Did you know that Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication almost didn't have it's title track on the album? Or that the band was turned down by David Bowie when they approached him to collaborate? Why did singer Anthony Kiedis decide to sing jibberish on one of the album's hit singles? Stick around and we'll answer these questions and more.
10 Fun Facts about Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers
1. Rejected by Bowie
Following the release of Red Hot Minute and the ensuing tour, Red Hot Chili Peppers wanted to take their album in a more electronic direction along the lines of U2's Zooroopa. They even asked famed Synth Rocker David Bowie to produce their album. However, the Starman politely declined, and the band went with a familiar face in Rick Rubin who had already produced Red Hot Minute as well as Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
As singer Anthony Kiedis told MTV's Kurt Loder:
"We basically called about five other people, you know, from David Bowie to [Nine Inch Nails producer] Flood... And they all just pretty much said, 'That's very nice of you to ask, but I think not." - Anthony Kiedis, Red Hot Chili Peppers Pursued Bowie, Flood For Californication, MTV News (May 28, 1999)
Kurt Loder states:
"You called David Bowie?" ...he's not even that busy." - Kurt Loder, Red Hot Chili Peppers Pursued Bowie, Flood For Californication, MTV News (May 28, 1999)
Anthony replied:
"According to the letter he wrote me, he's very busy... But getting Rick, in the end, turned out to be, again, what we needed... When he came around, he fell in love with it like we had and actually ended up making it his life for two or three months." - Kiedis, Red Hot Chili Peppers Pursued Bowie, Flood For Californication, MTV News (May 28, 1999)
f the debut album -- what does this title mean to you personally?
It was just the way I was feeling when I wrote that record. I was in a really dark place and the record was kind of my way of working through it.
How was the overall creative and recording process for the full length album?
It was good, honestly it was very smooth. I did the record myself, I have a studio in my house. I would just go down and write songs whenever I’m bored or if I can’t sleep in the middle of the night I would just go and work on music. It went well.
Read More: 5 Questions With Caleb Shomo of Beartooth: New Album ‘Disgusting,’ Leaving Attack Attack! + More | https://loudwire.com/5-questions-caleb-shomo-beartooth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
f the debut album -- what does this title mean to you personally?
It was just the way I was feeling when I wrote that record. I was in a really dark place and the record was kind of my way of working through it.
How was the overall creative and recording process for the full length album?
It was good, honestly it was very smooth. I did the record myself, I have a studio in my house. I would just go down and write songs whenever I’m bored or if I can’t sleep in the middle of the night I would just go and work on music. It went well.
Read More: 5 Questions With Caleb Shomo of Beartooth: New Album ‘Disgusting,’ Leaving Attack Attack! + More | https://loudwire.com/5-questions-caleb-shomo-beartooth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Read More: 5 Questions With Caleb Shomo of Beartooth: New Album ‘Disgusting,’ Leaving Attack Attack! + More | https://loudwire.com/5-questions-caleb-shomo-beartooth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Read More: 5 Questions With Caleb Shomo of Beartooth: New Album ‘Disgusting,’ Leaving Attack Attack! + More | https://loudwire.com/5-questions-caleb-shomo-beartooth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Read More: 5 Questions With Caleb Shomo of Beartooth: New Album ‘Disgusting,’ Leaving Attack Attack! + More | https://loudwire.com/5-questions-caleb-shomo-beartooth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Read More: 5 Questions With Caleb Shomo of Beartooth: New Album ‘Disgusting,’ Leaving Attack Attack! + More | https://loudwire.com/5-questions-caleb-shomo-beartooth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Read More: 5 Questions With Caleb Shomo of Beartooth: New Album ‘Disgusting,’ Leaving Attack Attack! + More | https://loudwire.com/5-questions-caleb-shomo-beartooth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Read More: 5 Questions With Caleb Shomo of Beartooth: New Album ‘Disgusting,’ Leaving Attack Attack! + More | https://loudwire.com/5-questions-caleb-shomo-beartooth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Read More: 5 Questions With Caleb Shomo of Beartooth: New Album ‘Disgusting,’ Leaving Attack Attack! + More | https://loudwire.com/5-questions-caleb-shomo-beartooth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
2. Prodigal John
Guitarist John Frusciante left the Red Hot Chili Peppers following the success of Blood Sex Sugar Magik because the band's newfound popularity was too overwhelming for him to handle. He also spiraled downward after developing an addiction to cocaine and heroin which developed while he was still performing with the band. Dave Navarro from Jane's Addiction would be hired in his place to record One Hot Minute. However, Dave would leave the band while touring to support the album as it appeared he just wasn't a great fit for the band.
