The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are one of the longest-lasting funk-rock bands ever to have existed. Having been founded by singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Michael “Flea” Balzary in the early 1980s, the group has gained millions of fans, recorded several successful albums, performed various concert tours, and weathered countless professional and personal storms in their 40+ year career.
But there is one RHCP album that tends to be overlooked by critics, fans, and even the band members themselves. And that is One Hot Minute.
Warner Records
Prior to the album’s production, the Chilli Peppers were coming off a wave of momentum in terms of popularity. Their seventh album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, was a huge commercial and critical hit with critics and audiences, and they launched from the alternative realm into the mainstream. However, during their tour in support of that album, lead guitarist John Frusciante quit the band due to paranoia over their rise to fame and a growing drug addiction. After finishing the tour with quickly-hired guitarist Arik Marshall, the Chilli Peppers began looking for a new, permanent band member. That led them to Dave Navarro, the guitarist of Jane’s Addiction and their original choice before selecting Marshall.
Recording One Hot Minute proved to be quite difficult in every sense of the word. Having been used to jam sessions, the Chilli Peppers were not accustomed to Navarro’s writing style, and in turn, he was puzzled by the band’s jam sessions as part of the creative process. As a result of wanting to evolve from Blood Sugar Sex Magik, the album goes off in a more heavy metal direction with elements of psychedelic rock scattered throughout. By his own admission, Navarro is not a funk rock fan, since he grew up on classic rock of the 1960s and 1970s.
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine cited the creative differences in writing and playing as a major reason why Navarro’s tenure with the Chilli Peppers didn’t last very long. “Navarro’s metallic guitar shredding should have added some weight to the Chilli Peppers’ punk-inflected heavy guitar funk, but instead tended to make it plodding,” notes Erlewine. “By emphasizing the metal, the funk is gradually phased out of the blend, as is melody.” During a 1996 interview with Guitarworld.com, Flea stated One Hot Minute was “the least jam-oriented record we’ve ever made”, and therein lies a factor as to why the album was a difficult one to make.
Warner Records
One Hot Minute kicks things off with “Warped”, a dark, moody track on the danger of addiction and the need to seek for help: “My tendency for dependency is offending me/It’s upending me/I’m pretending to be strong and free from my dependency.” Kiedis was struggling with his own addiction at the time, so the song feels deeply autobiographical in nature. “Warped” also got the band a lot of criticism for its music video depicting the group in scantily-clad attire and featuring a kiss between Kiedis and Navarro. Several people — record executives and music fans — hated the video and especially despised the kiss sequence because rock musicians typically didn’t film themselves in such fashion. Yet it is worth noting that homophobia was fairly common during the 1990s, and many mainstream audiences weren’t used to seeing two men kiss.
“Aeroplane” is a pop funk track that also tackles personal issues but feels more upbeat and listenable. When listening to the lyrics “Looking into my own eyes/I can’t find the love I want/Someone better slap me before I start to rust”, it is not hard to see how Kiedis poured his inner feelings and insecurities into the making of One Hot Minute. Navarro’s guitar-playing is quite layered on this track, because he incorporates a lot of textural shifts and melodies into the song. To make “Aeroplane” even more relatable, Flea included his daughter and several of her kindergarten classmates singing backing vocals on the final verse. Several people, including critics and various band members, have cited it as one of the album’s better songs.
Personal problems and insecurities are both major themes on the album. “Deep Kick” is a number about youth and adolescence. Flea based the song on how he and Kiedis grew up. “My Friends” is a somber ballad that concerns struggling with inner thoughts. As Kiedis sings: “My friends are so distressed/And standing on the brink of emptiness/No words I know of to express.” It is one of the more introspective tracks on the album, because the song was inspired by Kiedis relapsing after a period of sobriety, Flea coping with depression amidst his divorce, and former bandmate Frusciante being addicted to heroin.
“Coffee Shop” is a funk metal track that really lets Navarro shine on guitar, especially when playing riffs. Sadly, it never became a live favourite and disappeared after being performed 39 times. “Pea” is Flea’s ode to being bullied as a child; interestingly, this has remained a live staple of Red Hot Chilli Pepper concerts. “One Big Mob” seems caught somewhere between funk metal and rap-rock, given Kiedis hadn’t fully progressed to singing verses at this point in the band’s career.
“Walkabout” is a funk rock tune that follows on from the Blood Sugar Sex Magik formula. Drummer Chad Smith’s percussion and Flea’s baselines are both solid. Kiedis provides a softer, more confident rapping tone in the verses. Sadly, it never got a lot of attention and became one of the band’s forgotten songs. “Tearjerker” is written in memory of the late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who had died of suicide in 1994. Kiedis was a friend and admirer of Cobain, and it serves as a loving tribute.
As the title track, “One Hot Minute” starts off with gentle chord-playing before amping up into heavy-metal territory. It is one of the biggest examples in showing how Navarro was different from his predecessor in the band. Whereas Frusciante was (and still is) technically brilliant in composing and playing music, Navarro’s sound is heavier in terms of layers and complexity, which didn’t suit Kiedis’ vocals. Perhaps the biggest issue with the song is that it runs on too long — clocking in at six minutes and 23 seconds. Had it been edited down, there is a chance the track could have been released as a band single.
