Express & Star

The Red Hot Chili Peppers' talk ahead of Birmingham show

They are the band that couldn't be stopped.

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The Red Hot Chili Peppers have endured remarkable and ridiculous highs and lows since forming in California in 1983. Band members have come and gone, while there have been deaths, drugs and other setbacks.

But the band have endured and they released their new album, The Getaway, this June.

Singer Anthony Kiedis says it was hard work because it was the band's first record in 25 years without producer Rick Rubin at the controls.

"We had an unusually difficult experience making this record where we wrote 20-to-30 songs and it was all ready to go and we thought it was happening, and then Flea went snowboarding and broke his arm real bad, which was a bit of a setback.

"So we rethought everything and then we didn't have a producer and we were just sort of lost in space with all these songs. Lo and behold it was meant to be, as these things can be, and when all the dust settled Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, emerged and said 'let's go make a record'. We were like 'great, we have all these songs' and he was like 'leave those there, let's go write new songs in the studio'. So the process began over again."

He also remembers how he broke his arm...the memory is still painful.

"Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers have the same managers. At one point we stopped to have a cup of tea. I said to Lars, 'we should take a picture of one of us lying in the snow all misshapen and stuff. And take a picture and trick our management company Q Prime that one of us broke our leg.

"We were laughing about it and literally 40 seconds later, we were jetting down a mountain going like 50 miles an hour, and I just wiped out so bad. I couldn't see and I had this flat spot on the mountain and bam: I just smashed my arm. I broke it in like five places and got really bad nerve damage. Big pieces of bone got shorn off. I just completely trashed my arm. It was a big, big complicated surgery to get it all back and six months of not being able to play bass.

"They stuck a jar of Vicodin down my throat and I was on a morphine drip in the ambulance. I went to the hospital in Montana. I went back to LA to have the surgery done. It was hard. It was a very difficult, painful, sad experience."

The band have outlasted their contemporaries and remained successful throughout. Flea adds: "We've gone through phases. I definitely love Anthony. He's my soulmate. What can I say?

"I guess our relationship is some kind of weird psychological study, almost like a north and south magnet. They kind of repel each other, but they have to be together for the earth to live. Our relationship is kind of a trip. Even before we were in a band together, it was this powerful thing. When we were together, we would always whip some stuff up and create chaos and freak out the squares.

"Earlier today, I was thinking about the times when we would sulk and be mad at each other. We'd get our feelings hurt by one another. I think that back when we were young we really needed each other. We were both kind of street kids. We relied on each other.

"Then around the time that Blood Sugar came out and everyone got a million dollars, a nice house, a car, a washer and dryer and fancy rugs. All of a sudden our lives became really separate. We weren't living together in a little apartment. We had different sets of friends. There was a lot of anger and judgement in our friendship. It was really difficult.

"Now we're in a place that is so much nicer. We can just be happy and relaxed and support each other even when we don't agree. That's taken us a long time to figure out how to do."

By Andy Richardson

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