Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith discussed the band almost breaking up in the late 90’s in a new Radio Rock interview. Alternative Nation transcribed the quotes.
“When we finished touring One Hot Minute in 1997, nothing was happening too much. The band was in a bit of disarray, and our manager left, he quit. At that point, I was like, I don’t know, this might be the end. I never thought John [Frusciante] would come back. The daunting thought of getting another guitar player, Dave wanted to leave, it was kind of a mutual thing, he went back with Jane’s Addiction.
The band was definitely in sort of a flux, in no man’s land. At that point, for a few months, I was like, I don’t know if this is going to continue. I never wanted to quit the band, but just the band [seemed] like it wouldn’t continue, because it was falling apart. Then John came back into the fold, and everything changed.”
He also discussed Stadium Arcadium almost being a triple album.
“We were going to be crazy and make [Stadium Arcadium] a triple album. We took a pretty good break, and we came back and wrote a lot of songs, maybe 70 songs, recorded probably 50. Rick was like, ‘Yeah! Triple album!’ But we pared it down to a meager 28. A very creative time for the band, we wrote tons of songs, we went back to the house where we recorded Blood Sugar, it was nice to be back in there. It came very easy, a lot of fun recording, just a lot of music.”
