antiMusic: Considering I would imagine when it’s time for the Chili Peppers to do their thing, you spend a lot of time jamming out with Flea. What do you get from this band that is different than that kind of experience — just less of a familiarity?

Chad: Well, we all live in L.A. which is great, you know. We play whenever we can and everybody’s cool with that. Luckily, it’s not like some other bands where it’s “OK, you can’t do it. We’ve got to get somebody else”. There’s no pressure. I think maybe the other guys would like to be able to play a little bit more and travel. Once the record comes out hopefully people will get into it, and I would like to do too. But uh, I just gotta say no to things at some point. (laughs) I have a family at home, and I can’t travel as much as I used to. I’ve traveled a lot with Chickenfoot since May and my wife is very patient… but I have a feeling that she would be really upset if I said, “Hey, I’m going to Japan a week after I get home.” So, you know, we’ll play wherever we can. It’ll just make it that much more special you know. It’s not like we’re some big huge touring band, with 59 people working for us. It’s not like a Chili Peppers thing. It’s just the four guys. We set up our own stuff. And we go play. It’s cool. I like that. It’s so different from some of the other situations that I’m in. I start playing with these guys, just for the love of it and that’s great. Really. It’s good for me to play to 90 people and with no singing, no light show. You’re just there. It’s all music and that’s what it’s all about. It’s why I started playing. And I want to continue to do that. It’s fun and I want it to be fun and stay fun. When it’s not going to be fun anymore, then I’m not going to do it.

This is just a part of the interview where he talks about Red hot Chili Peppers, and the importance of his other two bands and how he sees his role in every one of them. To read the rest of this great interview by Morley Seaver, go to MorleyViews. Enjoy!

Chickenfoot’s self-titled debut CD will be released in either April or May. The first single might be either ‘Oh, Yeah!’ or ‘Bitten By The Wolf’. The tour will kick off in May, warming up in smaller venues (possibly clubs) in the USA followed by a few weeks in Europe during the summer. Then the band will return to the USA for a larger headlining tour this fall. The band is planning on performing the entire CD as well as songs from each of the band members careers.

Joe Satriani, the guitarist, recently described Chickenfoot’s music as, “High-energy, kick-ass rock’n’roll. We all bring to the table some unusual influences and then we also share a lot of roots. And I think that’s where a true color of a band comes out, just how we react to each other. So, it’s definitely rock music. We haven’t brought each other together to do a techno record.”

He described the music as “Funk, blues and experimental. The material is really slamming, and anybody who has ever been around Chad knows that he is a very huge personality, a very high-energy guy and his drumming in person is explosive. This band really gives him carte blanche to go crazy. I think it’s the best of what you’d expect, that’s the best way to put it. No one is acting out of character.”

For those of you who missed the Chickenfoot podcast videos, here is the teaser, enjoy!

A free reception for all will follow the concert. For more information, go to caltech.edu

And here are some more Flea news… Want a FLEABASS -instruments designed for style and performance by legendary bassist, Flea, of the Red Hot Chili Peppers? That’s easy now, go visit fleabass.com and pick one you like!

Here is what Flea has to say about it: FLEABASS is born of my love of music education as a studier and a teacher of music, and a lover and a romanticizer of the tradition of it. I wanted students to have an instrument they could fall in love with, and I wanted them to be able to do it with the limited means that most of them have for acquiring one.

Without further induce, head over to music radar and listen to the three part John Frusciante interview where he talks about his new album, future of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the way he sees it, and answers your questions.

Also, for those of you who are more interested in his solo work, read about his new album, The Empyrean, described in his own words. Visit John’s blog where he talks about The Empyrean. The so called story consists of three parts, and one of them was posted yesterday by great John Frusciante. Enjoy!

As for the future of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, as you can hear in the interview, he didn’t seem very enthusiastic, or to be more precise, he didn’t want to discuss it, with his plain “no plans” comment… Maybe he is just tired after creating this masterpiece and maybe, I really hope so, they will get back together at some point when they all feel ready for it.

Ian McLagan, Faces keyboard player,  has confirmed that rehearsals for The Faces reunion in 2009 went well. The Faces evolved from 60s band The Small Faces and became known as The Faces in 1969 when Rod Stewart joined the band. They released four studio albums and the split up in 1975.

