Red Hot Chili Peppers are no youngsters anymore. However, they still have along way to go before they can match the tenures The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith or Scorpions have enjoyed on stage. Despite that fact, as drummer Chad Smith has revealed in a recent interview for rock broadcasting legend Eddie Trunk, the band’s members have been thinking about how long they are going to be able to tour as intensively as they have so far.
The group has been around for 34 years, Smith has been the sticksman since 1988. One can safely say it’s way too early for them to retire, especially given the examples of their colleagues mentioned above. However, RHCP members have been thinking about their future. This is how Chad Smith describes it:
“We were riding in a van after a gig and Flea was like, ‘How much longer do you think we should… How do you think we should end this?’,” Smith said. “I was, like, ‘I don’t know!’ I want to make records, I still love making records, but the touring part… I don’t know if we can continue.”
He later added, “I mean, three of us are 54 years old — Anthony Kiedis, me and Flea. Josh Klinghoffer is 38 or 39, so he’s a young man. But I don’t know if we can continue to do the long tours — the year, year and a half we normally do. That’s a good question. Will we tour the way we did in the past with the next album cycle? I know James Hetfield has kind of a thing – 50 shows for Metallica, that’s it. We all have families and different things, your priorities shift a little bit. You kinda see that what’s gonna work for you maybe doesn’t necessarily work for other bands. But again, we’re just so grateful that people want to come and see us play, and we love to perform. I don’t know in the future how that’s gonna look.”
The podcast with a full interview is available HERE.
