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Friday Funk #40 – ‘The Power of Equality’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Friday Funk #40 – ‘The Power of Equality’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Friday Funk #40 – ‘The Power of Equality’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers
October is Bassist Month on Edge of the Line. We’re celebrating the birthdays of Flea (16 October) and Bootsy Collins (26 October).
The Red Hot Chili Peppers album Mother’s Milk had been certified gold, partly powered by the single of ‘Higher Ground’, a Stevie Wonder classic made funk-metal. ‘Knock Me Down’, from the same album, was a glimpse at the prodigal musicianship and unique chordal and melodic sense of guitarist John Frusciante.
1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, contained slow, downbeat songs (‘Breaking the Girl’, ‘I Could Have Lied’, and ‘Under the Bridge’) whose emphasis on melody would have been alien on their debut seven years before. But it also combined funk and rock as successfully as any band since Funkadelic.
Producer Rick Rubin had met the Chili Peppers several years before, but was spooked by the band’s dark energy. He experienced them differently in 1990, and agreed to produce an album.
After the band had written music, Rubin took them into a Hollywood mansion to record, freeing them from the pressures of a traditional studio. Frusciante, speaking to Rubin on Broken Record, said of the drum sound: “We were so excited by stuff, just like hearing all that natural room sound on the snare and stuff. When I hear it today, it sounds really overblown, but that was exciting. (...) It was perfect for that record and how we arranged the tunes, because –”
“How sparse they were,” said Rubin.
“Yeah, exactly. It filled up the space. Whenever the guitar wasn’t playing, or the bass wasn’t playing, the drums – it almost sounded like you didn’t need anything but drums to fill up the space. Everything else sounded like extra.”
Rubin praised the power of Smith’s drumming. “If you think about what drummers in funk bands sound like, like if you think about James Brown’s drummers, they’re super groovy, but they play almost like jazz, very subdued. Groovy, but not loud. And Chad’s rocking like crazy, which is not your typical funk drumming.”
“Right,” said Frusciante, “but he’s got a good funk groove.”
“The feel. Absolutely. It’s incredible. It’s a great combination.”
“Yeah, it’s just like there’s this heaviness to it, but it’s still got this funk thing, but it’s also got this extra speed to it.”
Around the end of the tour for Mother’s Milk, Frusciante had “some epiphanies” regarding his own playing and taking it in a new direction. He had previously played guitar to fit his “idea of what a Chili Pepper was.” Frusciante was largely replicating Slovak’s style (although Mother’s Milk’s guitar sound was heavily influenced by producer Michael Beinhorn’s preference for overdubbed, dominating guitar parts).
Now, Frusciante was more confident and closer to his bandmates, ready to “try being more [himself].” He was enjoying Velvet Underground, Television, and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, and “realising that a lot of power can come from not hitting the strings super hard all the time, from not filling up all the spaces with notes, from leaving big spaces” and learned not to “compete with Flea, as far as being busy, and stuff like that. I finally had it through my head – Flea’s allowed to be busy. Somehow, he can be busy and not sound like he’s showing off.”
Frusciante was inspired by the “spacious” guitar playing in Bow Wow Wow and “how well it supported the bass.” He was also inspired by Jimmy Page’s playing in Led Zeppelin and how he “gives so much space to the drums”. Frusciante said, “He’ll often hold a note and leave it to allow the snare drum to be the maximum size that it can be.”
The guitar part in ‘Power’ sounds Public Enemy-inspired, and little like a guitar at all. Kiedis nods to P.E.’s influence in the lyrics: “I got tapes, I got CDs / I got my Public Enemy / A lily white ass is tickled pink / When I listen to the music that makes me think”. (Following those lines is a lyric Kiedis was fond enough to use twice, first for the ‘Higher Ground’ acapella b-side, ‘Politician (Mini Rap)’: “Not another motherfuckin’ politician doing nothing but something for his own ambition”.
The song is directly impacted by Rubin’s hip-hop experience. By ’91, Rubin had produced for artists like LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, and executive-produced Public Enemy. Frusciante talked about Rubin’s influence on Blood Sugar’s arrangements.
“A lot of it was about creating space. We were all being more conscious of the space that we were leaving between each other’s instruments, and each other’s notes, and you emphasised that same thing, telling me not to play for a whole verse, or telling Chad to lay out for this part, or Flea to lay out for this part, or, ‘Everybody do a complete silent pause right here.’”
Frusciante asked, “Had you worked with a lot of real drummers at that point?”
“No,” Rubin said, “mostly drum machines. I had mostly programmed everything.”
“It was really neat when you were helping Chad with a kick drum pattern or whatever, and it really seemed like it was this drum machine mentality going to a real drummer. And it was really inspiring, and it felt really fresh and new.”
Rubin was thinking, “How can we create more space? And how can we do things that allow the material to develop without having to keep adding more things later? If you take something away in the beginning, then when the normal third instrument comes in, it feels like an event. We haven’t had to add anything. We did it by taking away.”
Frusciante said, “I’m assuming that your experience producing hip-hop was an influence on it because –”
“For sure,” said Rubin.
“– the constant muting and unmuting that takes place when you’re making that kind of music.”
“Absolutely.”
“It was basically like you were muting the guitar and saving it for the second verse. We were all conscious that that was where you were coming from, and it was so neat to hear those ideas being applied to a rock band.”
In ‘The Power of Equality’, Chad Smith’s bombastic drums are joined after a second by John Frusciante’s wailing, unresolved intro guitar part. Flea’s bass arrives after 11 seconds, but the song feels full before then, which is testament to both Smith’s playing and the sound of his drums.
There are brief moments in the song with only bass. Following the first verse and chorus, for example, there’s a brief instrumental passage with the drums, guitar, and bass, before the drums and guitar drop out. Then the drums, guitars, and vocals come crashing back in.
During Frusciante’s solo at 3:02, where he would previously have tried to cram in notes, he plays just a couple of eery bending notes. Much of the space unoccupied by guitar is taken up the drums. There’s a second of silence before the next verse.
Despite Flea’s busyness (and there’s definitely a hint of the frenetic energy of early Chilis songs like ‘Out In La’ and ‘Get Up And Jump’), he was learning, like Frusciante, to simplify. In Funky Monks, which documented the making of Blood Sugar, Rubin is seen encouraging Flea to simplify his phrases in ‘Give It Away’.
In ‘Power’, Flea’s verse part leaves space as he slides the first note, and soon holds a note as the drums fill up space. Flea usually hits the One, and this beat is given extra impact by the pauses discussed by Frusciante and Rubin.
Flea’s bass tone is mostly very dry, as most of the sounds of the album are, but he uses a wah-wah pedal in the bridge (1:56). This is another section where Rubin’s muting philosophy is at work: Smith plays really minimally for a few bars, before coming in again after 2:06. There’s a great drum roll before the next verse. The song closes with Kiedis lamenting the “insanity” around him: “Whatever happened to humanity?”
October is Bassist Month on Edge of the Line. We’re celebrating the birthdays of Flea (16 October) and Bootsy Collins (26 October).
The Red Hot Chili Peppers album Mother’s Milk had been certified gold, partly powered by the single of ‘Higher Ground’, a Stevie Wonder classic made funk-metal. ‘Knock Me Down’, from the same album, was a glimpse at the prodigal musicianship and unique chordal and melodic sense of guitarist John Frusciante.
1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, contained slow, downbeat songs (‘Breaking the Girl’, ‘I Could Have Lied’, and ‘Under the Bridge’) whose emphasis on melody would have been alien on their debut seven years before. But it also combined funk and rock as successfully as any band since Funkadelic.
Producer Rick Rubin had met the Chili Peppers several years before, but was spooked by the band’s dark energy. He experienced them differently in 1990, and agreed to produce an album.
After the band had written music, Rubin took them into a Hollywood mansion to record, freeing them from the pressures of a traditional studio. Frusciante, speaking to Rubin on Broken Record, said of the drum sound: “We were so excited by stuff, just like hearing all that natural room sound on the snare and stuff. When I hear it today, it sounds really overblown, but that was exciting. (...) It was perfect for that record and how we arranged the tunes, because –”
“How sparse they were,” said Rubin.
“Yeah, exactly. It filled up the space. Whenever the guitar wasn’t playing, or the bass wasn’t playing, the drums – it almost sounded like you didn’t need anything but drums to fill up the space. Everything else sounded like extra.”
Rubin praised the power of Smith’s drumming. “If you think about what drummers in funk bands sound like, like if you think about James Brown’s drummers, they’re super groovy, but they play almost like jazz, very subdued. Groovy, but not loud. And Chad’s rocking like crazy, which is not your typical funk drumming.”
“Right,” said Frusciante, “but he’s got a good funk groove.”
“The feel. Absolutely. It’s incredible. It’s a great combination.”
“Yeah, it’s just like there’s this heaviness to it, but it’s still got this funk thing, but it’s also got this extra speed to it.”
Around the end of the tour for Mother’s Milk, Frusciante had “some epiphanies” regarding his own playing and taking it in a new direction. He had previously played guitar to fit his “idea of what a Chili Pepper was.” Frusciante was largely replicating Slovak’s style (although Mother’s Milk’s guitar sound was heavily influenced by producer Michael Beinhorn’s preference for overdubbed, dominating guitar parts).
Now, Frusciante was more confident and closer to his bandmates, ready to “try being more [himself].” He was enjoying Velvet Underground, Television, and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, and “realising that a lot of power can come from not hitting the strings super hard all the time, from not filling up all the spaces with notes, from leaving big spaces” and learned not to “compete with Flea, as far as being busy, and stuff like that. I finally had it through my head – Flea’s allowed to be busy. Somehow, he can be busy and not sound like he’s showing off.”
Frusciante was inspired by the “spacious” guitar playing in Bow Wow Wow and “how well it supported the bass.” He was also inspired by Jimmy Page’s playing in Led Zeppelin and how he “gives so much space to the drums”. Frusciante said, “He’ll often hold a note and leave it to allow the snare drum to be the maximum size that it can be.”
The guitar part in ‘Power’ sounds Public Enemy-inspired, and little like a guitar at all. Kiedis nods to P.E.’s influence in the lyrics: “I got tapes, I got CDs / I got my Public Enemy / A lily white ass is tickled pink / When I listen to the music that makes me think”. (Following those lines is a lyric Kiedis was fond enough to use twice, first for the ‘Higher Ground’ acapella b-side, ‘Politician (Mini Rap)’: “Not another motherfuckin’ politician doing nothing but something for his own ambition”.
The song is directly impacted by Rubin’s hip-hop experience. By ’91, Rubin had produced for artists like LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, and executive-produced Public Enemy. Frusciante talked about Rubin’s influence on Blood Sugar’s arrangements.
“A lot of it was about creating space. We were all being more conscious of the space that we were leaving between each other’s instruments, and each other’s notes, and you emphasised that same thing, telling me not to play for a whole verse, or telling Chad to lay out for this part, or Flea to lay out for this part, or, ‘Everybody do a complete silent pause right here.’”
Frusciante asked, “Had you worked with a lot of real drummers at that point?”
“No,” Rubin said, “mostly drum machines. I had mostly programmed everything.”
“It was really neat when you were helping Chad with a kick drum pattern or whatever, and it really seemed like it was this drum machine mentality going to a real drummer. And it was really inspiring, and it felt really fresh and new.”
Rubin was thinking, “How can we create more space? And how can we do things that allow the material to develop without having to keep adding more things later? If you take something away in the beginning, then when the normal third instrument comes in, it feels like an event. We haven’t had to add anything. We did it by taking away.”
Frusciante said, “I’m assuming that your experience producing hip-hop was an influence on it because –”
“For sure,” said Rubin.
“– the constant muting and unmuting that takes place when you’re making that kind of music.”
“Absolutely.”
“It was basically like you were muting the guitar and saving it for the second verse. We were all conscious that that was where you were coming from, and it was so neat to hear those ideas being applied to a rock band.”
In ‘The Power of Equality’, Chad Smith’s bombastic drums are joined after a second by John Frusciante’s wailing, unresolved intro guitar part. Flea’s bass arrives after 11 seconds, but the song feels full before then, which is testament to both Smith’s playing and the sound of his drums.
