60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Red Hot Chili Peppers—“Under the Bridge”

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Rob explores the indefinable Red Hot Chili Peppers’ hit single “Under the Bridge” by discussing the band’s tumultuous history and rambunctious identity. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: John Moe Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I don't mean to start on a derogatory note, but I would like to list for you now the top 20 worst red hot chili peppers song titles. Not songs, song titles. Some of these songs are pretty good, but the song titles are, let's say, excessively virile. And as such, they're often quite embarrassing to say out loud, if you're me saying them out loud into this microphone. For a recording that might then be heard by strangers,

or for that matter, heard by my mother. Weird decision by me to start this like this. Red Hot Chili Peppers formed in Los Angeles, California, the city they live in, the city of Angels in 1983. Yeah, want to feel old? Try being in the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Funk metal, rap rock, alternative, punk, who are these guys? What are these guys? Unembarrassed.

That's what these guys are. Naked on album covers or on magazine covers or on stage. other than the socks on their penises. Macho is all hell, but with semi-benine, neo-hippy, wibbiddy-wabbity undertones, flower children with erections lasting longer than four hours. Carefree Lakers fans who occasionally struggle with life-threatening, and in one case life-ending, drug addictions. They contain multitudes. Multitudes of guitarists, for one thing. These fellas got a way with words, an excessively virile way with words. There's a devil in their dicks and some demon. and their semen. Okay, top 20, worst red hot chili pepper song titles. I wrote a thing about

the span a couple of years back and re-listened to their entire catalog and had a great time, actually, but I also compiled this list. Top 20, so an ascending order of badness, or really it's just unembarrassedness. Good for them, bad for me. Here we go. Number 20, funky crime. Number 19, even you, Brutus. Number 18, get on top. Number 17, shallow be thy game. Number 16, loving and touching. Number 15, Sir Psychosexy. We'll get back to Sir Psychosexy. I have thoughts, not impure, thoughts, regular thoughts. Number 14, Ethiopia. Number 13, suck my kiss. Great song. We'll get back to suck my kiss as well. Number 12, no chump love sucker. Number 11, she's only 18. The fellas in the red hot chili peppers were roughly in their mid-40s when she's only

18 came out. Just for your reference. Number 10, grand papy do plenty. Number nine, funky monks. Number eight, skinny, sweaty man. It gets much gnarlier from here. At this point, I'd like that voice modulation deal that people in the witness protection program get to use when they appear in true crime documentaries. Number seven, Catholic school girls rule. Number six, party on your pussy. Oh, God. Okay, number five, sex rap. Number four, stone cold bush. Number three, sexy Mexican maid. Number two, Phala's Cock.

Look it up, but not on my computer. And finally, number one, hump-de-bump. Great trumpet line on hump-de-bump. If we're being honest, Humpty Bump appeared on the 2006 Red Hot Chili Peppers double album's Stadium, Arcadium, along with she's only 18 and 26 other songs. spanning more than two hours. Let's back up. Let's regroup. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s. Soon I will be entering the witness protection program

due to embarrassment. But today we're talking under the bridge. And also Sir Psychosexy, but primarily under the bridge. Crown Jewel of 1991's Mighty Blood Sugar Sex Magic, which also features Sir Psycho Sexy. That album is, in turn, the Crown Jewel of the fearsome Red Hot Chili Pepper's discography, which now spans 35 plus years. Under the Bridge is the band's highest charting single ever. It peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, bested only by Chris Cross's jump. Fair enough, that's a very pleasing one-two punch. Actually, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were already battle-scarred veterans by 1991. In 1992, they put out their first greatest hits compilation, which other than Under the Bridge,

concentrated on the four albums that preceded blood sugar, sex magic. Grizzled veterans, these guys, the aerosmiths of alternative rock. Don't overthink it. Grizzled veterans who sustained casualties. So, 1983, City of Angels, Anthony Kedis is your frontman, not a great singer per se, but a phenomenal frontman, in large part because he doesn't give a shit that he's not a great singer, per se. His not great singing is a feature, not a bug. Speaking of bugs, Michael Peter Balzary, known unprofessionally as Flea is your bass player.

Most influential and adored bass player of his generation, unless you're way too into Primus, yes. From there, the Red Hot Chili Peppers lineup gets chaotic immediately and to some extent permanently, which is to say, founding guitarist, Hillel Slovak, and founding drummer Jack Irons, quit immediately, though both would be back. But instead, the band's debut album, 1984, Red Hot Chili Peppers, features drummer Cliff Martinez, the film score guy now, you know, Drive and Spring Breakers and Game Night, and guitarist Jack Sherman on the song out in L.A., here's what Jack Sherman sounds like.

