Anthony Kiedis and Josh Klinghoffer talk to RTL2 France about “I’m With You”. Video Interview Published November 3rd, 2011. Contains French voiceover but English Transcript is available below.
Many thanks to Martina Kienzle for writing the transcript and RHCP_ARE_GODS for sourcing the interview.
English Transcript
RTL2: “Here were are with Anthony and Josh of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. How are you, guys?
Anthony Kiedis: I hope that Josh is alright.
Josh Klinghoffer: I hope he is alright too.
RTL2: I have the impression that you really look good.
Anthony: I have the impression that Josh looks good. I must confess that I admire Josh’s tailcoat today. What do you think about it?
RTL2: It is nice. With the Red Hots in front of me, one question, what does music mean to you? Careful, be honest.
Josh: It’s something that gets… er.. (it is a gateway drug, remarks Anthony) , something that gets my emotions going makes me think and feel, you know and makes me want to be a better person, to live longer and continue to make it. It’s just a wonderful thing, it sounds good, it feels good, everything about it is wonderful.
Anthony: Yeah, I mean, for lack of a more articulate explanation, it really does feel like the greatest drug on Earth, but without the negative side-effect or hangover, it’s like if I want to feel connected , or if I want to feel a flood, I find music that fits the whole situation. Sometimes, I don’t even know what that is I search for and I find it incidentally thanks to the music. Did you hear music from Soft Machine (Josh nods and says yes) and I did not know that I had a part of Soft Machine in me. Let’s say, Music is like a good pair of pants.
RTL2: So guys, tenth album and in every album of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the fifth member of the band is always Los Angeles.
Anthony: It’s L.A. I didn’t expect you to say that, but I like it.
Josh: We spoke about L.A. before the interview, (Josh says that he feels so bad about the reporter’s paper in front of him btw). L.A. is a place where a lot of people move to, it’s got a lot of different energies. So you know, this band is made up of four different people, from different places in this world and there is a thing about L.A. L.A. shaped this group from the beginning to the point where it stands today. I do not believe that one day somebody came up with the idea to write a song about Los Angeles, but it comes up naturally in our songs.
Anthony: L.A. is like a black velvet hole in the universe (and in your pants) It attracts people, dreams, and hopes. You bump into each other incidentally in this black hole and you become friends, you do things, you have sand in your shoes and dust in your eyes. And you do other things in other holes. And it is nice to have a fifth member, especially when it is Los Angeles, the City that his it’s own organism.
RTL2: Your new album is called “I’m with you“, and I searched but there is no song on it called “I’m with you“.
Anthony: Is it not nice?
RTL2: Great and I was guessing and I did a little reflection with whom you are. With the audience? Till now you were known for more fantasmagoric and surreal clip and on the clip for Raindance Maggie one can see your fans, it is a filmed concert, you are very present on Facebook and youtube, we never saw you as close to your audience, but God knows, you were.
Anthony: Thank goodness, fans and people around our group are very interesting people, and I assure you, sometimes more interesting than we are. So we acknowledge them and this clip was made to turn the camera and the focus towards them, to show our interest in them. It sort of relieved us too, and I find the clip very interesting.
RTL2: If I ask you the first thing to know about the album “I’m with you“ and the last thing to know about the album it might be interesting.
Anthony: The first and the last thing to know about this record. We nearly called it “Monarchy of Roses“ because we had no better idea and I remember I went biking with the producer of the album, Rick Rubin and he said it was no good choice, because one could have the impression that we ran out of ideas and that we just used the title of a song. And that’s when we kind of went back to search for something new and thank God, Josh gave us the title. Last thing is that both “Meet me at the corner“ and “Dance, Dance, Dance“ would have nearly been left out of the album, because we wanted to do an album with 11 or 12 songs, even though we wrote about 50 songs. But after some reflection, it would have been too painful not to include those two songs. And we had nearly finished the album, but last minute, those two songs sneaked on the album. They didn’t get tagged on it, but in the end, they fit perfectly.
RTL2: I’d like to talk about your album cover with you. Every time, it is a really different universe. And you are rarely seen on your album covers. Why? Don’t you want to be seen?
Anthony: I see us inside the leaf, it do not think it is necessary on the outside. Some album covers are perfectly suited pictures of the people and this band has done that before. We already did it on “Blood, Sugar“, Mother’s Milk“, “Freaky Styley“. It is just a way to change things, also our album covers. It could have been something different, but we chose that. And I love it. It is great and we are happy with our cover and our fly.
RTL2: Why a fly?
Anthony: It is handsome, Salvador Dali suggested it and we did not want to hurt him by turning it down.”
Interview Source: http://www.rtl2.fr/video/7731973202/red-hot-chili-peppers-interview-rtl2
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