Anthony Kiedis Says New Red Hot Chili Peppers Songs Are ‘As Good as Any Songs We’ve Ever Written’

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have been working hard at a new album for over a year now, with reports popping up here and there with an update on how everything is going. The band is still playing everything close to the vest, but singer Anthony Kiedis just provided some details about the band's long-awaited new album.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Kiedis discussed the band's upcoming benefit show for the Silverlake Conservatory of Music as well as what's been going on with the new album. First reflecting on a bit of both, the singer said, "The torture about doing this [show] is that we've been writing new music for the last year, and we’ve written some songs that I feel are as good as any songs we’ve ever written. We’re just dying to play the new songs — but we can't, because every single human has a recording device on them at all times."

Commenting on working with producer Danger Mouse, Kiedis stated, "He's very good about coming up with super-modern ideas, but he'll also touch on the acoustic guitar in the control room and strip the song down to its acoustic essentials, which is a beautiful place to be."

The band is known for their dynamic range of influences, which fuels their songwriting and brings out a bevy of sounds. The Chilis can lay into an upbeat groove just as well as calm everything down with some softer music and the crooning voice of Kiedis.

Playing an opening acoustic set at the annual Silverlake Conservatory of Music benefit show, the Red Hot Chili Peppers will get an opportunity to explore the softer side of the band, stripping down some of their hits and reworking them to fit this style. The Conservatory is a non-profit organization founded by bassist Flea in 2001 as a place to foster music education for children.

Excited for the set, Kiedis added, "I love to play acoustic, whether we're talking about 'By the Way' or an old song like 'Me and My Friends,' these very aggressive, loud, chaotic-sounding electric songs work rather nicely on quiet acoustic instruments. We rehearsed yesterday and played everything acoustically from 'Fire' by Jimi Hendrix to trying to figure out if "Californication" works on acoustic — which it did."

The benefit show will take place later today (Oct. 17) and will not only feature the acoustic set from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but jazz saxaphonist Kamasi Washington and singer-songwriter John Legend as well.

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