Chad Smith
Chad Smith
Chadwick "Chad" Gaylord Smith is an American musician and current drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which he joined in 1988 and was inducted of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Smith is also the drummer of the hard rock supergroup Chickenfoot, who formed in 2008, and currently the all-instrumental outfit Chad Smith's Bombastic Meatbats, who formed in 2007. As one of the most highly sought-after drummers, Smith has recorded with Deep Purple vocalist Glenn Hughes,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDrummer
Date of Birth25 October 1961
CitySaint Paul, MN
CountryUnited States of America
Flea and Anthony are into funk, like old school Meters and stuff like that.
Jazz can be so serious, no sense of humor.
Drums all have their own particulars - each drum has a place where they sound the best - where they ring out and resonate the best, and the head surface isn't too loose or too tight, mainly so you get a good rebound off of the head.
Its very sort of spontaneous and organic, not a preconceived sort of jamming. Now we record everything, cause sometimes you'll forget, you know, 'what was that thing again?' So we record everything.
People who come up to me are drummers or fans of the band. I don't get it too much, but I'll be somewhere and someone will have me take a picture or something.
Playing along with records is key. And as far as equipment goes it has gotten so much more affordable and the drum sets are of great quality. I play Pearl; their Export Series is great for a beginner.
Sometimes one of us will have a riff or a bass line from home but it really gels when we come together. We really have a strong special chemistry that we take advantage of when we get together.
We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.
Edible names are what drives me as a musician. My next band will be called the Hot Dogs.
I took a private lesson, but it didn't really work out, so I went back to playing along with records. That's really the thing that got me into playing a lot - getting excited about playing along with my favorite bands like Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.
I'm a musician. It's what I do! I wouldn't be too good at anything else.
Family time is really important to me.
I had sort of exhausted all the avenues playing in Detroit. So again, through the stewardship of my brother, I ended up in California and went to the Musicians Institute in L.A. I wanted to get better as a player.
I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium.