Feature photo by Sven Mandel – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Rock am Ring 2016 via Wiki. CC.
Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith spoke with Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk on his podcast about the band’s future and said they may take a break from large-scale touring.
Trunk asked Smith if touring for so many years has taken a toll on his body and how much longer the band could continue touring. Smith responded by recalling a conversation he had after a show:
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?’ 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.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers formed in 1983 and has since released 11 studio albums, winning six Grammys along the way.
I mean, three of us are 54 years old — Anthony [Kiedis, singer], me and Flea. Josh [Klinghoffer, guitarist] 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. The next album cycle that we do another tour, it’ll be something that’ll be brought up, ‘Will we tour the way we have in the past?’
Smith also talked about possibly adopting a show schedule like Metallica, doing about 50 shows per year.
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.
Although Smith says the band may be slowing down, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are currently touring across Europe, promoting their latest album, The Getaway, which was released in June 2016.
Check out their latest music video below: