Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; James Corden; Kevin & Bean; PB Yoga
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| The funky, health-conscious, Los Angeles based RHCP (romania-online.com) |
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| The Late Late Show |
(June 13, 2016) James Corden invites Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith, and Josh Klinghoffer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to carpool around Los Angeles, which leads to a wrestling match and the debut of "Heemi Lheemey." We would never have guessed that Flea, who was once a member of the cool original Los Angeles punk band FEAR, was the teenage friend of Anthony and they went around town inventing music and writing songs together, great Irish indigenous style songs, mind blowing stream-of-consciousness nonsense poetry type songs of which the authors of Where the Wild Things Are and Alice in Wonderland could be proud.
RHCP, Buddhism and Yoga
Perfect Balance Yoga edited by Wisdom Quarterly
Yoga
Today Frusciante is drug-free and healthy. He's an avid practitioner of Ashtanga Yoga, a particularly strenuous style of yoga.
"I've always been a person who's had a lot of problems with the stress of the world," he says. "Like I'm susceptible to motion tension. When I get in a car or airplane, it makes me tense.
"But since I started doing yoga, where you're building muscle as well as relaxing yourself, I haven't had such a problem with motion tension. I don't do the actual meditation part of yoga. But I think that when I play guitar I'm probably employing a lot of the rudiments of meditation, because I'm completely focused on something that's kind of abstract.
"I feel like there's a stillness inside my mind, which is what you're going after when you do something like meditation. So even though I don't really go to yoga for that spiritual angle, it probably is helping me to be able to do that better."
"These days," Frusciante says, "I believe that there are things we don't see with our eyes that are making every moment what it is. And every person is made up of a bunch of people. And everybody who's alive is everybody who died. I just think it's all one big energy working together.
"I see the world as being very balanced -- completely, perfectly balanced."
Meditation
Unlike his friend, Flea does meditate on a regular basis. "But for me meditation and yoga are more like a science than a religious path," he says. I've read a lot of Buddhist books and stuff, but I've never been a Buddhist.
"I just like the idea of the Buddha. The same way I like the idea of Jesus. I like the idea of someone who is completely giving in their every breath. I just try to live my life like that every day. Try."
The Red Hot Chili Peppers' image has always been intricately bound up with the City of Angels. "I love being associated with L.A. because it is such a paradox of a land," says Kiedis.
"And I believe in paradox as being a kind of higher truth. L.A. is the most ridiculous place in the world, but it's also the greatest place in the world."
And the Chili Peppers embody this paradox perhaps better than any other band. Their muscleman image reflects the city's obsession with the beauty of the physical body -- pumped up pecs and bulging biceps glistening in the smoggy golden sunlight.
Los Angeles is super spiritual
But the Peppers are also deeply enmeshed in the other side of L.A. culture -- its obsession with the spiritual.
And the Red Hot Chili Peppers -- with their frequent disquisitions on brotherly love, Frusciante's vivid experiences, and Flea's interest in meditation and Buddhism -- are prime exponents of L.A. spirituality. Non-Angelenos may scoff at the city's equal reverence for Barbie and the Buddha. But the Chili Peppers, they understand.
"There is something that is very important about the physical existence," says Kiedis. "The connection to the earth -- the celebration of being in this body and all we can do with it.
"But at the same time, we are physical beings having a spiritual experience. And the combo platter of those two is very much the makeup of what the Chili Peppers do. With any kind of funk music, there is a visceral, guttural celebration going on, where you just wanna dance and jump. But there's also a sense of the spirit that inspires all that."
RHCP, Buddhism and Yoga
Perfect Balance Yoga edited by Wisdom Quarterly
 |
| Los Angeles has a great series of beaches along the Pacific to practice meditation, yoga... |
Yoga
Today Frusciante is drug-free and healthy. He's an avid practitioner of Ashtanga Yoga, a particularly strenuous style of yoga.
"I've always been a person who's had a lot of problems with the stress of the world," he says. "Like I'm susceptible to motion tension. When I get in a car or airplane, it makes me tense.
"But since I started doing yoga, where you're building muscle as well as relaxing yourself, I haven't had such a problem with motion tension. I don't do the actual meditation part of yoga. But I think that when I play guitar I'm probably employing a lot of the rudiments of meditation, because I'm completely focused on something that's kind of abstract.
"I feel like there's a stillness inside my mind, which is what you're going after when you do something like meditation. So even though I don't really go to yoga for that spiritual angle, it probably is helping me to be able to do that better."
"These days," Frusciante says, "I believe that there are things we don't see with our eyes that are making every moment what it is. And every person is made up of a bunch of people. And everybody who's alive is everybody who died. I just think it's all one big energy working together.
"I see the world as being very balanced -- completely, perfectly balanced."
Meditation
Unlike his friend, Flea does meditate on a regular basis. "But for me meditation and yoga are more like a science than a religious path," he says. I've read a lot of Buddhist books and stuff, but I've never been a Buddhist.
"I just like the idea of the Buddha. The same way I like the idea of Jesus. I like the idea of someone who is completely giving in their every breath. I just try to live my life like that every day. Try."
The Red Hot Chili Peppers' image has always been intricately bound up with the City of Angels. "I love being associated with L.A. because it is such a paradox of a land," says Kiedis.
"And I believe in paradox as being a kind of higher truth. L.A. is the most ridiculous place in the world, but it's also the greatest place in the world."
And the Chili Peppers embody this paradox perhaps better than any other band. Their muscleman image reflects the city's obsession with the beauty of the physical body -- pumped up pecs and bulging biceps glistening in the smoggy golden sunlight.
Los Angeles is super spiritual
 |
| This overheated basin of half-baked ideas is the (dysfunctional) capital of the world. |
But the Peppers are also deeply enmeshed in the other side of L.A. culture -- its obsession with the spiritual.
There are probably more gurus, ashrams, yoga studios, and New Age shops per square mile in Los Angeles than in any other American city.
And the Red Hot Chili Peppers -- with their frequent disquisitions on brotherly love, Frusciante's vivid experiences, and Flea's interest in meditation and Buddhism -- are prime exponents of L.A. spirituality. Non-Angelenos may scoff at the city's equal reverence for Barbie and the Buddha. But the Chili Peppers, they understand.
"There is something that is very important about the physical existence," says Kiedis. "The connection to the earth -- the celebration of being in this body and all we can do with it.
"But at the same time, we are physical beings having a spiritual experience. And the combo platter of those two is very much the makeup of what the Chili Peppers do. With any kind of funk music, there is a visceral, guttural celebration going on, where you just wanna dance and jump. But there's also a sense of the spirit that inspires all that."
- Red Hot Chili Peppers members ask for meditation room (wildmind.org, Aug. 25, 2012) The famous rock band, which will be performing in Romania, asked for a meditation room.
- Red Hot Chili Peppers will play for the Dalai Lama (oregonlive.com, April 16, 2013) RHCP bassist Flea, at Coachella last weekend....Buddhist college in the Pacific Northwest...
- Kevin Gates rates Leo DiCaprio, Taylor Swift, and RHCP
- VIDEO: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Coffee Shop And Buddha might have blown a fuse...He tried to change RHCP into a metal band...
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