Oof, the tin can production on the first Red Hot Chili Peppers record is a deal breaker. Fun fact, Alexander Graham Bell, when he made the very first phone call in 1876, also in that very moment produced the first red hot chili pepper's record by recording it over the phone in the 19th century. The album was actually produced by Andy Gill from punk funk god's gang of four. You can't win them all. Okay,

lineup change. Jack Sherman's out. Hillel Slovak's back in. Here's what Hillel's Slovak sounds like. That's on a song called Nevermind, just FYI. So, 1985's Freaky Stiley is produced by George Clinton, who

is quite an upgrade from Alexander Graham Bell, I must say, Freaky Styley features stupendous James Brown and P-Funk collaborators Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley on saxophone and trombone. Respectively, Freaky Stiley Features Wiley Covers of Songs by the

Meeters and Sly in the Family Stone. And Dr. Seuss, do you know this band Fishbone? I sure hope you do. Phenomenal band, also from L.A., also Nye Unclassifiable, funk metal, rap rock, punk, punk, ska, etc. Fishbone also put out their first

records in the mid-80s. Fishbone also put out their biggest album in 1991 called The Reality of My Surroundings, a fantastic record that did not generate a number two crossover pop hit. The dudes in Fishbone are black. They got a song, it's from 1988 called Subliminal Fascism, which is uh, might be worth revisiting now. In 2017, Fishbone bassist Norwood Fisher put it this way. If we were white, we would be hailed as the next Beatles. Here's another enduring fishbone tune from 1988 called, and the red hot chili peppers are still pissed. They didn't think of this title first.

Bone in in the Bone Yard. Now, you either got the knack for writing a career-making crossover pop hit or you don't. You either get a career-making crossover pop hit or you don't. It's a crapshoot, really. But Fishbone are a classic should have gotten way bigger than they got situation. That's the theme of a 2010 documentary called Everyday Sunshine, the story of Fishbone. Everyday sunshine being a Fishbone song

bursting with pop crossover potential. Gwen Stefani's in this movie. George Clinton's in it. Ice T's in it. And there's our friend Flea, praising Fishbone to the skies. Flea is wearing a shirt and pants in this interview, uncharacteristically, though I do believe he is barefoot.

Fishbone opened a bunch of shows for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, starting in the mid-80s, their friends, their mutual admirers. Flea, and the movie says, Norwood is an outstanding bass player with a unique style that I've stolen a lot from. He calls Norwood a backbone of solidness who's totally connected to the earth.

No greater praise from Flea. There are remarkable parallels between these two bands. There are also remarkable divergences with regards to fame and fortune and so forth. Can you picture Fishbone enjoying 100% of the red-hot chili peppers success? Maybe not. Fishbone get pretty out there,

proudly, jubilantly, defiantly. But in a just world, could Fishbone have enjoyed 70% of the red hot chili peppers success or even like 30% that would have been great that would have been justified the red hot chili peppers for the record have always struck me as enormously and endearingly sincere and infectious and generous and their enthusiasms and honest about what they owe to soul and funk and rap and reggae and effusive in their praise for the artists who influenced them the red hot chili peppers have done legitimately great and infectiously enthusiastic covers of

Stevie Wonder's higher ground and the Ohio players love roller coaster. Artists steal from other artists. That's what art is. White artists, sometimes with great reverence, steal from black artists. That's what a lot of art is. You can't rightly blame the red hot chili peppers for being hugely successful, or more to the point, blame them for Fishbone not being so successful. Still, all that said, it's a little worrisome, perhaps, that the first song on Freaky Styley is called Jungle Man. But don't worry. It's on top. The last line of the chorus is,

I get all the bush I can. Line-up change. Cliff Martinez is out. Traffic and Sex Lies and Videotape. Cliff did the score for those movies too. Jack Iron to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' old drummer is now their new drummer. Hellel Slovak is still your guitarist, though, and on 1987 to the Uplift Mofo Party Plan on the song Fight Like a Brave, he sounds like this.

Drugs were central to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' experience from the beginning. They could help you feel connected to the earth. They could help you leave it. What's the Homer Simpson line about alcohol? The cause of and solution to all of life's problems. Anthony Kitas wrote a memoir, came out in 2004 called Scar Tissue. He writes about being so fucked up on heroin that Flea threatened to quit the band right after the band first got their record deal.

And Anthony's pleading with Flea to stick around and he says, Flea, you can't quit. I'm going to be the James Brown of the 80s. Later, the band kicked Anthony Ketus out. briefly for being too fucked up on heroin to function. That was not Rock Bottom for him or for the band. Rock Bottom was when Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose on June 25, 1988. There's a quite moving scene in scar tissue, the book, where Anthony visits Hillel's grave and talks to Hillel at his grave and starts weeping. Line-up change. Jack Irons quits, saying he didn't want to be in a band

where his friends were dying. New drummer, Chad Smith, Chad, Smith's in it for the long haul. Chad Smith looks disconcertingly like Will Tharrow. It's incredible. They were on Jimmy Fallon once together. It's a whole bit. Anyway, new guitarist, John Frischante. John Frischante is not in it for the long haul, technically,

but he is currently in the band. Put it that way. Next record is 1989's Mother's Milk. On the cover of Mother's Milk, the guys are, you know what, forget it. John Frischante sounds like this. That's from a song called Magic Johnson, Relax. It's about the basketball player.

Mother's Milk was the band's first gold record, 500,000 copies sold in the U.S. Mother's Milk has that pretty rad cover of Stevie Wonder's higher ground on it. But most importantly, for our purposes, Mother's Milk has a song called Knock Me Down, which is about Hellel Slovak, and sounds like a typical raucous and virile red-hot chili peppers jam, and yet is about pain and grieving and healing

and talking about all of that. this song is ground zero for the idea that Anthony Kedis is a phenomenal frontman despite being less than phenomenal singer. Conveying the sentiment will always be more important than carrying the tune. The Red Hot Chili Peppers lineup has gelled for now. Their star is ascending. Anthony Ketus did not become the James Brown of the 80s, but perhaps his band can become the Parliament Funkadelic and the Stooges and the Ohio players and the gang of

for and the sly in the family stone and the meters and the dr sus of the 90s you know what these guys need though a producer a super producer a guru a funky monk a guy in dark sunglasses and an old testament beard with legit rap rock cred and so here we have flea agonizing over the bass fills on a new red hot chili pepper song called give it away but receiving invaluable guidance from the one the only Rick Rubin, who among his many other talent is pretty good at imitating bass fills with his mouth. That should be the vibe.

