Ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro using drugs, along with Michael Jackson going on a double date with a rocker who was high on PCP, is discussed in Drew Fortune’s new book No Encore! Musicians Reveal Their Weirdest, Wildest, Most Embarrassing Gigs, via Ultimate Classic Rock.
Even with his extensive rock background, the author admits he was “constantly amused, shocked and occasionally disgusted” by the tales musicians shared with him for the book. When pressed to name his favorite story, Fortune says, “I really do love the idea of cinematically picturing Dave Navarro writing a message in syringe blood, or Mark Mothersbaugh, high on PCP, on a double date with Michael Jackson and Andy Warhol at Studio 54.”
Anthony Kiedis revealed how Michael Jackson influenced Red Hot Chili Peppers’ The Getaway album in a 2016 Clash interview.
Nine months later, with Flea suitably repaired and [Brian] Burton available again, the band convened in the producer’s studio, where his intentions for the sessions were outlined from the beginning. Though the band arrived with a stack of songs ready to record, Burton insisted that they discard the majority and start new ones from scratch, live in the studio.
“A totally new method; very exciting, very nerve-wracking, high pressure,” Anthony confirms. “The boys would go in in the morning, and Brian’s kind of like a musical director, where he wants to start with the beat, and he wants to find the best section of that beat and loop it, and then he calls Flea in and he’s like, ‘You know that feeling you get when you listen to a Michael Jackson record?’ And Flea’s like, ‘Yeah?’ He’s like, ‘Well, give me that feeling.’ So Flea’s like, ‘Okay,’ and he just starts riffing. [Brian’s] like, ‘I like the 16th bar of the thing you played; let’s repeat that.’ Then Flea would repeat that and put his own magic onto it. So he would build songs like that and we had never done that before, but the end result was beautiful music.”
