When Red Hot Chili Peppers recorded their last record, 2011's I'm With You, it was a different experience for the group. "We had a new guitar player [Josh Klinghoffer] and it was a real feeling-out process with each other," Flea. "We didn't want to play gigs with him until we'd made a new record. This time, it feels a lot better than the last one."
Now that the band has spent some time on the road with Klinghoffer, the bassist says they've been able to "establish a new language" within the group. With the group beginning work on their new record, this new connection is making everything easier and the process is moving smoothly. "We've been writing and rehearsing, rolling up our sleeves, getting in the studio and doing it," the bassist says. "We're nearly finished writing. We'll go in the studio sometime in the next couple of months."
So far, Flea estimates the group has written more than 30 songs, most of which will not make the final album. But that's nothing unusual for the band. Although the standard edition of I'm With You contained 14 songs, the group issued a 17-song album of B-sides and outtakes – I'm Beside You – two years later. "We always write way more than we put on a record," Flea says. "We always write a lot-lot."
As for the direction of the as-yet-untitled songs, he says, "It's cool. It's super danceable, funky shit and some real introspective, pretty stuff. It feels good, man, and it's fun to play it."
Although Flea won't offer a timeline for the album – "I don't want to say something and be off," he says – he's optimistic for how it's coming along. "I would hope that in a year from now, we have a record out and we're on a world tour," he says.
