One Hot Minute

Untitled

One Hot Minute is the sixth album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, released on September 12, 1995. It is the only album by the band recorded when Dave Navarro, formerly of the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction, was their guitarist, and the only album not to feature John Frusciante since his first Chili Peppers album Mother's Milk. It is often regarded as the Chili Peppers' most alternative, experimental work.

The album fared well on the charts. It was crowned as double platinum and sold more than 2 million copies in the United States. However, this was considered a disappointment when compared to the much greater commercial success of the preceding Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and the band's later three albums (Californication, By the Way, Stadium Arcadium) after Frusciante returned. 'One Hot Minute' created a very unusual type of heavy punk/funk/psychedelic rock which was a totally uncommon style for the RHCP that was never duplicated.

History

Three years had elapsed between the release of the band's previous album Blood Sugar Sex Magik and their recording of the album, which began around late 1994 or early 1995. The previous guitarist of the band, John Frusciante, temporarily left the group mid-tour in the April 1992 (to return in 1998). After a string of replacements, the band settled on guitarist Dave Navarro, formerly of Jane's Addiction, in 1994. Navarro would depart from the Chili Peppers during the subsequent album tour to pursue other projects.

In March 2006, the album was re-released via the iTunes Store including bonus tracks. The original tracks, as with all the other re-released albums are not remastered, leaving only the bonus tracks remastered. One of these tracks, "Bob", had never been heard of/seen before. A fan asked Navarro about this song on his weblog 6767.com, he said the following: "Bob is a song about our friend and Thelonious Monster singer, Bob Forrest. It was the first song we did together. Why it never came out I am not sure."

Musical style

Unlike the band's previous work, much of One Hot Minute's tracks are rooted in the heavy metal genre with added progressive and psychedelic influences, making heavy use of distorted, crunching guitar work (evident on such tracks as "Deep Kick" and "Coffee Shop"). Flea's talent at playing the bass is showed constantly throughout the album with examples like: The two bass solos played in "Coffee Shop", the jazzy-feeling of the bass track played in "Walkabout", the wah-distorted, complicated, fast faced intro to "Shallow Be Thy Game", and the whole bassline to the song "Transcending". Also Smith's skill is not taken for granted with songs like "Warped", "Coffee Shop", "One Hot Minute", "Shallow Be Thy Game" and "Transcending".

One Hot Minute's songs were on average far longer than on those on preceding albums by the Chili Peppers due to the added progressive influences on several of the songs. Tracks such as "Deep Kick", which begins with a slow pace and lengthy spoken-word poem, only to suddenly kick into a loud and energetic punk song, before once again descending pace for the melodic coda sung by Flea, and "One Big Mob", a track that begins in a heavy, fast-paced manner typical of the band's early period, but dramatically slows down for a drawn-out psychedelic bridge (complete with the sounds of a crying baby), then builds up to a crescendo before the first part of the song starts up again. Both over six minutes in duration, it is songs like these that are examples of the progressive approach taken by the band for One Hot Minute which Navarro may well have made a major contribution to. His previous band Jane's Addiction were known to compose progressive epics (e.g. "Three Days") as well songs of a conventional structure and length.

Other songs regress to the funk style of the Chili Peppers' earlier period, albeit with added influences from unlikely sources ("Walkabout" adopts an Australian theme, whilst "Falling Into Grace" contains tribal sounds.) In "Pea" bassist Flea plays on his own with only acoustic bass and him singing about a "homophobic redneck dick" who had assaulted him. "Tearjerker" is a subdued ballad in which frontman Anthony Kiedis sings of the grief felt after learning about the death of Kurt Cobain, whose band Nirvana had previously toured with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Once again on "Transcending", which explores the band's reaction to the death of actor and close friend River Phoenix.

Main singer and lyricist Anthony Kiedis was struggling with a heroin addiction throughout the recording of One Hot Minute. As a result, the album's lyrics are often cryptic, bizarre and much darker in tone than any album the band have made before or since, moving away from the typical themes of sex and generally having a good time that dominated previous albums, and much more into the introspection that had already appeared on tracks like "Under the Bridge". The songs "Warped" and "Aeroplane" further tackle Kiedis' drug problems head on, often utilising some graphic, subvertedly menacing imagery, whilst the acoustic ballad "My Friends" appears to adopt a theme of depression and despair. These unusual music approaches create many difficult, inaccessible and commercially-unfriendly songs as a result, and this is further highlighted by the fact that the three songs above were released as the first three singles for the album, the latter two being the most successful. "My Friends" was the only track from One Hot Minute to be included on the band's Greatest Hits compilation, although the music video for "Aeroplane" is also included on its accompanying DVD.

