[photogallerylink id=95961 align=left]For the last three days, we’ve had the change to bring you three amazing new joints from [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Red Hot Chili Peppers[/lastfm]‘ forthcoming album, I’m With You: “Monarchy of Roses,” “Brendan’s Death Song,” and “Look Around.”
All three of those songs have a quintessential upbeat Red Hot Chili Peppers sound, but today’s free stream of “Police Station” is a heart-wrenching ballad.
Our friends in L.A. got the change to talk to Flea and Josh about their music making process and what it’s like to record in the studio with Rick Rubin.
Flea and Josh Talk About “Look Around” And The Music Making Process With Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin has worked with the Red Hot Chili Peppers their last six albums and is essentially as important in the music recording process as any of the rest of the band members. Flea explains to KROQ personality Stryker how they got pieces of “Look Around” from a jam session and how things work in the studio with Rubin:
[pullquote quote="Out of a long jam, we just found some pieces that became that song."]“That was a jam that we all came up with together. The way that we write and the way that we rehearse, the thing that we just like to do when we’re together in a room and whenever we have instruments, is just to improvise.”
“And even though we always think that out of our long improvisations, us just jamming with no plan or structure or anything, oftentimes we’ll find songs in the course of those jams. But we just do the jams just to do it. It’s an exercise. It’s a way of living.”
“Out of a long jam, we just found some pieces that became that song.”
“[pullquote quote="We're so emotionally wrapped up in the music, he comes and he looks at it from more of a distant, objective place."]We jam when he’s around sometimes, but everything is written by the time we get with Rick. Rick’s not involved in the songwriting process at all.”
“We write all the music. Then we get together with Rick and we say, ‘Rick, here we wrote these fifty songs.’ And we start playing him songs and he just makes his comments.”
“We’re so emotionally wrapped up in the music, he comes and he looks at it from more of a distant, objective place and just makes his comments in terms of organizing it…For one thing, he’s an intelligent, sensitive man and he’s just not involved in writing it, so he just has a different perspective on things. He just helps us organize our ideas.”
“Police Station”
Want more Red Hot Chili Peppers? Check out these other stories on one of modern rock’s most iconic bands!
