Anthony Kiedis discussed Red Hot Chili Peppers’ new album in a new interview with Citizens of Humanity. He compared writing on the new album to past albums.
“It’s strikingly similar in many ways. There are so many different stages that I have to try and be available in the creative process. We’ll have band practice and improvise—I listen and kind of lose myself and find melody and find rhythm in the moment. Then there’s the songwriting process, where the guys will give me an instrumental recording and I have to sit with that music. Then there’s the part where you’re just in the car and you get an idea, and you have to pull over and work on the idea because that idea might never come again. You’re on an airplane, or a train, whatever—whenever you feel that little tiny cloud moving through you that has some energy and some ideas. One thing I learned is to seize that, because you can say: ‘Oh, I’ll remember that!’ Sometimes I’m out there waiting for waves to come and I’ll get a great idea or a mediocre idea or maybe a couple of melodies that string together, and I’ll sit there and try to sing it over and over a hundred times so that I won’t forget. And then I get into my car; I’ll break out the phone and record it.
That part has changed, being able to record everything on your cell phone is different than it was 25 years ago, when you had to have a funky little tape recorder with you wherever you went. I’m a morning writer—I get up in the morning, clear the house out and get out my notebooks and my pencils and my CDs and my boom box and I’ll just sit there and write. I find that the more regimented I can be in putting a few hours of work in every day, the more benefits I reap when it comes to writing good songs. It’s like a painter that forces himself to paint every day, just hoping that could be the day it happens. I believe to be good you have to work hard. It’s the same with Flea; he practices constantly. He’s been playing bass his whole life, but he’s no good unless he practices every day.”