Like what you just... It is so hard because there's so little time in each thing. But just keep them really simple. Bottom. Ba-da-dam. Okay. Bottom. Bottom.

Okay. Top or bottom? Come on top. One more time. Mix him up and keep it really simple. Don't go too notty. Don't get too. notey the Rick Rubin story. That exchange comes from a whole ass black and white 1991 documentary

called Funky Monks. That's a good title, actually. Funky Monks, the movie concerns the making of the mighty 1991. Red Hot Chili Peppers' breakthrough album, Blood Sugar, Sex Magic, Magic with a K, produced by Rick Rubin. Long Island's finest co-founded Def Jam Records. By this point, he'd worked with the Beastie Boys and L.L. Cool J and Public Enemy and Slayer and Run DMC. and the ghetto boys and the black crows. Here we go. While I am not actively listening to Blood Sugar Sex Magic, I will concede that it's one of the 100 most important albums of the 90s.

When I am actively listening to Blood Sugar Sex Magic, I am also chasing strangers down the street, either on foot or on a riding lawnmower, to inform them that it's the best album ever made. I once referred to Blood Sugar Sex Magic in print as a raucous mountain dew enema. Do I regret saying this? well, I just said it again, so clearly I don't. I enjoy myself tremendously every time I listen to this album,

and I am surprised every time by the tremendousness of my enjoyment. It's bizarre. I perpetually, badly underrated. I like it way more than I think I like it, if that makes any sense. It doesn't do the lyrical sentiments of Anthony Keatis. Five albums into his career makes sense. They don't. He somehow makes even less sense when he is basically,

making sense, if that makes any sense. Anyways, within 30 seconds of hitting play on Blood Sugar Sex Magic, on the opening track, The Power of Equality, Anthony is lovingly, endearingly, imitating public enemies, Chuck D. On track two, if you have to ask, within 10 seconds, he is lovingly endearingly imitating Rakim. A backed up paddy wagon macken on a cat's ass. That's the good stuff. But on track three, breaking the girl, he is imitating nobody but himself. Great song, Breaking the Girl, rowdy, acoustic guitar, rolling drums, flutes, and Anthony Keatis singing the word girl as only he can. Or really, Anthony Keat is singing the word girl as only he can get away with. As for Suck My Kiss, great song, Suck My Kiss, let's ditch the acoustic guitar and crank up the virility by, say, 7,000 percent.

I will say this. If you first heard this song at 12 years old, this is hypothetical. and you hadn't yet managed to kiss a girl or a boy, this song could leave you really confused about the physical logistics of kissing, or like the goal of kissing. As for the song, Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic, it doesn't appear to be about blood, sugar, or magic. If you have to change the pronunciation of Aphrodite to

Aphrodite to make it rhyme with copulate to create a state of sexual light, then that's what you do. Kissing Her Virginity, they should have just handed out this album in health class. During the second verse of mellowship, slinky and B major, great title, Anthony Kedis rhymes Mark Twain with Duke of My Domain, rhymes Truman Capote with World of the Wild Coyote, and rhymes Bukowski with I Lost My House key. Furthermore, Cock my brain to shoot my load, the Anthony Keats'is story. The song Apache Rose Peacock is set in New Orleans. It's flirtatious. Shout out to whoever's banging on a toy piano as Louis Armstrong is summoned to deliver the line.

She liked the looks of me and my willy. Look, he contains multitudes of thoughts and also of loads. The first single off Blood Sugar Sex Magic is called Give It Away. Incredible bass fills on Give It Outs. the base fills go ba-dum ba-da-dum ba-da-dum-b-dum-bodum incredible give-it-away is about giving away your possessions to achieve true happiness and enlightenment I'm serious he's serious or maybe it's also a little bit about shooting your load you got to love the bing bong bing bong action throughout this entire song just an

avalanche of emotional and sexual and intellectual and musical information bearing down on you during give it away the brain Nick-neck pivot from my mom. I love her because she love me. Long gone are the times when she scrubbed me to drink my juice, young love, chug-a-lug me is breathtaking. The Red Hot Chili Peppers did give it away at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards with like 50 fans running on stage to jump around or mosh,

whatever we kids were calling it. And it sure seemed to me at home at the time, like all those people had already managed to kiss someone. This is my second most vivid memory. involving MTV in the song, Give It Away. The closest I have ever been to death in my life was late one night in 1993 or so when I was watching MTV in the video for Weird Al Yankovic's Bedrock Anthem came on.

Bedrock Anthem being a parody of Give It Away, set in the world of the Flintstones and mimicking the Give It Away video exactly, the silver paints, the wanton shirtlessness. And I just about fucking died laughing. So that's the vibe on Blood Sugar Sex Magic and a sense of what the vibe of Blood Sugar Sex Magic wrought. The semi-pornographic philosophy,

the comically extravagant hedonism, the bonkers profundity. This record is, in every sense you can imagine, noty. It's a lot. It's all you can take. It's all you can give away. But its true legacy comes down to one guitar riff.

