Los Angeles rock vets Red Hot Chili Peppers (who have been around since Reagan’s first term) have a new album at the ready due out next Friday. Sure, Flea recently pulled out the old guard standby of “rock is dead,” but that doesn’t mean RHCP doesn’t want to take this alleged corpse out for a spin Weekend at Bernie’s style.
The semi-funky “We Turn Red” has arrived as the latest single from the Danger Mouse produced full-length The Gateway. (Their first album not to get the Rick Rubin producing touch since 1989’s Mother’s Milk, don’t cha know?) Depending on your mileage with RHCP offerings, “We Turn Red” will either read as business as usual for the outfit or a portrait of a tweaked formula in a post-Rubin climate. The main thing is that Anthony Kiedis sings “take me to the lake where we do the avocado” at one point and that’s silly good fun for everyone. (Mind you, the track seems to have a political sheen to it, so maybe the avocado line isn’t supposed to be the focus. Sorry Tony.)
It’ll be intriguing to see how critics take to The Gateway when it drops on July 17. RHCP’s last album, 2011’s I’m with You, earned mixed-to-lukewarm reviews. Kiedis told Rolling Stone last year that he considered the band’s new material to be top shelf.
“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,” Kiedis says. “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.”
If you prefer your Red Hot Chili Peppers business in carpool form, CBS is ready to accommodate. RHCP have announced that their “Carpool Karaoke” segment on the Late Late Show with James Corden will air this Monday.
