Anthony Kiedis and John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers speak hilariously of love of John Waters and Baltimore before Painters Mill show in April 1990
In April 1990, Nestor Aparicio interviewed Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were promoting their “Mothers Milk” album and preparing for a show at the Painters Mill Theater. Kiedis discussed the band’s evolution, their admiration for John Waters, and their experiences with fame, including legal issues and the death of bandmate Hillel Slovak. He also touched on the band’s artistic freedom, their financial situation, and their upcoming meeting with Waters. The conversation highlighted the band’s unique blend of serious topics and humor, reflecting their unconventional approach to music and life.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Waters, Painters Mill, Anthony Kiedis, John Frusciante, Mother’s Milk, John Waters fan, John Waters dinner, Hillel Slovak, Jack Irons, Chad Smith, artistic freedom, commercial success, slam dancing, tax issues
SPEAKERS
John Frusciante, Nestor Aparicio, Anthony Kiedis
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome back wnst Taos in Baltimore and wnst.net we are presenting wnst Rock week. That is the hashtag for all things wnst rock. And you know, many of these interviews are from the modern era. And if you’ve been listening all week, you do know the ones that sound like they’re on the radio. Then there’s other ones that literally were from my era as the Baltimore Evening Sun pop music critic. And there were many, many bands that I interviewed that you’ve never heard of anymore. I could list the litany of the Brittany foxes and the heavens edges and the every mother’s nightmares and all of these hairspray bands that played hammer jacks that were never heard from again. There were some other one hit wonders and some other tier two rock stars, as we would say. But this band went on to become legendary and Hall of Famers in every way. I caught them very much on the uprising of the mothers milk album in 1989 I received a phone call from Anthony Keat is from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Now, folks didn’t know much about the chili peppers in april of 1990 they were playing, at that point, painters mill theater, so that’ll date it. There are not a whole lot of interviews during that era that were to promote painters Mills theater. If you go online, it says that they actually played the eight by 10 on that tour as well. But this is April 20 of 1990 and honestly, I did not know a lot about the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They were made famous on MTV News because flea their bass player, who’s also a Hall of Famer now, would literally perform shows with only a sock over his penis. And they were arrested at various points. They were in decent exposure charges with flea dropping his pants. There was a lot of moshing, and I talked to Anthony Kiedis as a journalist. And again, they were not a mainstream band. They were not a band that was going to play stadiums and be, you know, multi platinum all over the world. They were still trying to figure it out. And this conversation is really kind of spicy. Of all the conversations I had, they were, I was trying to be very buttoned up and very almost famous, kind of Cameron Crowe and ask big questions with big words and try to act older than I was. I was 21 years old at the time. So this is april of 1990 I was born in October 68 so I was 21 years of age at this point. And who knows when a 21 year old version of me said to Anthony Kiedis, but they also were very, very fascinated with John Waters, and they were coming to have dinner with John Waters and meet John Waters, their guitar player, John frucini was a huge John Waters fan, and akitis talks about copulating with John Waters and that the painter’s mill stage would Be like a giant nipple, and he quiets the band from rehearsing from behind him, out of respect for me, it was hilarious. I think you’re going to laugh at this. And obviously there’s some serious overtones and undertones about drugs and about the death of hell little Slovak, one of their bandmates, who died drug overdose. And I don’t know that I was particularly tactful either. So I apologize to Anthony Keats if he ever hears this. I just did not know a lot about the band, and there was no Google. Then I I keep going back to the part where, if you didn’t know a lot about the band, all you got was a bio, maybe two pages, maybe three pages. There were no websites band. Some bands had a lot of information in liner notes. Some bands did a lot of media. Some bands didn’t do a lot of media. Some bands were loved by Rolling Stones. Some bands weren’t. This band was a band that got arrested, and, you know, people pressed charges and people were offended, and they cursed on stage, and they were big into artist freedom. And, you know, he said, if it happens to involve nudity on stage, and then that’s what they’re gonna do. So then he handed the phone to his guitar player who loved John Waters, and let me know that they were dining together. So I never got back to them. I never met Anthony Kiedis before after the show. I didn’t even go to the show. I still have never met John Waters. Anybody knows John Waters? Tell John Waters. I’d like to interview him one day. If you see him, throw me an email. Nasty. Wnst.net, I’d love to meet John Waters, which I’ve never done, but obviously they met John Waters. I don’t know that any story ever came from it, but I love John Waters. His work makes me laugh and and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are a band that I love their music, and I don’t always love them live. I’ve seen them be a little sloppy on the live side, but this interview is a little weird, a little gross, a little off beat, certainly by my standards as a 21 year old guy talking to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and I definitely had to edit this one for FCC quad. Quality. Maybe one day I’ll be able to, you know, work blue, but not today. This is the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And Anthony Keat is checking in from a band rehearsal during april of 1990 when they were playing painters mill theater in Reisterstown. Hello.
