March 12, 2021

Me and My Friends #29 - Anno Nihilo

What follows below was written by Leandro Cabo, of the RHCP Live Archive, the best website on the internet. All I’ve done is edit it lightly. A big, big thanks to Leni for offering to write this essay for the newsletter.

P.S - you can donate to the RHCP Live Archive here.

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1997 was baptized The Year of Nothing by the band. But was that really the case?

Maybe, as far as the Red Hot Chili Peppers went - they only managed to play only one gig, after all – but there was a lot going on behind the scenes.

Our starting point goes back some months earlier:

July 11, 1996 – Wembley Arena, London, England The last show of the “One Hot Minute” tour, described by Anthony as the single best show the band played with Dave. ¹

There are no recordings in circulation (there has been rumors of an audience tape for years, but nothing has surfaced as of yet) and so we can’t judge Anthony’s claim for ourselves, but the setlist looks like a typical one from that tour.

Besides a one-off, million dollar show sponsored by Molson beer, first planned aboard an icebreaker sailing the North Pole but then held in a nearby warehouse, the next step in the band’s agenda was to travel to Hawaii to write some songs for their next album. This was a plan that (eventually) worked for them back in 1994.

The dates aren’t 100% certain, but according to this mention from February 1997, the band was recording in Hawaii during September and October of 1996. Flea also mentions travelling to Hawaii during this interview.²

Apparently, during these sessions, Dave abruptly decided he wanted to return to Los Angeles, so work continued there until Anthony’s drug problem got out of hand, and he checked into Exodus for rehab in late October. He then flew to Michigan to detox at his mom’s house.³

On December 1, a benefit show for Leonard Peltier was held at the Viper Room. Flea was among the artists performing that night with an acoustic solo set. It’s been rumored that the band also played that night; the event announcement on proclaimed “very special” guests, but it’s not confirmed that the RHCP appeared.

Around this point, Flea had made a deal with Warner Bros. for his solo album, and sessions, recorded and engineered by Sylvia Massy (producer of “Love Rollercoaster” and Rick Rubin protege) began. Guests included Dave Navarro, Steven Perkins and Dix Denny.

At one point December 1996 and January 1997, Flea and Dave entered the studio to record “Hard Charger” with Porno for Pyros and “I Make My Own Rules”, also featuring Chad and LL Cool J. Both songs were featured on the soundtrack for the Howard Stern film Private Parts.

In late January, Anthony traveled to New Zealand for a two week vacation, and later spent over a month travelling through India and Nepal. He goes deep into detail about this trip in Scar Tissue, but the highlight was meeting the Dalai Lama, who asked him to make the band available for the next Tibetan Freedom Concert, which he does quite willingly.

During this timeframe, Dave and Chad also started working in studio on their own side project, which at the time they called “Spread”. Flea was busy filming his role in The Big Lebowski and continuing work on his solo album.

Dave and Flea also played a few gigs with Porno for Pyros in late February, then jammed with Thelonious Monster on March 2, 1997 at the Whiskey in Los Angeles. John Frusciante was also there that night, and he was seen jamming with Flea on stage. ⁴

The “Deep Kick” documentary, recorded between 1994 and 1996 was finally planned for a theatrical release in early 1997. Directed by Gavin Bowden of “Funky Monks” fame, the film was mostly a diary of the band during 1994 and early 1995, featuring footage of their Hawaii sessions, the 1994 European festival tour and the recording of One Hot Minute. It also features one small short film for each band member recorded later in 1995⁵ and live footage from the April 6, 1996 show at the Cow Palace in Daly City, CA - more footage from this show is seen in the “Coffee Shop” video clip. Of course, this planned release never happened.

Flea and Anthony traveled to Australia to do some “major surfing”, and write songs for the new album. In early April, Anthony headed back to Los Angeles while Flea stayed behind.

On April 11, Blackie Dammet (Anthony’s father and the President of Rockinfreakapotamus, the official fanclub at the time) met up with Anthony, Dave and Chad. I’d guess the reason of this meeting was to settle tour plans, as shortly after, the “Wild Tour” schedule was announced and tickets were put on sale:

July 21 – Anchorage, Alaska

July 23 – Honolulu, Hawaii

July 26 – Yamanasi, Japan

July 30 – Seoul, Korea

August 1 – Tapei, Taiwan

August 3 – Bangkok, Thailand

August 8 – Hong Kong, China

August 10 – Singapore City, Singapore

August 12 – Guam, Guam

The band hoped to get into the studio this month as previously mentioned. However, Dave also mentions the band planning to only start writing in April. But neither happened as Flea got back to LA on May 1, just in time for Anthony to check into Impact for rehab once again. He was there for over a month ⁶.

Faithful to Anthony’s promise to the Dalai Lama, the band was announced as part of the line-up for the yearly Tibetan Freedom Concert on June 7- 8, but only to quit the event two days after the announcement. The official statement mentioned “lack of rehearsal time”, but I’m guessing that with Anthony in rehab things were pretty uncertain at this point.

