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
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.
There are exactly four sopranos on the planet who have sung that music. I know Tom's music well, so I knew who these sopranos were.
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.
Cardiff Stadium was a warm up for the 3 Hyde Park shows. James Brown opened. And I think it may be the only time we played Mini Epic live.
Family time is really important to me.
There's something about the rawness of the live thing, there's no rhythm guitars behind the solo, nothing other than what you hear the people playing at that moment. It's exciting, it's about the performance.
I'm a musician. It's what I do! I wouldn't be too good at anything else.
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.
Edible names are what drives me as a musician. My next band will be called the Hot Dogs.
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 love to play and I get a chance to play with other musicians and I jump on it.
Going up north with the redwoods and driving along the coast, it's got everything, man. It's got the desert, the mountains, and the ocean. It's beautiful.
I'm being a dad and a good husband.
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.