05:15
Can I speak to
Nestor Aparicio 05:19
Nestor? Nestor, you must be a chili pepper. I am. You’re Anthony. Are you? Nestor, Yeah, hello, Nestor, how are you good? You’re Anthony. I am. Because nobody was sure who was calling. He said, Anthony, no. Chad, no. Flea No, Anthony. Me. Okay, this is how you make it out. Where are you today?
05:36
Today, I’m
Anthony Kiedis 05:37
on the corner of iva and yoka in a Bucha. Absolutely amazing day in Hollywood. It rains this morning. It cleared all of the small the way, and now the sun is poking through, and it’s just one of my favorite days. You’re
Nestor Aparicio 05:48
descriptive chap, aren’t you?
Anthony Kiedis 05:51
Yeah, I majored my whole life in description.
Nestor Aparicio 05:55
So you guys are not basically on the road at this point. Or
Anthony Kiedis 05:57
no, we’re not on the road because we’ve been on the road for the last six months or more, and we’re taking a small, leisurely break in our hometown so that we can enjoy our lives here. And then we’re going to leave again Thursday and come to Baltimore so that we can have a musical population with John Waters.
Nestor Aparicio 06:14
This is the first show we’re going to get here Friday. Yeah, so you’re promising a wild one then, huh?
Anthony Kiedis 06:20
Well, I make no promises, but every time we take the stage, we take it like it would possibly be the last time we ever take the stage, which is to say that we play with all of our might and energy on every particular occasion that we should take the stage, so
Nestor Aparicio 06:31
you’re getting bigger places. Now, is that anger you or anger me? Yes. I mean, you guys are pretty much proud of yourself on playing a little place. Fellas, fellas,
Anthony Kiedis 06:41
fellas. The hell are you doing? The hell are you talking long distance to Baltimore? John Waters, hometown, Nestor. No, of course, that doesn’t anger us. You know, the whole point of playing music is to reach the heart and souls of people. And obviously, the more that you can reach, you know, the better, because to each his reach. And if you can’t reach it, then you
Nestor Aparicio 07:02
can’t have it. The place you’re playing here was this classy stage in the round. Have you ever performed in the round before? Yes, we have. Is that exciting, or is
Anthony Kiedis 07:10
that not exciting? It kind of makes us feel like we’re playing on a large nipple. Really.
Nestor Aparicio 07:16
Come on. Give me something I can write about. This is a family paper.
Anthony Kiedis 07:20
It’s like playing on a circular tourist station wagon. Okay, so, yeah, we played around. We played the Celebrity Theater in Arizona and in Long Beach. And we, you know, does it rotate?
Nestor Aparicio 07:32
Yes, yes.
Anthony Kiedis 07:34
We love the rotating rod.
Nestor Aparicio 07:37
I bet you do. As far as the radio play you guys are getting, is higher ground getting played most everywhere? Well, just the Baltimore funny,
Anthony Kiedis 07:46
you should ask, because I was in a meeting this morning with the record company, and I heard my manager spout off that higher ground was played on 115 AOR radio stations. So I guess it’s, it’s on 115 to be exact. And
Nestor Aparicio 08:01
get your call waiting. Yeah, hold on.
Anthony Kiedis 08:06
You know, I don’t know. I don’t know how to do it on this particular mobile phone.
Nestor Aparicio 08:10
Okay, so has success here? Has success been a curse in certain ways for you guys? That’s
Anthony Kiedis 08:16
a crazy question, because if you ask me about success, I’ll tell you that we’ve been successful since day one of our conception. My concept of success is being true to yourself, and we’ve always been that since the very time we began. And we’ve always been able to feed our mouths and to close our bodies and to put a roof over and enjoy our lives playing music. So we’ve always been successful. This is nothing new to us. The fact that we’ve changed a tad of commercial success, you know, that’s fine, too, but don’t get us wrong. See, we’ve always been successful,
Nestor Aparicio 08:50
so with mother’s milk, did you know that this was going to sell some more albums? And this is gold. Now, right?