According to bassist Flea:
"Things got weird, and we parted ways with Dave.
Which was a sad thing. He didn't quit, and we didn't fire him; it just
kind of went that way. And because of that, we
ended up getting back with John. We got in my garage and started
playing, and it felt really natural. Really good, un-forced and
uncontrived, and fun." - Flea, Red Hot Chili Peppers Discuss Their New Energy And Californication, J.D. Considine, Guitar World (Dec 9, 2011)
Flea
invited John back to the Red Hot Chili Peppers following his successful
completion of rehab which was thought to be inspired by a promise from
Flea that the two would perform in a band together again if the
guitarist was able to get sober.
VP of A&R at Warner Brothers, and CEO of Birdman Records, David Katznelson spoke with Rolling Stone shortly after John's return in 1998:
"To get him back in the band is a good thing for them... He's still a great guitar player, and I don't think people realize the significance that John played in the Chili Peppers' sound. He wrote the music for 'Under the Bridge' and 'Breaking the Girl.' ... John has problems like anybody else does, but he's in a good way right now... He's one of those guys who can really turn himself around. Flea wouldn't work with him if he wasn't clean." - Katznelson, Red Hot Redux, Richard Skanse, Rolling Stone (Apr 30, 1998)
3. Flea's Jam Garage
Californication was mostly written and rehearsed at a makeshift studio inside Flea's garage. Members of Red Hot Chili Peppers took a very relaxed approach to recording the album, including guitarist John Frusciante who dialed his guitar work back a bit because he was still in the process of recovering from drug addiction.
As singer Anthony Kiedis explains in his 2004 autobiography Scar Tissue:
"I loved the way John was playing when he didn't have the technical capacity to do everything... He toned down and developed an incredible minimalist style. Every day he came up with something spectacular... Everyone was having fun. It was as if we had nothing to lose, nothing to gain. We didn't care; we were making music for the sake of making music." - Kiedis, Kiedis, Anthony; Sloman, Larry (2004). Scar Tissue. New York City: Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-0101-0.
4. One Happy Family
Californication was recorded analog style with all members of Red Hot Chili Peppers performing at the same time.
As Audio Engineer Jim Scott told Sound On Sound in 1999:
"We recorded all four of them at the same time, which is basically the sound of the album. John did guitar overdubs, maybe two or three on some of the songs, but in the world of overdubs that's not a lot. The slide guitar on 'Scar Tissue' is overdubbed, for example. I don't think he ever went back and replaced a whole guitar track, and Flea might only have replaced a few small sections... The sound of the record is what happened during that first week of recording...
Flea, John and Chad were about 10 feet away from each other in a pretty
small circle, and Anthony was just a few more feet away in his booth,
easily visible through the glass. They could see each other all the
time." - Scott, Recording Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californications, Paul Tingen, Sound On Sound (Dec 1999)
5. 24 Songs
Red Hot Chili Peppers wrote about 28 songs in preparation for Californication. About 24 songs were finished and only 14 made the album.
Drummer Chad Smith told Guitar World:
"Yeah, like 24 songs were actually finished in the studio, and we're going to put 14 of them on the record. It was hard for us to agree which ones we think are the best. We all think differently about it. So we just kind of made a list of the ones that we all agreed on, and those are the ones we put on the record...