To make matters worse, on July 13, Anthony was in a serious motorcycle accident after an elderly couple made an unannounced U-turn in front of him. He broad-sided the couple’s car, crushing his wrist between his motorcycle and their car, flying over it and doing a complete flip, miraculously landing on his feet. After five hours surgery on a badly smashed wrist he was stable, but in a lot of pain.

All the upcoming dates were cancelled… all but one – the Fuji Rock Festival. Even so, the set was abandoned after only eight songs as a typhoon hit the mountain where the festival was being held.

But why cancel the rest of the tour if they could play the festival? Travel plans to Asia were completed, and besides Anthony’s cast going all the way up to his shoulder, they were clearly capable of playing. He says they were making a lot of money from headlining the festival and they hadn’t worked all year. ⁷

The two US dates were rescheduled with an extra added date:

September 11 – Las Vegas, Nevada

September 13 – Anchorage, Alaska

September 16 – Honolulu, Hawaii

And a full 14-date South American tour in 7 countries was also tentatively mentioned to fan club members in the Rockinfreakapotamus magazines, but abandoned shortly after, as the Jane’s Addiction reunion with Dave on guitar and Flea on bass was announced, and those dates would collide with their own tour.

In August, Flea and Dave were interviewed about the reunion for the November Guitar World issue, and when asked about the RHCP, they talk about making another record very soon and doing some writing “in a week or so”. It seems the band was committed to get back to work on the new album, write some songs, record some demos and then go play the three shows. But as bad luck would have it, on August 26, Chad dislocated his wrist after he lost control of his motorcycle while riding down Sunset Boulevard. The shows were rescheduled, once again:

December 29 – Honolulu, Hawaii

December 31 – Anchorage, Alaska

January 7 – Las Vegas, Nevada

Consequently all the Chili Peppers plans were abandoned for the meantime; on September 10, Anthony mentioned being in the process of writing lyrics for new songs, meaning they might have managed to record some instrumental tracks before Chad’s accident and continued recording vocals and overdubs while he recovered.

On October 18, Jane’s Addiction begun their “Relapse” tour all over the United States and the Chili Peppers was put on hold. On November 21, after the evening sound check for the Jane’s show, Flea was interviewed for the March 1998 Bass Frontiers issue and when asked about the band his sincere response was:

I have no idea what is going to happen with that. We recorded a few songs before we left for this tour, but it’s unpredictable.

On December 1, Anthony attended the Jane’s show at Los Angeles’ Universal Amphitheater. In a weird turn of events, he met up with Jack Irons and John Frusciante, whom would later recall this encounter in a 1999 interview:

I saw Anthony at a Jane’s Addiction show. He was really nice, I liked him a lot. He wasn’t on drugs, but I was, and he wasn’t judgmental. He used to give you a bad vibe about pot and drinking, but then he was just cool. He came to visit me a few times in the hospital and he was really nice. Things had changed.

The Jane’s tour ended on December 8, and it was time to get back to work in the Chili Peppers camp. According to an MTV article from December 10, the band was slated to go into rehearsals two days later for a week to get ready for the three booked shows. As we have heard, those rehearsals were terrible. Anthony and Dave were doing drugs again, the band felt “obligated” to do these shows and so their mindset wasn’t in the right place to begin.

We had a little talk. Dave was sitting on an amplifier, and the band discussion escalated into an argument between the two of us […] Chad and Flea backed off, and Dave got up to get in my face, but as he tries to stand up, he went backward and fell behind the amp that he was sitting on. It was comical, but also sad. ⁸

Dave recounts that story here.⁹

The article also mentions the band had one song already completed for the new album and about 20 others in the works. The one completed song is “Circle of the Noose”, described by Flea as a trancey tribute to qawwali-devotional singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when the studio work was done for the song, but as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan died in August of 1997, that could imply the song was written and recorded after his passing. My best guess would be the band only entered the studio during August-September, but it’s just pure speculation on the scarce information we have. The song, considered a holy grail for almost two decades, finally leaked in 2016 from a rough mix cassette dated March 1998.

Just 6 days before Hawaii show, the three dates were cancelled for the third time, once again for “lack of proper rehearsal time”. At this point, the band’s future was more uncertain than it ever was – to put it in Dave’s own words: “we’re not breaking up and we’re not staying together”.

John Frusciante entered rehab for the final time in January 1998 and left in February. While he was staying there, Anthony visited him and they bonded once again.

In February, Anthony and Flea took yet another vacation to Australia to “settle their differences” ¹⁰ and write some new music. Meanwhile, Dave and Chad finished the “Spread” album.¹¹

It was clear that things weren’t working out, so in March Anthony decided to take takes another trip. This time he went to Thailand, and when he returned in April, it was time to let Dave go.

But that’s it for this newsletter. If you want to keep reading exactly from the point where we are leaving, check these previous entries:

Rising again in 1998, Part 1 and Part 2.

Oh, remember Flea’s solo album that he started recording in late 1996? It seems these initial sessions were scrapped.¹² In this interview from March 1998,¹³ he mentions he’s on the eve of recording his solo album, sounding like he’s starting the process all over again. As of March 28, he wanted to finish the album before doing the new Chili Peppers one. The project was shelved once and for all after John’s return.

Thanks for reading!

Leandro

RHCP Live Archive