Anthony Kiedis 08:55
It’s gold. In fact, you
08:57
have to ask yourself,
Anthony Kiedis 08:58
how much more gold could it be? And the answer is, none. More gold.
Nestor Aparicio 09:02
How many albums you sold
Anthony Kiedis 09:05
over 500,000
Nestor Aparicio 09:08
When did you get your gold? Well, we
Anthony Kiedis 09:10
haven’t actually been presented. We’re having a special party in New York City about a week after we leave Baltimore, where they’re going to present us with the gold record. And if I had to guess, I would say that a large Brawl will ensue to see who actually gets the gold record between the band.
Nestor Aparicio 09:28
So did you foresee this with mother’s knock when you were laying down these tracks last year?
Anthony Kiedis 09:33
We never foresaw that at all. In fact, you know, we’ve been wondering, you know, for years now, why none of our records have gone gold before, and so we sort of, we sort of stopped having expectations, and just concentrated on making the best music that we could then it’s really kind of a bonus. Although a lot of my friends, when they first took the record, they bet me that it would go gold, and I bet against it, because I figured I couldn’t lose if I lost it. Bed, at least I would gain a gold record. And if I didn’t get a gold record, I won the bet. What was the bet? Nominal financial
Nestor Aparicio 10:11
sums. Are you sorry that all this happened after Hills death?
Anthony Kiedis 10:15
Well, I mean, it’s not really anything that you can you know,
Nestor Aparicio 10:18
be sorry about what went down with him. What is the actual dirt
Anthony Kiedis 10:22
scoop he died from the disease of addiction,
Nestor Aparicio 10:25
where, when and how. I don’t really want to
Anthony Kiedis 10:29
get into that, you know. The fact is that we lost one of the most beautiful friends that we ever had, that we had shared our lives with, and it was, you know, enormously tragic. And dealing with that complex nature of grief was a very difficult and a very sad time for us. But the fact is, is that, you know, we were still alive. And although Hillel meant so much to us as a friend, you know, music was still part of our lives, and we still wanted to continue playing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you know, because to us, that represented life itself. And you know, all I can help us that Hillel would be proud of what we’re playing. And I’ll always know in my heart that we would have never got this far without him, you know. So I thank him for that, and you know, I just miss him, basically.
Nestor Aparicio 11:09
So what about Jack leaving too? Yeah, that’s what he
Anthony Kiedis 11:13
decided to do, you know. And I had to respect his decision. Everyone deals with those type of situations in different ways, and that was his way of dealing with it, we had to be understanding of each other. And, you know, he went his way and we went ours, and we still love each other, but we don’t play together anymore. You know, hopefully he’s happy doing what he’s doing and we are doing what we’re doing. Do, you know, talk to him then? No, I do. I run into him from time to time, and we, you know, we hug each other and we talk about, you know, what’s going on, and we’re still friends. So
Nestor Aparicio 11:40
when did this happen? This middle 88 or beginning 88 or has it been two years?
Anthony Kiedis 11:44
It’s been, it’s been two years. So two years in June,
Nestor Aparicio 11:49
two years in June. To me, was your feeling at this point? We were you pretty much stoned at the time? Or was I What were you pretty much stoned in the same way? Hello, was or
Anthony Kiedis 11:58
no at the time, I was not, and I haven’t been since at all. In fact, I’m completely clean and sober for the last 22 months.
Nestor Aparicio 12:08
So did you feel this whole thing coming apart? I mean, how long did it take you to get over this death and say, let’s
Anthony Kiedis 12:14
move on with our music? You never get over something like that. I mean, I’m gonna have to live with it for the rest of my life. You don’t, you know, just one day wake up and you’re over with it. I’ll never be over it. I’ll always miss them, and I’ll always love them. But I don’t think we should dwell on the subject. I think we should move on to a new one.
Nestor Aparicio 12:29
Okay, what about John and Chad joining the band? How did that all work out?
Anthony Kiedis 12:33
That worked out miraculously, to be quite honest. You know, we were blessed with with two absolutely incredible musicians and two tremendous brothers that we could share new experiences with. I don’t think we could have found better musicians or better friends to join the band, and all I can attribute that to is absolute beautiful fortune. We were real lucky to find these guys. And the funny thing is that they made a perfect balance, because John came into the band totally understanding and having experienced everything that there was to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he basically lived his life as an extension of us, even though he wasn’t in the band.
Nestor Aparicio 13:12
Did you know him when he was a fan? No,
Anthony Kiedis 13:15
we didn’t. We met him afterwards, and he had been practicing guitar for 20 hours a day for the last seven years in his bedroom in the valley. And he was, you know, extraordinarily talented as a musician, and he fit in perfectly. And where the balance comes in is finding Chad Smith. Because Chad was someone who was very unfamiliar with our music. Had just moved to Hollywood, didn’t really know anything about us, but he himself was also extraordinarily talented as a musician, and so it really made a nice blend of somebody that was familiar and somebody who wasn’t. Because, you know, we got fresh, funky ideas from both people from completely different angles. Where’s
Nestor Aparicio 13:52
Chad from? He’s
Anthony Kiedis 13:53
from Detroit, Michigan.
Nestor Aparicio 13:54
So the success, or commercial success, I keep equating one with the other, I guess I shouldn’t do that. Has your ACT toned down a little bit. I saw you on a MTV News a few weeks ago with some negative things about you guys in the courtroom.
Anthony Kiedis 14:08
Well, you know, for one thing, that was basically very much trumped up by the media.
Nestor Aparicio 14:13
That’s why I’m asking you about toned down,
Anthony Kiedis 14:17
like I said before, we’re still absolutely true to ourselves and to our art, into our into our music. You know, we never, we never intend on making a conscious decision to tone down anything. You know, if that should be the way that we go, it’ll be a natural reaction. You know, we just, we just do what we do, and we don’t intellectualize on it, and we don’t sit and consider, you know, let’s tone down. We just do what we do naturally, and if it’s toning up, and we’re going to tone up. We’re not going to change ourselves because of any, you know, so called commercial success. What
Nestor Aparicio 14:46
about the incident? Fairfax? About the pulling the pants down or whatever? That’s real near here. That’s why I’m asking you about
Anthony Kiedis 14:51
it. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, basically it was, it was some, some misdemeanor charges that were brought against individuals in the band, you know. That’s behind us now, and there was never any harmful intention involved with any of that activity. You know, we’re very loving, friendly people, and I think somebody may or may not have been offended, but they decided to press charges, you know, for whatever reason. You know, I don’t necessarily think that it was a legitimate charge, but you know, you have to deal with those type of things when you’re a famous person in a band. You know, sometimes people are going to try to take advantage of that status. And basically, and I don’t have too much more to say about that, except for, you know, the media blew it way out of proportion, and a lot of it had to do with the sort of the surgeons, of people trying to censor creativity in America. And, you know, we don’t, we don’t, we don’t go down that easily. What
Nestor Aparicio 15:42
does your record company ever give you, you know, say you can’t do this, or please stop doing this. Or no, the
Anthony Kiedis 15:47
record company understands that we’re, you know, friendly by nature, and that we’re never going to do anything to hurt anybody, and they pretty much give us the artistic freedom to express ourselves in whatever way we see fit. And you know, if it happens to involve nudity on the stage. You know, that’s what we’re about. And they pretty much, you know, give us the courtesy and understanding to let us do whatever we want.
Nestor Aparicio 16:08
So you’re gonna break the socks out on Friday night or,
Anthony Kiedis 16:11
well, that’s always a mystery. You know, we only do that when we feel like it, and it’s never preconceived that it’s something that happens very spontaneously, and so I couldn’t tell you whether we are or not, but we certainly wouldn’t stop doing that because of what’s happened. Because, you know, that’s that’s an act of freedom and beauty on stage, and we’re certainly not going to cut
Nestor Aparicio 16:31
that out. Fans kind of expect us now, and does that kind of piss you off? Well, it doesn’t
Anthony Kiedis 16:35
matter what they expect, because we don’t give them what they expect. We give them we give them what they don’t expect. You know, we’re always evolving and changing and moving, and, you know, flowing with with new rhythms. And you know, you never know what to expect from us.
Nestor Aparicio 16:49
So down in front, you still have the people slam dancing around. Are you getting sort of a milder crowd
Anthony Kiedis 16:54
these days? Well, it varies. I mean, some people like to dance, you know, in the slam fashion, some people like to dance another, you know, strange, funky fashion. But, yeah, we still have people, you know, going completely berserk at our shows, because, you know, that’s what we inspire them to do.
Nestor Aparicio 17:13
These people ever get injured or, you know, I’m never in there slam dancing, but I’m close enough to see what the hell is going on. I’m wondering how these people not getting injured,
Anthony Kiedis 17:21
the Red Hot Chili Peppers carry with them a very peaceful vibe, and I think that carries off to our audience as well. I don’t think any of the slam dancers at our audience ever have violent intentions. Obviously, people are going to get bruised and bumped and battered, but I don’t think anything too terribly violent or malicious or no serious injuries, to speak of. People all do it with positive intentions.
Nestor Aparicio 17:44
If you ever saw anything rotten happening, would you put an end to it? We do
Anthony Kiedis 17:48
frequently, but that’s usually incited by the bouncers. If there is ever any fighting in the audience, we usually stop the show and stop the fight and explain to people that we don’t come here to watch you fight. We come here to make you happy with music, and you all shouldn’t be fighting. And if it’s the bouncers, you know, we ask the bouncers not to take out their power trip, ego fanatic, violent aggressions on the audience, but rather, just, you know, to enjoy the show.
Nestor Aparicio 18:14
Have you injured yourself recently? Or, yeah, that’s
Anthony Kiedis 18:16
a continual thing that we have to deal with. And in fact, that’s generally the sign of a good show. You know, if we can watch off the stage bleeding, or with, you know, with with skull fractures, we know that we’ve, we’ve done a good show.
18:27
So what’s the, what’s
Nestor Aparicio 18:28
the worst thing you’ve done recently, as far as skull fracture, no
Anthony Kiedis 18:35
ligaments in my ankle, we’ve, we’ve all, you know, cut ourselves about the face and head region. You know, on guitars or on drums, there have been a number of, like, pulled rib muscles. I’ve been stitched up a lot of times after shows, but that’s all part of the gig. So
Nestor Aparicio 18:53
you get a gold album, you get, I guess you have more money now, or you will have than you’ve ever had. How does this change your life when you get back to LA the next mile, I guess, well, you know,
Anthony Kiedis 19:04
money is a crazy thing, you know, we I don’t know. I don’t really, you know, have that much money. And I don’t really think about money that much. We just bought a new, a new 69 black convertible Camaro for $10,000 so that’s what he did with his money. Our guitar players moving into a new fancy house in Hollywood Hills, right above the whiskey for $2,300 a month. That’s what he’s doing with his money. A drummer, Chad, just bought a really big Harley Davidson for about 12,000 I think
Nestor Aparicio 19:38
you’re putting yours all into CDs. I
Anthony Kiedis 19:40
keep mine all in the cookie jar on my window. So I will tell you what we also, we also just got by the IRS, and we had to each pay out $25,000 in taxes. So we’re all kind of poor. Now, how did this happen? Because we never really paid that many taxes before. But now we, now, you know, the. We’re making some money. We have to pay those taxes in full. So, you know, we don’t, we don’t want to have any trouble with the government, so we pay. So you guys don’t own houses. And no, nobody owns houses in the stand, but I own two pair of sneakers. Hey, that’ll get you tax break. And as far as, as far as I know, there’s some mice living in my sneaker. So if you think about it, I actually bought a house for some ice
Nestor Aparicio 20:23
to give you a tax break for that. No, they don’t,
Anthony Kiedis 20:24
not actually dependent, when you think about it.
Nestor Aparicio 20:27
Well, I certainly appreciate your time this evening, and I hope the weather is nice in LA. It’s been nice here, too. Oh, it’s great.
Anthony Kiedis 20:34
Well, before you leave Nestor, my guitar player just wanted to say hi, because he’s quite a fanatical fan of Baltimore due to the fact that John Waters lives and has grown up in that city
Nestor Aparicio 20:44
on one I got, I got a metaphor. John Waters fan, hello, hey, how you doing? Pretty good, John, right. Yeah. Hey, you’re waters fan, right.
John Frusciante 20:53
I’m a huge John Waters fan, movies are one of the three things in my life that bring me true peace and happiness when everything just seems terrible and complicated. Do you see crybaby yet? I saw it. I was planning on seeing it every single day, until we were on tour, but I saw it four days in a row, and then I missed the day. And we’ve been so busy the last few days with all this we’ve been doing that I haven’t been able to see it again since, but I’ve seen it four times so far. Have you gotten a chance to meet him? No, never, but we are going to meet him when we come to Baltimore. You got it all set up already? He invited us to go over to his house to eat dinner. So I’m very excited about it. And in Baltimore, I think is one of the greatest places on the face of
Nestor Aparicio 21:38
the earth. Have fun in Baltimore. Okay, see you later. Bye, bye.