There are brief moments in the song with only bass. Following the first verse and chorus, for example, there’s a brief instrumental passage with the drums, guitar, and bass, before the drums and guitar drop out. Then the drums, guitars, and vocals come crashing back in.
During Frusciante’s solo at 3:02, where he would previously have tried to cram in notes, he plays just a couple of eery bending notes. Much of the space unoccupied by guitar is taken up the drums. There’s a second of silence before the next verse.
Despite Flea’s busyness (and there’s definitely a hint of the frenetic energy of early Chilis songs like ‘Out In La’ and ‘Get Up And Jump’), he was learning, like Frusciante, to simplify. In Funky Monks, which documented the making of Blood Sugar, Rubin is seen encouraging Flea to simplify his phrases in ‘Give It Away’.
In ‘Power’, Flea’s verse part leaves space as he slides the first note, and soon holds a note as the drums fill up space. Flea usually hits the One, and this beat is given extra impact by the pauses discussed by Frusciante and Rubin.
Flea’s bass tone is mostly very dry, as most of the sounds of the album are, but he uses a wah-wah pedal in the bridge (1:56). This is another section where Rubin’s muting philosophy is at work: Smith plays really minimally for a few bars, before coming in again after 2:06. There’s a great drum roll before the next verse. The song closes with Kiedis lamenting the “insanity” around him: “Whatever happened to humanity?”
October is Bassist Month on Edge of the Line. We’re celebrating the birthdays of Flea (16 October) and Bootsy Collins (26 October).
The Red Hot Chili Peppers album Mother’s Milk had been certified gold, partly powered by the single of ‘Higher Ground’, a Stevie Wonder classic made funk-metal. ‘Knock Me Down’, from the same album, was a glimpse at the prodigal musicianship and unique chordal and melodic sense of guitarist John Frusciante.
1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, contained slow, downbeat songs (‘Breaking the Girl’, ‘I Could Have Lied’, and ‘Under the Bridge’) whose emphasis on melody would have been alien on their debut seven years before. But it also combined funk and rock as successfully as any band since Funkadelic.
Producer Rick Rubin had met the Chili Peppers several years before, but was spooked by the band’s dark energy. He experienced them differently in 1990, and agreed to produce an album.
After the band had written music, Rubin took them into a Hollywood mansion to record, freeing them from the pressures of a traditional studio. Frusciante, speaking to Rubin on Broken Record, said of the drum sound: “We were so excited by stuff, just like hearing all that natural room sound on the snare and stuff. When I hear it today, it sounds really overblown, but that was exciting. (...) It was perfect for that record and how we arranged the tunes, because –”
“How sparse they were,” said Rubin.
“Yeah, exactly. It filled up the space. Whenever the guitar wasn’t playing, or the bass wasn’t playing, the drums – it almost sounded like you didn’t need anything but drums to fill up the space. Everything else sounded like extra.”
Rubin praised the power of Smith’s drumming. “If you think about what drummers in funk bands sound like, like if you think about James Brown’s drummers, they’re super groovy, but they play almost like jazz, very subdued. Groovy, but not loud. And Chad’s rocking like crazy, which is not your typical funk drumming.”
“Right,” said Frusciante, “but he’s got a good funk groove.”
“The feel. Absolutely. It’s incredible. It’s a great combination.”
“Yeah, it’s just like there’s this heaviness to it, but it’s still got this funk thing, but it’s also got this extra speed to it.”
Around the end of the tour for Mother’s Milk, Frusciante had “some epiphanies” regarding his own playing and taking it in a new direction. He had previously played guitar to fit his “idea of what a Chili Pepper was.” Frusciante was largely replicating Slovak’s style (although Mother’s Milk’s guitar sound was heavily influenced by producer Michael Beinhorn’s preference for overdubbed, dominating guitar parts).
Now, Frusciante was more confident and closer to his bandmates, ready to “try being more [himself].” He was enjoying Velvet Underground, Television, and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, and “realising that a lot of power can come from not hitting the strings super hard all the time, from not filling up all the spaces with notes, from leaving big spaces” and learned not to “compete with Flea, as far as being busy, and stuff like that. I finally had it through my head – Flea’s allowed to be busy. Somehow, he can be busy and not sound like he’s showing off.”