John Frischante, even at his mellowest and most contemplative, just sounds like he enjoys playing guitar, and like you're supposed to enjoy listening to him playing guitar. The Under the Bridge riff sounds to me like a lonely kid scrambling up and down and over and around a bunch of playground equipment alone and feeling alone. But that do-d-d-dood-d-d-d-action between chords puts a bounce in this song's step, even amid the arresting stillness of it.

The super macho alt-rock guitar gods of the early 90s, Mike McCready, Kim Teil, Jerry Cantrell, even Kirk Obane when he got the urge were fantastic, but most of the time, boy, were they serious and snarling and grouchy and other macho-type words. Tom Morello had a buoyancy to him, but Rage Against the Machine didn't do mellow. Billy Corgan had a sense of playfulness to him,

but also he was grouchier than all those other dudes put together. But if we're talking buoyancy and playfulness, Fruchante stands alone for me. He has come to save us from all the derogatory aspects of the word funky. He has come to radiate funkiness throughout blood sugar sex magic. And bizarrely, for me, he gets funkier on the ballads, on the downcast songs. His solo and I Could Have Lied was a revelation for me. Specifically, a revelation that I couldn't learn to play guitar like him,

even if I learned the notes he was playing. His guitar sings better than Anthony Kedis sings. Did you know I Could Have Lied is about Anthony's doomed romantic relationship? with Chenate O'Connor? Huh. Anyway, whatever the words mellowship slinky are supposed to mean, John Frischante personifies the words mellowship slinky.

He makes those words aspirational. But under the bridge is where everything comes together. The Red Hot Chili Peppers collision course with true pop stardom. John Frischante's funky monkdom. Flea's ability to play the bass like Bootsie Collins, even on a power ballad. But mostly this is about Anthony Ketus,

trying to stay close. clean after watching his guitarist and friend die of an overdose. Feeling alienated because this new guitarist and his longtime bassist have now bonded over drugs. Marijuana, most northern heroin, but still now he feels alienated from his friends, from his own band. He's remembering personal relationships he destroyed back when he was on drugs, including with the actress Ione Sky. One day, Anthony is a bad day. The other guys, John Frasante, especially, are ignoring him.

All this wreckage is sloshing around in his head. and here's what he writes, a decade or so later, in the book Scar Tissue. I wrote home from rehearsal that day on the 101 freeway and my sense of loss about John and the loneliness that I was feeling triggered memories of my time with Ione and how I'd had this beautiful angel of a girl who was willing to give me all of her love, and instead of embracing that,

I was downtown with fucking gangsters shooting speedballs under a bridge. I felt I had thrown away so much in my life, but I also felt an unspoken bond between me and my city. Then he wrote a poem about it. Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner. Sometimes I feel like my only friend. Turns out Anthony Kedis is the lonely kid

bouncing around the playground. The playground is L.A. Is the city I live in, the city of Angel. So Rick Rubin stumbles across this poem about Anthony's loneliness, and he goads Anthony into bringing it to the band, and the guys in the band who are principally responsible for Anthony's loneliness, help him turn that poem about his loneliness into the band's signature song.

I'm guessing drummers hate power ballads, but even Chad Smith's high hat there somehow conveys a mellow funkiness This is a band that's stolen so many types of funkiness from so many funky people at this point that all that funkiness truly belongs to them now. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Self-possession is nine-tenths of true funkiness. I'm running a little short on time here. So while I'm already embarrassing the bejesus out of myself, I might as well just recite lyrics from Sir Psychosexy as we wrap this up. Sir Psycho-Sexe is just Anthony Keatis setting his own personal, fantastical penthouse forum letters to music.

The triumph ultimately of blood sugar sex magic is that the pornography meshed seamlessly with the goofball philosophy, which meshed seamlessly with the exquisite melancholy. He's sad, he's horny. He's sorry. He's hornier. He's lonely, but grateful for his city. If nothing else, he's hornyest. The first verse of Sir Psychosexy is a cinematic depiction of the Book of Genesis airing on Cinemax at two in the morning. deep inside the Garden of Eden standing there with my heart on bleeding there's a devil in my dick and some demons and my semen good God know that would be treason the red hot chili peppers have been chasing the dragon

of under the bridge for the past 30 years and they catch it sometimes or catch a glimpse of it my friends off 1995's one hot minute I love that song a worthy sequel to Under the Bridge only a slight downgrade the Hot Shots part due of power ballots. John Frasante had bailed, not for the last time.

Dave Navarro was the guitarist now for this one album. You know what Dave sounds like. People don't seem to like one hot minute, but I do. As a still romantically inept 17-year-old, I tried to learn the guitar solo to my friends, and I fucking nailed it, actually. The guy who gave me guitar lessons in a strip mall paid me. I nailed it so hard.

Speaking of nailing it so hard, believe me, Eve, she gave good reason. Booty looking too good not to be squeezing. Creamy beaver hotter than a fever. I'm a given because she's the receiver. Californication, the band's 1999 album, people seem to like that one way more. It's their second best-selling album after Blood Sugar Sex Magic.

