Its kind of beautiful.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You had ahealth scare in Maythat forced you to cancel a gig.
My job is half stuntman, half vocalist, so Im always playing with some kind of injury.
Credit: HERBERT P. OCZERET/AFP/Getty Images
This is the Peppers first album in nearly five years.
We had a hard time figuring out what to do with our producer situation.
You ended up choosing Becks producer Danger Mouse.
He would say, Im sure you could do something better.
Go back to the drawing board.
His methodology is so different from anything weve ever done before.
Traditionally, we dont play to a clicktrack or to any kind of machinery.
So our sound has been very imperfect and organic, rising and sinking with the tide of the song.
He was inspired by the chords of Elton Johns Bennie and the Jets.
With his blessing, it seemed to make more sense.
You have such a deep catalog to draw from for your concerts.
For us, we tour a lot and we played all our old songs a lot.
The longer our new record is out, the more new songs well play.
For us on stage those are the highlights.
Those are the moments where we really feel the new spirit dancing around the stage.
[Song selection] is my job and I take it very seriously.
I spend a lot of time trying to come up with the right setlist.
Over the years the Peppers have been outspoken about politicsyou even played a Bernie Sanders fundraiser recently.
Its just such a nasty, self-serving field of weirdness.
When the opportunity came up to support Sanders with that show, it seemed like a no-brainer.
We did our part.
Ill be able to go to sleep at night knowing that I wasnt a lazy punk.
On-again, off-again guitarist John Frusciante left in 2009 and was replaced by Josh Klinghoffer.
Have you talked to John recently?I have not spoken to John lately.
But it also opened up the chance for us to have someone fresh and new.
We do love and respect each other; we do fight regularly.
Our attitudes, our moods, and our egos clash but weve been able to work it out.
Weve been able to roll with the punches.
Flea and I are like brothers.
I dont think that relationship will ever end no matter what, because you cant quit your brother.
