Band Jury: Los Bitchos’ Serra Petale Defends Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘One Hot Minute’
Welcome to Band Jury, a SPIN series in which artists defend black sheep albums they feel deserve another listen. These are projects that, for whatever reason (middling sales, negative reviews, a misunderstood stylistic shift), have fallen slightly out of fashion—or perhaps never reached it to begin with.
The Defender: Serra Petale
Qualifications: Guitarist of multicultural instrumental band Los Bitchos, whose recently issued second LP, Talkie Talkie, pulls from cumbia, disco, funk, and Turkish psych-rock; human who enjoys music
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The Defended: Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 1995 album, One Hot Minute
Overview: The reviews were solid: Rolling Stone gave it three-and-a-half stars; SPIN gave it a 7/10; Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+. On fan-review site RateYourMusic, it ranks fifth (3.21/5.0) of the band’s 12 studio albums, trailing only Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Californication, By the Way, and Mother’s Milk.
“Context is everything in art,” says Serra Petale, wisely and confidently—her face framed by adorably tiny plants and a row of wall-hung guitars.
She’s talking about Red Hot Chili Peppers’ heavy and experimental sixth LP, 1995’s One Hot Minute—an often-overlooked blip in the band’s catalog between a pair of ungodly blockbusters, Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) and Californication (1999). And it’s clear why she’d bring up that point. This was a strange context for a massive rock band riding high—having to replace one beloved guitarist, John Frusciante (who quit in 1992), with another, Jane’s Addiction’s Dave Navarro.
Naturally, their music morphed a bit, getting heavier, weirder, and darker. The reviews were fine enough, and One Hot Minute still sold over two million copies—the kind of figures most bands would kill for, though something of a commercial backslide after the radio/MTV dominance of Blood Sugar. The details are murky, but the Peppers eventually fired Navarro, leading to their (first) reunion with Frusciante. For a lot of fans, One Hot Minute became an afterthought or an aberration.
That said, Petale’s own context is crucial to her relationship with One Hot Minute, the first Chili Peppers album she was old enough to properly appreciate in a meaningful way. “My brother had loads of CDs, and he was really into Britpop and grunge—all great stuff,” she says. “But this was my CD. As a kid, I think I listened mainly to that, along with the Alice in Chains and Nirvana that we were all fans of back then—and still are today.”
Maybe the timing—being at a perfectly impressionable age where a creative work feels destined for you specifically—is why she considers One Hot Minute to be so mis-maligned. Then again, maybe the answer is more simple. In this convo, Petale traces her RHCP fandom, the inspiration of beautiful sadness, and why this album demands reassessment.
When did you first hear Red Hot Chili Peppers, and were you an immediate fan?
Very much so. Their big breakout album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik—that hit in ’91, so I was quite young. That was getting a load of radio play in Australia, and as a 4- or 5-year old, I was always listening to the radio if I was going around with my mum or dad or whatever. I remember the typical singles like “Give It Away” or “Breaking the Girl” would always be on. But One Hot Minute was the album that I really remember getting onboard with. “Aeroplane” was massive in Australia. I remember my mum’s friend from university came over to visit us from the U.K., and she was really great, really sweet. She was like, “What presents can I buy the kids?” It was me and my brother. I asked for this album. Back in the ’90s, I think they had an “Explicit” sticker on it.
That’s how you know it’s cool.
Yeah, exactly! [Laughs] I remember my parents being pretty pissed that she actually went and bought it for me. They were like, ‘I don’t know if a 7-year-old should be listening to this.” I was like, “It’s fine! It’s about airplanes. It’s cool!”
When you picked this album, I thought, “Oh, that’s perfect. Everybody seems to hate One Hot Minute.” Then I checked the reviews, and I realized they weren’t bad at all. The fan reception seems to be pretty average. That said, I’ve never heard anyone mention this album in conversation.
[The band members] themselves don’t even really, do they? [In a 2014 Reddit AMA, drummer Chad Smith noted, “We don’t really feel that connected to that record anymore. No special reason, not to say we would never play those songs, but we don’t feel that emotionally connected to that music right now.”] I remember reading reviews of it back in the day and even just with my bits of research about stuff over the years—my Wikipedia deep-dives.
The previous album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, has their classic lineup with [John] Frusciante in there. That album was colossal. It’s a great album. Those singles are key. I would also say on that album there’s a bit of filler, but when the singles are that good, who’s gonna say what? I think [One Hot Minute] was sort of slated a little bit at the time, specifically by fans, because Frusciante had left and now you had Dave Navarro, this new guy, and it has a bit of a new sound. I think it ended up selling half as many copies as the predecessor. [That’s actually underselling the discrepancy.] You’re always going to be fighting a losing battle with that. If your breakthrough album sold 20 million copies and your next one only sells 10, that’s still great! But that’s a problem now because the record company would even deem that a failure.
When I revisited the album, I was surprised by how different it is. I’d forgotten so many of the nuances: the long songs, not much rapping, Flea singing lead on one song, Navarro bringing more of an aggressive guitar style on songs like “Coffee Shop.” Any particular songs you want to highlight?
For me it would be “Warped.” I love, love, love “One Big Mob”—that’s one of my favorites. I don’t know, man. It’s pretty high up there. “My Friends,” that’s a great song. And “One Hot Minute”—I love “One Hot Minute.” It’s so interesting where they take that. I could be here all day [figuring it out], but I think “One Big Mob” is my favorite. And it mentions the kangaroo in the rap, so I always thought that was pretty fun.
The album is really all over the map—and it can be pretty dark at times.
Context is everything in art. It’s always something that stuck with me in my English Lit classes—you have a body of work, but what’s the context of it? Where were the authors—or, in this case, the composers—coming from? It’s quite a dark album. I love that contrast [between the music and lyrics]. I believe Anthony Kiedis had relapsed after years of sobriety. I remember reading [about it in] his autobiography. It’s that context that I really love, and that brings a lot to how great this album is. Because it is really dark. But in something like “Aeroplane,” it’s a cool little funky song with a great bass line, but you’ve got those really, really sad lyrics. I love that contrast. I really like to use that ethos in the way I write—you can write something that seems quite happy and joyous, but if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find a bit more meaning to it.
I wanted to ask you if this album had inspired your own music. Would that be your answer—finding that contrast between light and dark?
Absolutely. I find that truly moving. On one listen, you can be like, “Yeah, it’s got a cool melody. It’s got a wicked-ass slap-bass line. Obviously the production is kick-ass.” But I think that’s the most beautiful thing about music—you can just keep going and find something new in these great bodies of work, and that’s something I want to emulate. You don’t always have to go too deep—sometimes you do just want to write a straightforward, happy little ditty, and that’s also OK. But I think the music that’s touched me is always layered. I love sad music. I’m a huge Alice in Chains fan, and it doesn’t get much sadder than that.
I recently revisited the entire Alice in Chains catalog. What a brutal but beautiful group of songs.
What a body of work—and they even changed because Layne Staley passed away. I saw them a few years ago. I was playing drums with another band at a festival they were also playing at. I’d heard great things about the new singer [William DuVall]—that’s a tough act to follow. I wouldn’t want to touch that. But he was incredible. We actually got to meet them, and I was like [nervously], “Nice to meet you.” They were lovely. [Their music] is like sadness wrapped in beauty, which is something that really speaks to me.
Any other thoughts on One Hot Minute?
I will give major props to the drum and bass production on this album. Everything sounds perfect, and you’ve got Rick Rubin doing what he’s doing. It’s a phenomenal album, and I’d urge anyone who wrote it off in 1995 to go give it a listen.
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