John Fresante was back. He'd leave again and come back again, but he's back now. This is the record with scar tissue, the song, another fine under the bridge rewrite. the naked gun 33 and a third of power ballads, but also Californication, the song, and other side. Downcast jams, graced by the pensive, but still virile, elder statesman vibe that's been the red hot chili pepper's sweet spot

for the past 20 years. Why don't you chase that Zoloft with a Viagra? When the godtier rock critic Robert Crisgall reviewed Californication in a matter of speaking, he called the band New Age Fuck Fiends. That's why he's the best. Speaking of which, back to Sir Psychosexy, we're out of the Garden of Eden and back in the modern day now and Anthony Kedis just got pulled over

by a lady cop. That cop, she was all dressed in blue. Was she pretty? Boy, I'm telling you. She stuck my butt with her big black stick. I said, what's up? Now suck my dick. Don't say that to a cop.

Ever. Don't say that out loud. Ever. Whose idea was this? What happened here? I will never get tired of telling the story about how my wife tells us. the story about going to a teenage sleepover, and her friend had a VHS recording of the Under the Bridge video,

and this girl would rewind and rewatch the end of the video where Anthony Keatis sprints, shirtless in slow motion, and the girl's face would be right next to the television. We are all managing our loneliness and our abject horniness as best we can. Last one of these. Proping her up on the black and white, unzipped and slipped. Ooh, that's tight. I swatted her like no SWAT team can.

Turned a cherry pie right into jam. You may never feel comfortable enough to sprint anywhere, shirtless. You may never feel comfortable enough to call a song, sexy Mexican maid. You may never learn to play slap bass. You may never fantasize about having sex with Eve or Adam in the Garden of Eden. You may never try heroin. You may never try to stop trying heroin.

You may never be able to sing as well as, let me rephrase that. You're singing, voice may never have the pre-apic, amelotic gravitas of Anthony Kedis's singing voice. It helps if you love them, but you don't have to love the red hot chili peppers to live vicariously through them, to mope and mourn and party and lust through them. They are here to help you on your journey, to wherever you're going, and whatever mood, at whatever speed. And when you see only one set of footprints in the sand, that's when they propped you up on the black

and white and bones you in the bone yard. Our guest today is John Moe, host of the Maximum Fun podcast, Depresh Mode, and author of the book The Hilarious World of Depression. Thank you so much for being here today, John. Hey, Rob. Thanks for having me. Of course. So every guest who comes on this show beforehand, I ask, like, what do you like about this

song? What do you want to talk about? Usually I get a couple sentences in reply, which is totally cool. I asked you what drew you to Under the Bridge, and you sent me a 1500-word-eard-eat. mail, which is the most engrossing email I've received in several years. So thank you, first of all, for that. It was a wild ride, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Yeah, who would know that the mental health podcast hosts would have issues? And specifically red hot chili peppers based issues. It's just absolutely fantastic. So as an entry point here, my understanding is that under the bridge is the

song that basically convinced you to quit grad school. Do I have a... this right? Yeah, in fact, you do. I was I was in graduate school in an MFA acting program and was finding myself frustrated, was finding myself perhaps not as good at acting as I thought I maybe was, and also in New Jersey. And I'm from Seattle. I'm from the complete opposite coast. And it was wearing down on me. It was a program that kind of a drill sergeant of like, we'll humiliate you and tear you down and then build you up as an artist. And, oh, it just didn't take and it just chafed. And, like, every day was a new set of humiliations.

And then I'd taken to hanging out in this Hungarian bar in New Brunswick, New Jersey, with my friends. And one night that video comes on for Under the Bridge, the Anthony kind of belaborably running in a shirt on. Running somewhere. It's very important wherever he's going. It's very important. He's got to get to the camera and he's singing about how I don't ever want to feel like I did that

day. Take me to the place I love. Take me all the way. And I was thinking, I got to get out of this place. I got to go back to the West Coast. This isn't working. There are so many feelings that I never wanted to feel again that were happening on a daily

basis. And And what had happened was I had been dealing with major depressive disorder since about the age of 12. So at this point, I'm like 22, 23. It's still going to be another 10 years before it's diagnosed that this is the thing actually happening. And so when you're in one of those holes, you don't think, oh, I have control over this. I can go do a better thing. You just think, well, I've been placed here and here I must remain. And Anthony Ketus was the one who said, maybe you could be taken somewhere else.

Get out. Maybe you don't have to feel like this. Maybe you could just get out. And I metaphorically ran, but with a shirt on, away from that place. Back across the country. Yeah. X thousands of miles from New Jersey to Seattle. And I might have done it anyway, but the Red Hots were the ones that put me over the top

and actually made me pull the trigger. and it was the absolute right move to make. And so thank you, Anthony. Yeah. Prior to this, did you self-identify as a red-hot chili peppers fan, per se? I would say, yeah, I would say I was a fan. I was introduced to them, you know, a few years before in regular college by my friend Tina, who had, like, the first three albums.

This was before Mother's Milk came out. This was freaky, styly, total uplift mofo party plan. Yeah, this is the punk funk stuff, yes. This was the punk funk, and it was very appealing because those guys were just bonkers. And they were completely, that's a mental health term, Rob. I love that word. I love the word bonkers so much. That's the only word to describe it. This was the era of fleas stuffed animal pants that he wore.

