MTV: Are you amazed by your status in the music world now?

Anthony Kiedis: I sort of felt that way when John came back to the band. I realized how vibrant we were feeling and how current our music is today, even though it started 15 or 16 years ago. It's not like I analyze it or mull it over, but I'm always aware of our history. I didn't need VH1 to make me think about our place in the world, but "Behind the Music" was interesting because they had footage from a long time ago. I was like, "Oh my God, look at the way we were acting back then. We were weirdos!"But, you know, those shows are also sort of sensational, focusing on extreme elements in people's history -- the death, the destruction, the darkness, the downs. [RealAudio] They sort of missed the fact that through all the chaos, the biggest part of this band is that we've always put out something that's incredibly uplifting.

MTV: And it's cool that despite its wild history, the band is still doing new things, stuff it hasn't done before.

AK: Right. We've never been to Russia, for example. We were riding in an airplane and someone handed me a paper saying that Russia was starting a brand new music television network, and they wanted to know if we'd play live outdoors somewhere in or around Moscow. We were thrilled with the concept of playing for Russian people outdoors in the middle of summer. What could be better? I said yes halfway through reading the paragraph. But more immediately, I've been on the phone all morning with the director for the video of "Around the World," which we should do before we leave for Russia. Paul Hunter, he's a rocker, he's a roller.

MTV: Why did you pick him?

AK: He's just an incredibly competent director, and he likes us, so it seemed to be a good combination. You know, we've asked all kinds of movie directors. We aimed for Terry Gilliam and didn't really get anywhere. We aimed for Spike Lee one time and never heard back from him.

MTV: Do you get a lot of offers for movie and book deals?

AK: Well, Scorsese keeps calling, but I don't return his calls. There have been a bunch of books put out, but none that were necessarily authorized, or even true, for that matter. Some are more interesting than others, and some are just a pack of wild fabrications, lies, and half-truths that I found mildly amusing. [RealAudio]

A friend of ours just did a book which is primarily photographs from a European tour. It's called "Body Parts." That was when Dave Navarro was in the band and he and this friend of ours went with us on tour and took these arty-looking, upscale pictures and wrote this kind of agonizing poetry along the way. Dave isn't in the band anymore, so he had trouble getting a publishing deal for the book, but I guess it's being put out.

We used to approach people about making movies, but we just got sidetracked with making music. The Beatles made good movies while they were making music. But it's hard to do both at the same time.

MTV: How bout movie soundtracks?

AK: Possibly. But this time around we didn't want to compete against the sales or distract people with a single from a movie, because we want people to just sit with this record. As for the leftover tracks, we might just end up using them for B-sides of singles. Unless something weird happens, like Stanley Kubrick comes back to life and suddenly needs a song.

MTV: Let's talk about Woodstock. What happened?

AK: When we hit the stage, some good vibes were happening, and because we did Lollapalooza a few years ago, we were completely used to giant fires in the middle of an audience. During the second Lollapalooza, we saw fires every night. So when it started happening I was like, "Oh, must be about time for those fires." I didn't think these were larger or more potentially dangerous fires, but it turns out that at Lollapalooza there were about 20,000 people, and at Woodstock there were 200,000 people, and it was a lot harder for fire engines to get in.

MTV: When you guys got off the stage, did someone let you know what happened?

AK: Yeah some guy with a radio attached to his head said, "We need your help, there are fires out there. We need to get the fire engines in." So I expressed the need to the crowd for a fire engine path. Coincidentally enough, right before we are about to go on stage, someone knocks on the door and says Jimi Hendrix's sister is there to see us. We didn't even know he had a sister. Turns out she was supposed to put together that Hendrix tribute where 11 or 12 different guitar players were going to come out and play a Hendrix song. It fell through, and she came by and asked if we'd mind ending with a Hendrix song. Jimi was the spirit, he was the bomb, and we wanted to pay respect to him, but how could we possibly end our set with a Hendrix song? We said okay, f*** it, we'll go learn this song real quick, and we ran to where our little amps and drums were set up and thought we'd try to play "Fire," and we realized right away that we knew it perfectly, and we didn't even need to rehearse it! And right when we went out there to play "Fire," the fires were 50 feet tall and completely raging, like it was all meant to be.

MTV: Looking at all the stuff that happened, would you do a show like that again?

AK: I'd look at it more carefully before we agreed to do it. Sometimes being in a band you're so far removed from all the workings of what it takes to put on a show. We pulled a bonzo after that s**t. We jumped into a car and went to some runway in the middle of nowhere and got on a plane and by the time the people started looting, I was checking into my hotel in Manhattan wondering where the hell my girlfriend was. And later I found out about all this crazy destruction and looting.

As I understand it, the kids had been treated unfairly for days, being charged four bucks for a bottle of water, stuff like that. You know, you spend all that money to get into a show, you shouldn't have to spend four dollars for a water after having been exposed to the elements for three days. Why not make it so there's water for everybody and reasonably priced food and just the essentials of living for those three days?

MTV: Did Flea plan on being naked onstage?

AK: Twenty minutes before the show, he asked me what I would think if he went naked, and I said, "Well, nothing could be better for Woodstock." I thought it was quite bold.

MTV: You guys aren't playing anything live from "One Hot Minute" lately?

AK: We're really not going out of our way to look at that record for live songs right now. All the songs we've written in the past year for "Californication" are the songs that are in our hearts right now. There may come a time when someone falls in love with a song from "One Hot Minute" and goes, "You know what? We really should pull this song out and play it because it's damn good." And we'll do it. But we have so much love for the new stuff we created together, and that's where our focus is.

You know, I was out of my mind when Dave [Navarro] was in the band, I wasn't nearly as present most of the time as I am now. People go through some strange biorhythmic waves of productivity, and we kind of hit a major wave of that. We're riding a wave with John right now, and it's contagious and it gains momentum and strength. But Dave is an incredible guy. If I was on my deathbed in 80 years and people came up to me and asked, "Who were the most intense guys you knew in your lifetime?" he would have to be on my tongue. I look forward to the music he's going to be making in the next year or so. I'm very excited about that.

MTV: What's your favorite song on the new album?

AK: It changes from day to day. I like "Road Trippin'." And "This Velvet Glove." That means a lot to me, because John plays two guitar parts; it's one of the few songs that he has an acoustic rhythm track happening. That's important, because I'm a terrible guitar player and I could never play that part. And we don't do it live.

MTV: Would you guys be able to do an all-acoustic set?

AK: Oh, hell yeah! That would be no problem. Nirvana went out there and did it, and that was amazing.

MTV: Will we have to wait as long for the next album as we had to wait for this one?

AK: We kind of roll with life, and when it's time to make music and record it... well, the way we're feeling now, I would have to say that in a year we'll be thinking of releasing another record. So, no, it's not going to be that long.

MTV: Are you listening to any new music lately?

AK: I got a record the other day [by a band] called Blonde Redhead, which John suggested. I don't think they're brand new, but it was beautiful, the rhythms, the textures, and the tones of this girl's voice were spectacular, and just completely filled up my hotel room with a good vibe. And I like that record [by] Queens of the Stone Age. You never heard that? These weird-ass freaks from the desert of California. A great record, very basic fundamentals of rock, but it sounds like it came out of a cactus.

MTV: What CDs do you have in your stereo right now?

AK: The very first Led Zeppelin record. I was such a latecomer to Led Zeppelin. I ignored it my whole life, because that was what all the kids in school were into, and I figured I had to ignore it. And then I got out of school and all my friends loved Zeppelin, and now way later in life I went back and listened to all those records, and the very first one was the one I liked, and it starts off with that song "Good Times, Bad Times." That's what got me out of the house today.

MTV: What's it like with John back in the band?

AK [whistles]: So much love. It's so exciting for me every night. Every night is different, largely because of his solos and his improvisational vibe. I feel like a spectator sometimes. I'm very uplifted by his space, and his color.

MTV: Feel like you can just step back sometimes and watch?

AK: Yeah, he's blowing my mind. I feel as good as I possibly could about our future. John is a really incredible person, and right now all he cares about is putting good energy into the universe, and the way he does that is through music. So basically he's doing one of three things: he's either playing live, or he's listening and playing along with music, or he's writing music 24/7. Call John at midnight, and he'll be playing along with an Ornette Coleman record. Call him up at two in the afternoon and he'll be working on a couple of songs that will be good for us. Call him up at ten at night, and he's just finished a mystery novel and is going to go listen to an acoustic Jimmy Page solo that he wants to learn. That type of dedication is heavily contagious stuff, and it just makes us want to write more music and make more records and play more shows and just create more beauty for the world. You know, art is a good thing like that. No matter what's happening in the world, there's always room for some more beauty, so we're just kind of along for his cosmic ride right now.

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