Frusciante was inspired by the “spacious” guitar playing in Bow Wow Wow and “how well it supported the bass.” He was also inspired by Jimmy Page’s playing in Led Zeppelin and how he “gives so much space to the drums”. Frusciante said, “He’ll often hold a note and leave it to allow the snare drum to be the maximum size that it can be.”
The guitar part in ‘Power’ sounds Public Enemy-inspired, and little like a guitar at all. Kiedis nods to P.E.’s influence in the lyrics: “I got tapes, I got CDs / I got my Public Enemy / A lily white ass is tickled pink / When I listen to the music that makes me think”. (Following those lines is a lyric Kiedis was fond enough to use twice, first for the ‘Higher Ground’ acapella b-side, ‘Politician (Mini Rap)’: “Not another motherfuckin’ politician doing nothing but something for his own ambition”.
The song is directly impacted by Rubin’s hip-hop experience. By ’91, Rubin had produced for artists like LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, and executive-produced Public Enemy. Frusciante talked about Rubin’s influence on Blood Sugar’s arrangements.
“A lot of it was about creating space. We were all being more conscious of the space that we were leaving between each other’s instruments, and each other’s notes, and you emphasised that same thing, telling me not to play for a whole verse, or telling Chad to lay out for this part, or Flea to lay out for this part, or, ‘Everybody do a complete silent pause right here.’”
Frusciante asked, “Had you worked with a lot of real drummers at that point?”
“No,” Rubin said, “mostly drum machines. I had mostly programmed everything.”
“It was really neat when you were helping Chad with a kick drum pattern or whatever, and it really seemed like it was this drum machine mentality going to a real drummer. And it was really inspiring, and it felt really fresh and new.”
Rubin was thinking, “How can we create more space? And how can we do things that allow the material to develop without having to keep adding more things later? If you take something away in the beginning, then when the normal third instrument comes in, it feels like an event. We haven’t had to add anything. We did it by taking away.”
Frusciante said, “I’m assuming that your experience producing hip-hop was an influence on it because –”
“For sure,” said Rubin.
“– the constant muting and unmuting that takes place when you’re making that kind of music.”
“Absolutely.”
“It was basically like you were muting the guitar and saving it for the second verse. We were all conscious that that was where you were coming from, and it was so neat to hear those ideas being applied to a rock band.”
In ‘The Power of Equality’, Chad Smith’s bombastic drums are joined after a second by John Frusciante’s wailing, unresolved intro guitar part. Flea’s bass arrives after 11 seconds, but the song feels full before then, which is testament to both Smith’s playing and the sound of his drums.
There are brief moments in the song with only bass. Following the first verse and chorus, for example, there’s a brief instrumental passage with the drums, guitar, and bass, before the drums and guitar drop out. Then the drums, guitars, and vocals come crashing back in.
During Frusciante’s solo at 3:02, where he would previously have tried to cram in notes, he plays just a couple of eery bending notes. Much of the space unoccupied by guitar is taken up the drums. There’s a second of silence before the next verse.
Despite Flea’s busyness (and there’s definitely a hint of the frenetic energy of early Chilis songs like ‘Out In La’ and ‘Get Up And Jump’), he was learning, like Frusciante, to simplify. In Funky Monks, which documented the making of Blood Sugar, Rubin is seen encouraging Flea to simplify his phrases in ‘Give It Away’.
In ‘Power’, Flea’s verse part leaves space as he slides the first note, and soon holds a note as the drums fill up space. Flea usually hits the One, and this beat is given extra impact by the pauses discussed by Frusciante and Rubin.
Flea’s bass tone is mostly very dry, as most of the sounds of the album are, but he uses a wah-wah pedal in the bridge (1:56). This is another section where Rubin’s muting philosophy is at work: Smith plays really minimally for a few bars, before coming in again after 2:06. There’s a great drum roll before the next verse. The song closes with Kiedis lamenting the “insanity” around him: “Whatever happened to humanity?”