Red Hot Chili Peppers
One Hot Minute

THE REVIEW

Hi guys, it's Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers! I noticed that there are 75 reviews of One Hot Minute, our disowned album, on this site, so I thought I'd vent once and for all, yes, right here on Debaser. My band and I never talk about this album, and we don't even play it at concerts. The reason is that it represents a painful period we don't like to remember, but the truth is that John Frusciante neither knows nor wants to learn Dave Navarro's parts. And so it went. But let me remember this infamous album anyway, half-broken, drug-addled but also charming in its own way. In 1991 we made the biggest mistake of our lives, namely creating Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and that's because we always will be compared to that damned album. I mean, think about the hassle when you're having a drink in Los Angeles, ask fans what they think of Unlimited Love and they respond, "eeeh, but that Sex and Magic was something else." Annoying.

But let's go back to the early nineties, Frusciante had run off screaming and decided to spend the rest of his life under a table, the producers wanted the follow up to Sex & Magic, it took us months to find that asocial show-off Navarro, plus we were doing drugs like there was no tomorrow. It was impossible for a normal album to come out, possibly even anything, yet between us, I remember some pleasant things about that work. To start with, we had Chad and Flea in a state of grace, both resolute in mercilessly torturing their respective instruments, musical troublemakers. Flea in particular always thought of his wife when he slapped furiously, and the Lord knows if he is the king of bass. When it worked, Navarro was also strong, he had shifted our sound towards metal, this was true, but in effect, we have never played like that again. When I writhed in "Warped" with my long hair, I felt rock. Fucking rock. I glimpsed the shadow of Led Zeppelin, only much angrier. Forgive me for this comparison, I'm not worthy, but let me dream at least a little. I still remember Chad's bombardments on those drums, it seemed he wanted to demolish them, while I sometimes went back to delight in a bit of funky and rapped parts, but not too much, because here, we were playing rock. At a certain point, however, the producers really took it badly, reminding us that One Hot Minute was the successor to Sex & Magic. I told everyone to stay calm, I would have this "My Friends" which is a carbon copy of Under the Bridge, some ballads that, despite misunderstandings about the declaration of intent, I will call "Tearjerkers", and finally a radio song called "Aeroplane", which perhaps not incidentally will represent our entire future discography.

Thus we managed to get everyone to agree, but as mentioned, we were doing way too many drugs, certain excesses we could have avoided, and I don't remember them fondly: the drunk singing at the end of "Deep Kick", the filler sung by Flea, that interminable pause in "One Big Mob" with the crying child (it was Navarro's brother), the Indian chants of "Falling Into Grace" (and that horrible chorus, frankly). In short, the dark sides were not lacking and I apologize for them, but at least the closing "Transcending" I think left something really important. Fortunately, that period is far behind and now everything is really fine, without particular jolts and with a lot of money. Frusciante continues to leave and come back, but by now we love him as he is.