Me and My Friends #33 - What If...?
What if…
Dave Navarro never left in 1998?
Well, assuming the band gets their shit together and don’t implode permanently, there’d be another album in early… 1999? Darker than One Hot Minute, although perhaps not musically-so, just lyrically; there was no Californication and thus no rebirth, and so things would have continued on in the direction they seemed to be heading in 1997. Nothing to really “celebrate”. Songs about death and addiction and relapse, but inspired more by psychedelia and Flea’s time with Jane’s Addiction than what ended up being the rather back-to-basics sound of Californication.
The chaos of Fuji Rock 1997, instead of being some sort of harbinger of doom, instills them with energy and keeps them going. The one song we have from this era, “Circle of the Noose”, is one of the strangest RHCP songs ever; a sample-based (the only one in RHCP history, aside from the three not-really-samples in “Good Time Boys”, I think), dirge-like, pop/drone raga tune with some of Dave’s most unique guitar work. Where else would they have gone? A paisley RHCP album? A song with Dave on lead vocals? An album heavy on the acoustic?
In this universe, Flea probably also releases his solo album. Meaning that he also likely contributes a great deal musically to this album. Remember, the verse for “Gong Li” was lifted from Flea’s scrapped album. There would be more in this vein.
John never left in 1992?
Let’s say the troubled young man overcomes his apprehensions about the band (or there are no apprehensions at all), figures out a way to keep going, and 1992 continues on as originally intended. No quitting in Japan, no rescheduled tour dates, no four year wait for another album. But what does that sound like? I think, like the two other bands that made it huge in 1991 and then had to quickly record follow-ups, a Red Hot Chili Peppers album that featured John, recorded in 1992 or 1993, would be darker, and less commercially-minded than Blood Sugar.
A sort of “response” to the fame, the shock of the added attention, and the feeling of emptiness that arrives after all of your dreams come true. It would be slightly more experimental, and slightly odder. More distortion. Less sex. Not quite One Hot Minute, but a more abrasive version of Blood Sugar Sex Magik. I think John’s work on Niandra and his playing in early 1992 is indicative of what this might sound like.
But where to from there?
Hillel never passes away?
Sadly, it’s probable that if the worst ending imaginable didn’t happen to Hillel, it would have happened to Anthony. But let’s say they get home from that tour of Europe in 1988 and keep on working, and manage to stay… well, if not clean, then cleaner. The Uplift Mofo Party Plan was their biggest album yet, and I think they would have continued on that trajectory. They weren’t household names, but they had been on primetime television several times, were charting, albeit briefly, and were regularly playing to a lot of people; Hillel’s last show was to thousands of Finnish folk, and televised - how’s that for a band with three low-selling albums…?
So, they had upward momentum, with a ready fanbase waiting, and they might have even ended up doing their cover of “Higher Ground” anyway – Flea was playing the bass line before Hillel passed. The band’s recent experiment with a more melodic sound, like “Behind the Sun” might be explored even further. But do they keep the metal-tinged sound they had leaned towards with UMPP, or go somewhere different?
I think without John, they most likely don’t become the alt-rock behemoths that they are today. Their radio dominance is down to a lot of the verse/chorus/verse stuff that John gravitates towards naturally (or, if you’re being cynical, that he intentionally crafts like some sort of a pop music furniture maker) which just happens to be tailor-made for Anthony. But a fourth album with Hillel, and maybe even a fifth, would probably soften the band up a little. I think “Behind the Sun” was just the beginning of something that could have ended up quite interesting.
This is another one of those facts that I can’t quite remember the source to, and subsequent events have made Googling it impossible, but apparently Rockinfreakapotamus was what the band intended to call the follow-up to Uplift Mofo. So we even have a name here!
The Greatest Hits Sessions album is released?
Hearing “Starlight” and “50/Fifty” was incredible, and something I honestly never expected to happen. It was also enormously underwhelming. I had always wondered how the band could decide to give up on a set of songs so easily, but hearing those two tracks (and “Runaway” and, yech, “Bicycle Song”, which of course we’d already heard) it made a little more sense. They were just… eh. You know when you hear a B-side, and you think, “Ah yes. I see why this isn’t on the album.” But there was still eight or nine other songs recorded, and they might have written some more, and we know how great “Save the Population”, “Rolling Sly Stone” and “Leverage of Space” are.
In real life, it’s not clear when the band decided to scrap these songs. It could be late 2004, it could have been essentially immediately. We’re speaking in hypotheticals, obviously, so let’s assume that they keep those sessions going throughout 2003, and decide to release them as a complete album, not just for the Greatest Hits and not as a stop-gap release.
That album coming out in mid-2004 completely changes the trajectory of the band over the next few years. Depending on how hard they push it, it would mean a sort of early end to the By the Way era, and a full tour in 2004, instead of a handful of European dates. There would be no John six-albums-in-six-months project, and probably no Stadium Arcadium – instead the longer break would happen in later 2005.
Musically, I’d love to see what the album would sound like. Judging from the songs we’ve heard from that era, I think it would have a sparseness that’s present in things like “Rolling Sly Stone”, “Save the Population”, and some Stadium Arcadium songs, like “Warlocks”. Bass-driven, single-note melody lines, less chordal work. It’s a reaction to the amount of layering and harmony work done on By the Way. But would John have been in virtuoso-mode still?
Josh never left?
Well, who knows really. Which is an odd thing to say, seeing as it’s the most recent example on this list. One would hope they’d have another album done by now – they were in the midst of writing one when Josh was fired – but what kind of disruption Covid would have caused to that is anyone’s guess. The band apparently don’t want to release an album if they can’t tour it, but what would they have done if an album was ready almost a year ago? Do the same kind of thing that Foo Fighters did, with Zoom interviews, and socially distanced performances, and that whole horror (which I can’t wait to be over).
Musically, I think Josh would have had a more prominent role on the guitar, and I think they’d go with a different producer – maybe they’d even self-produce. The real shame in seeing him go was that he was finally starting to feel like he belonged in the spot.
What if…?