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The Red Hot Chili Peppers Faked It

Wondering why none of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ instruments were plugged in during their Super Bowl performance? Because they were just miming. Except for Anthony Kiedis. He was really singing. In a long update from Flea on the RHCP website, he explains why. He starts by saying they’re against miming and they’re all about keeping it real but that this was the Super Bowl and, hey, why are they getting so defensive anyway?

We mimed on one or two weird MTV shows before that and it always was a drag. We take our music playing seriously, it is a sacred thing for us, and anyone who has ever seen us in concert (like the night before the Super Bowl at the Barclays Center), knows that we play from our heart, we improvise spontaneously, take musical risks, and sweat blood at every show. We have been on the road for 31 years doing it.

So, when this Super Bowl gig concept came up, there was a lot of confusion amongst us as whether or not we should do it, but we eventually decided, it was a surreal-like, once in a life time crazy thing to do and we would just have fun and do it. We had given this a lot of thought before agreeing to do it, and besides many a long conversation amongst ourselves, I spoke with many musician friends for whom I have the utmost respect, and they all said they would do it if asked, that it was a wild trippy thing to do, what the hell. Plus, we the RHCP all love football too and that played a big part in our decision. We decided that, with Anthony singing live, that we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording specially for the gig. I met and spoke with Bruno, who was a beautiful dude, a real talented musician, and we worked out something that seemed like it would be fun.

So this is just a long-winded way of saying, “People think we sold out. Shut up. We didn’t sellout. We’re not sellouts. Take it back or I’m telling mom. Mooooom!”

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