Oh, yeah, from the bust-a-move video, I believe. Yes, yes. And like, they represented a lot of freedom to me. Like, I like the funk. I like the sound. I like the kind of franticness of it. But it was more the energy of it that was getting to me than a deep appreciation of the subtleties of the notes and the tempos. Yeah.

I mean, they had a song called Party on Your Pussy. They sure did. I'm still embarrassed to say out loud. And I'm 52. Thank you for saying it out loud. Yeah, no, that does not get better with age, that problem. So, yeah, I was, I enjoyed their music, and I admired the abandon with which they played. Sure.

You are of the opinion that Anthony Keats is a terrible singer, but he's a great frontman because he sings terribly with great confidence. Is that a fair characterization of your take? I think so. I mean, it's, it's a matter of splicing words, but I wouldn't say he's a terrible singer. I would just say he's not a singer. Okay. And that's what you hear on Blood Sugar Sex Magic is Rick Rubin saying, don't hold notes.

Just cut off the notes. Let him go. Yeah, that's good production. But yeah, no, he is the right frontman for that band. And there are certain vocalists who we've all agreed to describe as singers and think of as singers, even though they're not. I mean, he's won David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne. Yes.

Courtney Love is not a singer, but she's the perfect person for that band. And so, yeah, it's, and he does a kind of funk rap thing most of the time. Yes, he does. I accept him. I mean, I accept him into my heart. I accept him into my pantheon. That's so generous of you. I can't believe I'm going to say this song title out loud again.

But party on your pussy. like what you can admire about the red hot chili peppers is they're liberated enough to call a song that you know and you can admire that even though you personally would never in a million years call a song that and you cringe and even say it out loud like they're aspirational freeness that you would ever you would never want for yourself rob the thing that they did with party on your pussy party on your pussy is a unique case because the thing about party on your pussy fail oh i'm a little winded. But see, it's not just that they called a song that. It's that they said, okay, let's enter this into the catalog. Let's contact ASCAP. Let's tell the printers who are

printing up the sleeve that this is what we're going with. And over the years, it's been changed. It's now called something like a secret track inside or something. Yeah, super secret something. Yeah. But yeah, it's a commitment. Like, You know, it's like we do with writing, like it went through all the edit processes and survived his party on your pussy. Nobody was like, guys, maybe not. Yeah, they were so committed to the bit that they stuck with it. Absolutely. Rick Rubin, of course, who produced Blood Sugar Sacks Magic.

I loved, you said to me, he has a way of making a band sound like they have more answers than questions. I thought that was a really good way to put it. Don't hold your notes is another good way to put it. Everybody's got a take on Rick Rubin and what he does or doesn't do. Yeah. You know, like, what is your, what do you picture when you picture Rick Rubin producing, at least in this era, at least this album? He's kind of the Steven Soderberg of album producers.

When I know Steven Soderberg has directed a movie, I'm like, okay, I'm going to be taken care of. Things are going to be well lit. Things are, you know, the action's going to move along. Some people are going to be pensive in the movie, but that's okay. It'll progress. It'll have a satisfying ending. And I think Rick Rubin is kind of like that. Like, you know it's going to be kind of the polished version of what that artist is most of the time.

And hopefully it's not going to drain them in the process. But he took the kind of still wild, but maybe slowing down a little bit chili peppers coming out of Mother's Milk. Right. Because on that one, they had like, you know, a sad song about. Hill-L Slovak, and it became a little more contained. He said, okay, let's get the funk, but let's know where the funk is going. He's like a practical dad. And, you know, the thing about a practical dad, like, if you're out with your friend

and your friend's practical dad, you're going to have quite a bit of fun and no one's going to get hurt. Right, right. You're not going to have the wildest time of your life, but you're going to have a good time at the laser tag facility. There's a guy in a beard in a corner just shooting people at random. Just profoundly, serenely, you know, with purpose. But the minivan is clean.

You're going to get good pizza after. Absolutely. You and your friends who got into the peppers through freaky styling, like by the time of blood sugar, sex magic, you know, 91, they're huge on MTV. They're huge on the radio. They've crossed over. Is this a sellout? situation in your mind?

Kids don't have this concept anymore, but is it rankling long-time fans that they've reached this new height? I probably called it a sellout thing at the time, but it's a sort of self-serving use of terminology that I think was employed back then. Because what it means is that the thing about you that was a little special and a little more cool is no longer cool because everybody else has it too. And so as soon as the band you love gets huge, then you're diminished somewhat.

And so I saw it happen. I had friends who were very into YouTube from October and boy, and then, you know, before you know it. You lose them, right. Yeah. I've often said, usually when I just want to, be argumentative that REM stopped making albums after Green. Green was their last album. They're like, what about adventure and hi-fi and monster? I'm like, no, that was a different

band. There's like 10 albums after that. Yeah. Just clones of them, you know, just just impersonators. Yeah, but those are like the Star Wars prequels of albums to me. Oh, wow. That's, yeah. I know. Which I don't actually believe, but it's just fun to me. I was interviewing Jeff Tweedy one time and he had a monkeys guitar and I said, wow monkeys. He said, yeah, the monkeys because they're better than the Beatles. I said, do you really think that?

