The Red Hot Chili Peppers have returned with a vengeance, releasing their second album of the year. The story of the Chili Peppers has not been straightforward and this second album in 2022 really does mark a return after a hiatus since 2017. Moreover, they have reunited with long-time guitarist John Frusciante who left the band for a brief stint as a solo artist fuelled by his own substance abuse. Perhaps it is no coincidence, then, that the band’s most recent album is called Return of the Dream Canteen, and marks a step towards redemption from a decadent and troubled past.
My own love for the band goes back to my childhood. On a flight to New York from my native Sweden, I heard their new release of Dani California from the album Stadium Arcadium. I was instantly smitten by the funky beat, seemingly incoherent and hallucinogenic lyrics, coupled with anxious energy. I became obsessed and bought every album I could get hold of – this was in the days before Spotify. At the age of about 12 or 13 – the age when lead singer Anthony Kiedis first tasted the deceptive pleasures of drugs – I read his autobiography Scar Tissue. It begins with a young Kiedis and his friends “shooting coke off the roofs of LA.” In my youthful naiveté, I genuinely thought they were kicking Coca-Cola cans off rooftops. Naughty, I thought, and kept reading.
I was, of course, wildly mistaken. The story of The Red Hot Chili Peppers is one of heavy substance abuse, with their first drummer overdosing at the tender age of 26. Their story has become one of seeking redemption while attempting to keep up the high-energy, psychedelic worldview that they first encountered in their youth in LA. Their music makes sense against the backdrop of their context. Twenty-odd years ago it was still the world in which they lived their lives. Today it has become a bit of a pastiche, with members of the band approaching their 60s. Their appearance might strike some as more akin to the embarrassing uncle who thinks he is a perpetual youth rather than inspiring a sense of “cool”. Nevertheless, their latest album is unmistakably on brand.
The characteristic beats of the bass player “Flea” are still there. Frusciante’s spellbinding and screechy guitar solos are back. And Kiedis continues to amuse and confuse with his disconnected lyrics. Legendary record producer, Rick Rubin, who produced 6 albums with the Chili Peppers between 1991-2011 and has produced the two most recent albums, says Kiedis hears music and sings along, but only with a melody rather than real words. Nonsense language takes the place of words, and then Kiedis replaces them with real ones, laying a puzzle over time until a song is finished.
The band, surrounded as they have been by drug-fuelled ruses and narcotic overdoses, appear to have two recurring themes across their career: love and death. Their first album of the year was called Unlimited Love. The love they speak of is often fleeting, temporary flings. Now, wiser with age, perhaps they are looking for something more lasting. Death has accompanied them since their twenties, although not always in an obvious way lyrically. Kiedis has described how drugs were “killing him”, but the outward presence of the band is that of vitality, not decrepitude. In the latest album, one song titled Afterlife looks to a time, “long after we have been gone from this song / Well, the afterlife sings one for mе”. There doesn’t seem to be much space for transcendence in the Chili Pepper outlook, at least not in the conventional sense of the term. The beyond might be spiritual according to their musical oeuvre, but the greatest hope seems to be that music lives on. In this, they seem to be quasi-Schopenhauerenian, seeing music as the echo of eternity.
One song, the title of which I omit because of the presence of an expletive, contains the line: “Friday afternoon is cool / I lost my faith in Sunday school.” Perhaps the Californians did once have a faith which they have now left behind. Perhaps, too, they are slowly working their way back to a sense of faith via concepts such as forgiveness, gratitude, and lasting, unconditional love. They are a group for whom the “guilty pleasures” of youth will always beckon, but it is evident that their trajectory is one from adolescence to adulthood. Their music might suffer for it, but their personal lives will inevitably be enriched. Let’s enjoy the music while it lasts, and hope that their instinct that music endures over time is correct.
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