Track listing

All songs by Anthony Kiedis, Michael "Flea" Balzary, Dave Navarro & Chad Smith

1. "Warped" – 5:04
2. "Aeroplane" – 4:45
3. "Deep Kick" – 6:33
4. "My Friends" – 4:02
5. "Coffee Shop" – 3:08
6. "Pea" – 1:47
7. "One Big Mob" – 6:02
8. "Walkabout" – 5:07
9. "Tearjerker" – 4:19
10. "One Hot Minute" – 6:23
11. "Falling into Grace" – 3:48
12. "Shallow Be Thy Game" – 4:33
13. "Transcending" – 5:46

B-Sides, Outtakes and Non-Album Tracks

1. "Melancholy Mechanics" – 3:21 (B-Side of Warped)
2. "Let's Make Evil" – 5:17 (B-Side of My Friends)
3. "Stretch You Out" – 6:01 (B-Side of My Friends)
4. "Bob" – 5:43 (iTunes Bonus track)
5. "Circle Of The Noose" - ? (unreleased, dedicated to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan)
6. "Blender - ? (unreleased track)

Credits

Band line-up during recording

• Anthony Kiedis - Lead Vocals
• Dave Navarro - Guitar/Back-up Vocals
• Michael "Flea" Balzary - Bass/Back-up Vocals, Lead Vocals on Pea
• Chad Smith - Drums/Percussion

Additional musicians

• Lenny Castro - Percussion on Walkabout, My Friends, One Hot Minute, Deep Kick, and Tearjerker
• John Lurie - Harmonica on One Hot Minute
• Tree - Violin on Tearjerker
• Stephen Perkins - Percussion on One Big Mob
• Kristen Vigard - Background vocals on Falling Into Grace
• Aimee Echo - Background vocals on One Hot Minute and One Big Mob
• Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa - Chants on Falling Into Grace
• Gabriel James Navarro - Cries on One Big Mob

Children who sing on Aeroplane

• Clara Balzary
• Max Gould
• Bailey Reise
• Askia Ndegéocello
• Nadia Wehbe
• Sarabeth Kelly
• Matthew Kelly
• Phillip Greenspan
• Perry Greenspan
• Veronica Twigg
• Remy Greeno
• Jaclyn Dimaggio
• Heyley Oakes
• Nikolai Giefer
• Taiana Giefer
• Nine Rothburg
• Sheera Ehrig
• Jade Chacon

Producer

• Rick Rubin

Engineers

• Dave Sardy

Assistant Engineer

• David Schiffman

Mixed by

• Dave Sardy

Mastered by

• Stephen Marcussen

Digitally edited by

• Don C. Tyler

Artwork

Art

• Mark Ryden

Calligraphy

• Sweetbryar Ludwig

Art Direction

• Anthony Kiedis
• Flea
• Dirk Walter

Chart positions

Album

Year	Chart	Peak position
1995	The Billboard 200	No. 4

Singles

Year	Single	Chart	Peak position
1995	My Friends	Mainstream Rock Tracks	No. 1
1995	My Friends	Modern Rock Tracks	No. 1
1995	Warped	Modern Rock Tracks	No. 7
1995	Warped	Mainstream Rock Tracks	No. 13
1996	Aeroplane	Modern Rock Tracks	No. 8
1996	Aeroplane	Mainstream Rock Tracks	No. 12
1996	Aeroplane	Top 40 Mainstream	No. 30

Miscellanea

• "Pea" is the only song from this album that the Peppers have played live since Dave Navarro's departure from the band. The song is played and sung only by Flea.
• The song "One Hot Minute" features extra lyrics in the booklet to this album. The extra lyrics can be found after the first chorus, just before the line "Close your eyes, and click your heels."
• The children singing on the song "Aeroplane" are Flea's daughter's kindergarten class. Flea's daughter, Clara is the loudest of the group.
• The lyrics to "Walkabout" are different in the booklet than the song itself.
• The B-Side song "Melancholy Mechanics" was featured in the 1996 movie Twister.
• The B-Side song "Stretch" starts with the same riff as the fadeout of "One Big Mob", which could mean that "Stretch" could have possibly come after "One Big Mob" before being pulled off the album.
• This iteration of the group also recorded a cover of the Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster", "I Make My Own Rule" with LL Cool J on the Private Parts soundtrack, and "I Found Out" on the John Lennon tribute record.