He's like, no, I'm just playing the bit as a person who would say that. That's a serene dad opinion right there. Absolutely. You're from the Seattle area. You were in the Seattle area rock bands like while Seattle was the biggest thing, while you lost Seattle to the world in a sense. Is your city becoming a worldwide rock and roll mecca

entirely a good thing if you live there and play in a band's there? It was exciting to watch, and because I was actually from the Seattle area, that gave me a little bit of smugness that I could carry around. You know, when you can't generate your own self-esteem, a few nuggets of smugness will sometimes do the trick. It works. Works in a pinch. And so I saw Soundgarden just before they got signed to A&M when I was in college. A miraculous show that they did. And, you know, I remember, like, on that same bill,

Nirvana was supposed to open for Soundgarden, but they got a flat tire so they couldn't show up. And so all these bands that were coming up that were then going out into the work, but they had been playing at the same really dirty tiny clubs that my band was playing. So every band I knew was like, maybe we're the next sound garden, the next Pearl Jam. Absolutely. Never factoring in, except they all have a lot of talent. That is. They're all really good.

There's a differentiator sometimes. In your opinion, are there any good red hot chili pepper songs after? under the bridge. You know, they've been a multi, what's funny about them as grizzled veterans as 1991 in 1991, is they've been a multi-platinem band for the past 30 years since then. Yeah. Do they still got it for you in any sense?

I think they've settled into the semi-contemplative mid-tempo range. And I actually have more sympathy and empathy for them than a lot of other bands that was into when I was younger because I hear like californication and I think well of course you know you can't you can't play no chump love sucker when you're 50 and you mustn't and so I kind of I I feel them in my heart a little bit more yeah I mean I'll hear the hits and it it won't upset me what I what I like about californication is you can just hear him find the rhyme scheme of like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-a-da-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-old. You know, once he has that, he's going to knock off early from work that day because it's all...

Yeah. It's all just going to work out. It is very funny that they're like, okay, we're settling-down song, has fornication built into the song title. Like, just the relative scale on which we're operating here is a very, very funny thing. Because at that point, because at that point, you're still talking about pedantically. Yeah, exactly. Like, maybe I shouldn't have had all that sex.

I would totally have it again. Like, I'm going to pretend to regret it for the same reason that I'm going to say the monkeys are better than the Beatles. How shirtful are they when they play today? Shirtful. Do they wear shirts? I can't imagine flea wears shirts, but I wonder if the rest wear shirts. I'm going to guess that they don't, honestly. If anybody is going to commit to that lifestyle for life, if anyone's going to be able to do

at Iggy Pop is able to do. I do think it's Anthony, not the singing and the front manning necessarily, but on the shirtlessness scale, this is the one shirtless band of that era that may conceivably still and always be shirtless.

Shirtless, yeah. Shirtful. The guitarist of the moment might do some sort of black cloaky thing, and that can be understood. It's a tradition with them. But yeah, Flee it wouldn't be the same band

if he was shirtful, I think. I agree. Absolutely, I agree. Like, scar tissue from Californication. Like, my friends, a song I was listening to just today, like, my friends is very explicitly trying to do Under the Bridge again, and I responded to it very well as a teenager

in 1995. Like, just under the bridge, have they carried that song, that idea, that sentiment forward on songs, on albums since? Like, this is their lane. This is something that they can't conceivably do for the next 30 years. Is that what they've done, in essence?

This is the blueprint for the rest of their career, this song. Yeah, I think it's more sustainable. Whereas if they were doing party on your pussy. Six. Yeah. Yeah. That's a tough one. We're back to have another party on your pussy.

Like you couldn't do sequels. Right. Yeah. Reboots. Bar Mitzv on your pussy. A multiverse. 15 year class reunion. your pussy. Oh, wow. Yeah, this is a rich vein of content. Absolutely. This is a broad question,

but as 90s alternative rock goes, is there a specific character to how it dealt with depression or mental health issues? Like, I responded very well to nine-inch nails, to Nirvana, to smashing pumpkins at the time, but I was a mopey teenager, and like my pain was valid, but it was, you know, it was mundane. You know, do you, do you listen to Nirvana, to Nine-Eish Nails, to Soundgarden, red hot chili peppers now and think, like, these guys are going through some issues, but they're doing it in a fairly healthy,

constructive way. Like, how do you look back on this era now and the way it dealt with mental health? I think that the terminology wasn't in place, but the openness was. And so you had these bands talking about the darkness in a way that was not celebrating a kind of mystique, of it like a Smiths or the Cure. But yeah, like 9-inch nails, pearl jam to some extent on 10,

were taking a look at that darkness as a first-person narrative and what it was like to go through that. And it was startling at the time because people didn't know if the singers really meant that. And obviously, Kurt Cobain did. And that's what was so shocking. Like, you know, are you really in that bad of a place? And then he dies. You're like, oh, he, that was not for effect. That was coming from a real place. The actual song title, I hate myself and I want to die.

And I like, surprise. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I know you've talked about Sliver on your show before, the Nirvana song, which is, yeah, I actually, I was working at a radio station in Seattle. And I went out to the green room to get a glass of water. and Chris Nova Sellech was there. He was being interviewed for a different show.