At his official website macspages.com, McLagan posted “The rehearsals were a lot of fun, everybody was in fine form and things are looking good for a gig or two next year, but these things take time to work out and I’m just going to wait until there’s something solid to report, so I’m not getting excited just yet………….I’m holding my breath”.

The Faces line-up will be McLagan on keyboards, Ronnie Wood on guitar, Kenney Jones on drums and Rod Stewart on vocals with, and now comes the most exciting part, Red Hot Chili Peppers Flea playing bass in place of the late Ronnie Lane.

The extent of a tour is yet to be worked out. “We just have to sort out when and where and drop all of the management egos and just do what we can. We know we can do it. It’s just a matter of getting everyone’s availability sometime next year,” Ronnie Wood told Rolling Stone.

I really hope Flea finds it fun, and we get to enjoy a gig or two listening to this great line-up.

Here is a teaser:

Oh, and make sure to check out this lengthy interview with Chad Smith too.

it’s good to see all the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ members active in one way or the other… I just hope they get together soon.

Friends and Fans,

The Empyrean is my new record and will be released worldwide via Record Collection on January 20th 2009. It was recorded on and off between December 2006 and March 2008. It is a concept record that tells a single story both musically and lyrically. The story takes place within one person, and there are two characters. It contains a version of Tim Buckleys, ‘Song To The Siren’ and the rest of the songs are written by me. My friend Josh plays on it, as does Flea. It also features Sonus Quartet, Johnny Marr and The New Dimension Singers. I’m really happy with it and I’ve listened to it a lot for the psychedelic experience it provides. It should be played as loud as possible and it is suited to dark living rooms late at night.

- John Frusciante, November 3rd, 2008

The Empyrean Track listing:

1. Before The Beginning
2. Song To The Siren
3. Unreachable
4. God
5. Dark/Light
6. Heaven
7. Enough Of Me
8. Central
9. One More Of Me
10. After The Ending

Anyway, I am posting here, for all you readers, just a part of the interview where Chad Smith talks about the future of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and his connection with the band:

To hear the rest of the interview, and read about it, please go to MusicRadar. In the first part of the interview Chad Smith talks about Chickenfoot, and here is what he said about his new ’supergroup’, during a pre-interview chat: “It’s so crazy, I’ve never been in a situation where there was so much interest before a single note of music made it to the public. I would say it feels like pressure, but we’re doing this for ourselves as much as anybody else, so we’re hell-bent on keeping it fun.” …Sure sounds interesting and worth checking out to me!

Anyway, make sure you listen to the last part of the interview, to see if your questions has been asked, or just to hear how creative people got!

Register here for a musicradar.com account or log in if you already have an account and then you can leave your question as a comment using this form. Pretty neat, don’t you think?
Currently, as you should already know, Chad Smith is keeping busy recording with Chickenfoot.

So don’t hesitate and do it now. The most interesting questions will be picked and asked during the interview. So get ready and think of something creative and enjoy your chance to be a part of this.

Here is what he has to say about education in general: “Being in a band has been an education, and being on tour has been an education, so this is just me furthering my education in a different way,” Flea told MTV News. “When I was a kid and it was time to go to college, I thought, ‘College is for people who don’t have the street smarts to make it on their own — get in a band, get in a van and get rockin’.’ That was a good philosophy for me at the time, [but] there were a lot of things I wanted to learn, and I want to learn them now.”

When it comes to Red Hot Chili Peppers though, he is not sure when they will reconvene and start working on a new album: “We’ve just kind of stepped away from it for a while,” Flea said. “We’ve been working so hard for such a long period of time that we needed to get away to get a fresh perspective, and that’s what we’re doing.” According to Flea, the band originally decided to take two years off. RHCP finished their world tour a year ago, “so I think [we're looking at] another year or so,” he said.

“Being a rock star isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, let me tell you,” Flea continued. “You go on tour for a year and a half, and it’s great. I love entertaining people, I love playing music, and I love rocking like an animal. But at a certain point, you’re playing gig after gig after gig, in town after town after town, and you’re lying down, staring at another hotel-room ceiling, and it’s like, ‘I want to be home. I’m a dad, I’ve got kids.’ It’s nice to be home and do that stuff and work on music, but the time will come when that will shift again.”

The original article was written by Chris Harris, you can read the whole article here. I suggest you to do so, especially if you’re interested in Flea’s solo career.