The Red Hot Chili Peppers are returning with a new album, “Unlimited Love,” on April 1. The record marks the first with guitarist John Frusciante since 2006’s “Stadium Arcadium,” and the album was again produced by the legendary Rick Rubin, who has been at the helm for the Chili Peppers’ biggest albums including “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” and “Californication,” among others. The band also released the new single/video, “Black Summer.”
“Our only goal is to get lost in the music,” the band said in a statement. “We (John, Anthony, Chad and Flea) spent thousands of hours, collectively and individually, honing our craft and showing up for one another, to make the best album we could. Our antennae attuned to the divine cosmos, we were just so damn grateful for the opportunity to be in a room together, and, once again, try to get better. Days, weeks and months spent listening to each other, composing, jamming freely, and arranging the fruit of those jams with great care and purpose. The sounds, rhythms, vibrations, words and melodies had us enrapt.”
The band said that each song on the new album represents their view of the universe. “This is our life’s mission. We work, focus, and prepare, so that when the biggest wave comes, we are ready to ride it. The ocean has gifted us a mighty wave and this record is the ride that is the sum of our lives. Thank you for listening, we hope you enjoy it.”
Frusciante said the band began writing sessions by playing tunes by Johnny “Guitar” Watson, The Kinks, The New York Dolls and Richard Barrett, among others. “Ever so gradually, we started bringing in new ideas, and turning jams into songs, and after a couple of months the new stuff was all we were playing,” he said. “The feeling of effortless fun we had when we were playing songs by other people, stayed with us the whole time we were writing. For me, this record represents our love for, and faith in each other.”
Frusciante also said that playing with bandmates Anthony Kiedis, Flea and Chad Smith was like “returning to family. I’m extremely comfortable with those people. It was as if no time had gone by at all when we started playing, pretty much, with a couple of minor exceptions, like how Chad and I gradually got our communication together in a new way. Basically, we’re all just as comfortable with each other as we ever were, and it just felt like that right off the bat.”