And I said, oh, well, you know, thank you for all the music. I have a three-year-old, and he loves Sliver. Like, that was my son's favorite song when he was three. That's a great song to have as your favorite song when you were three. And Noah Selich said, oh, I'd be careful if I were reading it. Right, right. You might want to think twice about that one. But, no, I think that the acceptance of that darkness

and the acceptance of, you know, whether you call it depression, whether you call it a disorder, that might come in later in terms of like, here's what I'm up against, are you going through the same things? But that kind of, after the 80s, which had so much sheen to it, I think a lot of the 90s was digging down into the rough stuff of your own mind, of your own psyche, and putting that into lyrics and putting that out into the world. I think that was one of the first cases of, you know, when those bands became popular, when those artists became popular, those were kids who were relating to what those people were saying in a way that they hadn't related to Journey or Tom Petty or any of these other acts from before. It's so weird to me now that I related so much like Billy Corgan as a teenager. Like, what do we actually have in common? You know, I don't have any heroin experience.

Right. You know, it's, I'm trying, I can't figure out what the common. ground was at the time, but it was so palpable to me, this sense that this person was like speaking directly to me. And I don't understand what it was about. I think a lot of the language was more unadorned by the time we got to the 90s. And I mean, anytime I think of 80s music, I have a mental block because all I could think of is Rio by Durand Duran, because that is the entire 80s to me. Sure. What the chili peppers were doing, you know, even, even in the 80s and on into the 90s,

was speaking from a pretty primal place. And, you know, when Soundgarden was coming along, their early albums, too, were this, you know, were very, very blunt about, this song is about sex. This song is about having sex with Kevin's mom. Yes, yes. This song is called Big, dumb sex.

Big dumb sex, yeah. The red hot chili peppers were so mad that they lost that song title to SoundGuard. It was a rough day. You guys, we've been too subtle. Too much poetry. In arms race. Here comes hump-de-bump. Ten years later, they finally crack the code.

Is there any other fairly big 90s alt-rock song that you feel like tackled depression, you know, or mental issues in a particularly enlightened way that is aged well in the way that it helps people. you think process these issues? It's more of an album than a song, but Ben Folds Whatever and Ever Amen, I think taken as a collective. And there are songs in there that are a little more vivid than others, but it kind of forms, and especially if you know about the recording of it and what went into that, it forms this kind of early 20s, I don't know what I'm supposed to do next kind of quality. stuck in North Carolina quality that I think works well. I think there's a fair amount from Uncle Tupelo and Wilco and Sunvolta that have a similar quality of like,

maybe this isn't going to work out. Maybe nothing we're doing is going to work out for the best. And yeah, I mean, I think there's a fair amount that's in there. And that's in popular music. I think in hip-hop, there was still lots of optimizations. comparison. Right. For a while.

Depending on who you were listening to. Yeah. You were hanging around Puff Daddy, there's plenty of optimism, I suppose. Right. Things are going to be great forever. Nothing will ever go wrong. Jeff Tweedy is an interesting one to think about, like, the way his fans have aged with him and the way his approach to, you know, mental health has changed.

You know, you think, like Summer Teeth is my favorite Wilco record, and there's a ton of darkness, how to fight loneliness is such a beautiful. beautiful and honest song, you know, that you sort of take as a metaphor, but was probably not a metaphor at all. Yeah. You know, and I don't think it's a mistake that, you know, when, when 9-11 happens, like, Yankee Hotel Fox Trot is like the record everyone sees on, like, okay, he knows what's going on. He can speak to the emotional tenor of these times. He's plugged in to how we really feel about this. Like, he delayed that groundwork already. Well, and nobody who has dealt with substance issues and recovery issues, I don't know if anybody who's been through that who hasn't experienced

depression, like that tends to just go right along with it. And so you hear that, you hear that ache on like a sky blue sky, handshake drugs, you know, some of those songs of when he was, when he was using and then writing songs about using, there's so much more kind of remorse built into, like, those might have been up-tempo songs, but the remorse dragged the tempo right down. And, yeah, you really hear a lot of that, I think. Are you a karaoke guy? Rare, but now that the vaccines are going around, I want to get back to it. The last karaoke I did was on three cocktails, and it was, it's the end of the world as I know it,

and it did not go well. That's a three cocktail song. No, that's a lot of words, John. That's just an awful lot of words. I was going to ask, like, I'm just picture. For some reason, I can picture you singing under the bridge at karaoke so clearly. Don't ask me why that is, but it's a pleasant image to me. This is the other gift that Anthony Kedis gave me is I always thought it would be great to be a lead singer in a band.

And I couldn't because I couldn't sing very well. And he showed me that that was not a requirement. That is not a requirement. And I've been in flawed, unsuccessful bands and then transitioning smoothly into sad dad bands. That's the progression. For many years. I've done some national covers. And so, no, the karaoke that I really want to do, because I do want to get back to it,

I asked Matthew Cause of Not a Surf if he would join me. And he said, sure, to do Popular by Not a Surf. Sure, you could really get into that with maybe four cocktails. No, if you did REM, if you did End of the World on three, you can do Popular on Three. It didn't go well. It didn't go well. I'm still undecided whether I want to do the reading from the book part of popular or just the kind of slogging along chorus part of popular.

Once every two weeks. Yeah. It's so you can try and do both, but it's tough to do both. This has been amazing. John, we've really run the gambit. We've said a lot of bad words, a lot of times. You know, this has been wonderful. I really appreciate you coming.

Oh, love being here. Keep up the good work. Thank you very much to our guest this week, John Moe. Thanks, as always, to Isaac. Lee and Justin Sales, our producers, and thank you for listening. And now, without further ado, here are the Red Hot Chili Peppers with Under the Bridge. See you next week.