“Falling Into Grace” is a unique, upbeat song that brings to mind the funk bands of the 1970s. Curiously, it also features Middle Eastern influences on the guitar solo that happens at the two minute and fifteen second mark. In addition, the band members chant the Indian Sanskrit “Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo”, which translates to “I bow to the creative wisdom.” This is an interesting track that only got performed once in 1996 and has never been played live since.
“Shallow Be Thy Game” is one of the more fast-paced rock tracks on the album. It is cynical in nature, given its criticism of fundamentalist religion. Kiedis sings, “I was not created in the likeness of a fraud/Your hell is something scary, I prefer a loving God/We are not the centre of this funny universe/And what is worse, I do not serve in fear of such a curse.” Throughout the track, the singer notes the hypocrisy and controlling nature of televangelists: “You play the game of shame and tell your people live in fear/A rival to the way you see, the Bible let him be/I’m a threat to your survival and your control company.” Sadly, much like other songs on the record, it never became a single or a live concert favourite.
The final track on One Hot Minute is “Transcending”, which was written in tribute to the late actor River Phoenix, who was a friend of the RHCP. At first, the song starts off in a blissful, upbeat manner — for the initial three minutes. From there, it switches gears and cranks up the guitar and bass-playing, intercut with screams and distortion. While some may consider “Transcending” to be a jarring track, others consider it a solid way to end the album.
Warner Records
So why is One Hot Minute regarded as a lesser work by critics, audiences, and the band?
Perhaps the biggest factor working against this album is the tonal shift from funk rock to heavy metal. Although Navarro is a talented guitarist, his creative sensibilities and playing style differed from the Chilli Peppers. Naturally, this would eventually lead to clashes between Kiedis and Navarro. While musicians have different approaches to making music (look at John Lennon and Paul McCartney, for example), it would be inevitable that creative differences were going to spring up. A number of fans were put off by the album’s focus on heavy metal and psychedelia, which aren’t the typical genres explored by RHCP.
Another factor that worked against One Hot Minute is the shadow cast by Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Having launched the group into the mainstream, Blood Sugar Sex Magik raised the bar and set very high expectations for the band to reach. Continuing his assessment of the album, Erlewine noted “’My Friends’ and ‘Transcending’ are blatant attempts to hold onto the mainstream audience gained by “Under the Bridge”, but the melodies are weak and the lyrics are even more feeble. Musically, One Hot Minute is as ambitious as Blood Sugar Sex Magic, but is even more unfocused.”
In the following years, the Chilli Peppers quietly distanced themselves from One Hot Minute. Following the ill-fated 1996 tour, they fired Navarro, regrouped in 1998 with Frusciante, who conquered his drug addiction, and returned to playing music. Their next three albums were the critically-lauded Californication, By The Way, and Stadium Arcadium. During the tours for those albums, the band made a point not to perform anything from One Hot Minute, with the sole exception of “Pea” as Flea’s solo spot. Kiedis has explained that while he likes a few of the album’s tracks, “Aeroplane” among them, those songs do not fit with the material that they tend to play live in concert. It is reported Frusciante was (and still is) not particularly keen on playing any of the songs that Navarro wrote with the group. He later explained in an interview that he has never listened to One Hot Minute. “It would be like seeing your girlfriend with another guy.” Understandably, that reason makes sense as to why the group opts not to perform said material, especially since the album was made during a transition era.
After Frusciante left the band for ten years, the Chilli Peppers did briefly revisit songs from One Hot Minute during the 2010s. Josh Klinghoffer, who took over for Frusciante, lobbied for the band to perform their mid-90s material. From 2011 to 2013, they did play snippets of “Let’s Make Evil”, “My Friends”, and “Walkabout” during the I’m With You Tour. During their Getaway World Tour of 2016 to 2017, they did perform “Aeroplane” and a snippet of “Deep Kick”, much to the surprise of their longtime fans. Since Frusciante’s return in 2019, “Pea” remains the only song from that album to be played live whenever they tour.
Smith explained that the band’s reluctance to perform tracks from One Hot Minute stemmed from having moved on from that period rather than merely disliking the materials. “We don’t really feel that connected to that record anymore,” he stated in a 2014 interview with Guitarworld. “No special reason, not to say we’d never play those songs, but we don’t feel that emotionally connected to that music right now.” So it stands to reason that the album isn’t too high on the RHCP’s list of priorities.
Warner Records
Recently, however, there have been a few surprises. Smith did reunite with Navarro for the first time in years to perform “My Friends” at the 2021 Ohana Festival. This could suggest that Smith does not hate One Hot Minute; rather, the clear sticking point remains with Frusciante and Kiedis. For his part, Flea remains philosophical about the album: “The record is what it is, though: a document of that time,” he said in the Guitarworldinterview. “It has good energy, the grooves are good, and the music is good. I’m happy with the way I played, but I’m already onto another groove.”
Maybe there is still potential for funk music lovers to discover the songs of One Hot Minute. After all, several albums have gone unappreciated during their initial release and become rediscovered and acclaimed years later. Look at the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, for example.
