago or something. His wife went and had somebody come and film everybody talking about Chad for his birthday thing. And I remember feeling weird because I was like, ‘Well, I don’t talk with Chad personally about stuff.’ I almost was embarrassed, because… there wasn’t this other thing, and I kind of said, ‘Look, Chad and I, we don’t really speak emotionally about these things that I would normally talk about under these circumstances. We talk by playing, we talk by looking at each other and knowing when to lay back into a groove or knowing when to lean forward, and knowing when to sit right in the middle, or knowing when he should lay back and I should lean forward or vice versa.’
“Like all these intricacies of rhythm, which color a song so profoundly… And we do all this stuff just by looking at each other. Afterwards, I was like, ‘Why the fuck should I feel like that’s less significant than speaking or talking about our fucking inner child or some shit.’ Like, that is a beautiful conversation that Chad and I share, and I’m so grateful for that. That’s the way that we are, and that’s what it is, that’s awesome.”
