Amplifier

Red Hot Chili Peppers Will Make You Go Hmmm Five Ways Today

By | Amplifier – Thu, Jun 23, 2011 10:49 PM EDT

Thanks to a one-two punch via Spin and MTV News, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have successfully made us literally say "hmm, interesting" five times today while reading up on their upcoming album I'm With You. Are you ready to be sort of surprised?

• Flea says the band nearly broke up after 2006's bloated double disc Stadium Arcadium, thus the long pause between records.
"I initiated [the break]. ... It had come to a point where it felt dysfunctional and not fun. ... I wanted to get away to give the band a chance to survive."

• I'm With You, their first studio album in over five years, is about weighty topics.
"[It's] about life and death and betrayal and [Anthony Kiedis'] relationship to the world," Flea explains. "It's much more poignant than our other records." Perhaps here's referring to "Californication"?

• The new album features African influences!
"Josh [Klinghoffer, the band's new guitarist] and I tripped around Ethiopia with a group called Africa Express, which Damon Albarn organized," says Flea. "We saw music every night and jammed with musicians. Ethiopia is such a great country, beautiful place. So there are a couple African parts on the new songs."

• They were also influenced by Africans' lax attitudes about sharing their toilets.
"They're devout about their faith, but they're really tolerant. I was walking down the street with this Ethiopian dude, and he's like, 'Oh f---, dude, I gotta take a s---,' so he just walked up to a random door in this neighborhood, and the residents were like, 'Come right in and use my bathroom.' They don't do that s--- in L.A., man. 'Excuse me, Arnold Schwarzenegger, can I take a s--- at your house?' "

• Their new video for "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie" is being directed by Kreayshawn.
You remember her, right? She's the Internet's favorite new white girl rapper who also happens to be a) signed to a brand new label deal since we last checked in with her and b) a video director.

Sidenote: We are sad the album didn't wind up being titled Dr. Johnny Skinz's Disproportionately Rambunctious Polar Express Machine-head.

[Photo: Mark Allan/WireImage.com]

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