But I can't say for sure that those are better than the ones we left off.” - Smith, Red Hot Chili Peppers Discuss Their New Energy And Californication, J.D. Considine, Guitar World (Dec 9, 2011)
6. No Title Track
Californication could have been a very different album because the Red Hot Chili Peppers almost couldn't figure out how they wanted the album's title track to sound. In his autobiography, Scar Tissue, singer Anthony Kiedis reveals that he had written lyrics which he thought were some of his best but the band could not agree on how they wanted to music to represent the lyrics. That is, until one day guitarist John Frusciante had an epiphany and came to the studio claiming he had finally figured out something for the band to work with. It's a good thing that he did because according to producer Rick Rubin the band were pretty close to throwing the song out. Instead, it went from the scrap-room floor and became one of the band's career-defining hits.
7. Hollywood Basement
The Red Hot Chili Peppers hit song "Californication" is a compilation of stories and scenes that singer Anthony Kiedis has witnessed while in the city or throughout his daily life. The lyrics about "psychic spies in china' were inspired by a woman Anthony witnessed rambling on the street. The song also makes various references to films and pop-culture, including Star Wars and Star Trek through the lines "Space may be the final frontier but its made in a Hollywood basement" and "Alderaan's not far away."
"Well,
it’s a new word, so it’s open to interpretation. For me it’s about
the process of the world being affected for better, for worse, for
ugly, for beautiful by the art and culture that is born in this State.” -
Kiedis, The Spice Boys, James McNair, Unknown Publication (accessed
through TheChiliSource.com)
8. Time for Jibberish
When bands work on a new song, sometimes the music is written first and lyrics are written later on while the band use improvised jibberish as a placeholder until lyrics are written. However, sometimes these placeholder lyrics find their way in to the final version of a song for various reasons. Sometimes the reason is because the band just can't think of lyrics. Sometimes the reason is that the band is already behind schedule and the song sounds good enough. But this wasn't the case when Anthony Kiedis was writing lyrics for Around The World.
So why did the Red Hot Chili Peppers singer decide to leave placeholder lyrics in the final version of the song? Well, he did it for Flea's daughter who had listened to the song throughout the recording process and became upset when the jibberish lyrics were removed later on in the development. So Anthony obliged and include a portion of the original "lyrics" near the end of the song to make Flea's daughter happy.
9. Shadow Boxing
10. Californication The Video Game
Have you ever watched the music video for Californication and thought to yourself "Wow, I want to play a Red Hot Chili Peppers video game so I can go snowboarding with John Frusciante, fly on a giant dragonfly with Anthony Kiedis, and ride in a minecart with Indiana Jone... uh, I mean Flea!" Well, somebody did. That somebody was Miquel Camps Orteza, a video game developer who created a Californication video game. He started the project as a 2-Day Challenge which grew in to a full fledged project with 7 levels of varied gameplay. If you're interested in checking out the game, you can find a link down below in the description.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220426154418/https://comandogdev.itch.io/califonication
Sources:
Kiedis, Anthony; Sloman, Larry (2004). Scar Tissue. New York City: Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-0101-0.
Recording Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californications, Paul Tingen, Sound On Sound (Dec 1999) - https://www.soundonsound.com/people/jim-scott-recording-red-hot-chili-peppers-californications
Red Hot Chili Peppers Discuss Their New Energy And Californication, J.D. Considine, Guitar World (Dec 9, 2011) - https://www.guitarworld.com/gw-archive/archive-red-hot-chili-peppers-discuss-their-new-energy-and-californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers Pursued Bowie, Flood For Californication, MTV News (May 28, 1999) - https://www.mtv.com/news/h8g5ih/red-hot-chili-peppers-pursued-bowie-flood-for-californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers 1999 Song Is A Free Video Game, Ana Diaz, Polygon (Mar 2, 2022) - https://web.archive.org/web/20220419055114/https://www.polygon.com/22958879/californication-video-game-red-hot-chili-peppers/
Red Hot Redux, Richard Skanse, Rolling Stone (Apr 30, 1998) - https://web.archive.org/web/20080306123037/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/redhotchilipeppers/articles/story/5923940/red_hot_redux
The Spice Boys, James McNair, Unknown Publication (accessed through TheChiliSource.com) - http://thechilisource.com/1999-californication-clippings-unknown-origin/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californication_(album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californication_(song)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherside
https://web.archive.org/web/20220426154418/https://comandogdev.itch.io/califonication