Photo by Tina Korhonen

Fresh from his new successful musical adventure with Chickenfoot, drummer Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers) has embarked on another… Together with instrumentalist buddies Jeff Kollman (guitar), Ed Roth (keyboards), Kevin Chown (bass) Smith has created my potential album of the year. If you like funk jazz, rock, R&B - in fact any instrumental music, this album will knock your socks off, believe me.

“The Meatbats’ sound is as uncalculated and spontaneous as their accidental beginnings, forged as an outgrowth of Jeff, Ed and Chad’s touring and recording with rock legend, Glenn Hughes. Jeff Kollman recalls, “Whenever I would jam with Ed and Chad at Glenn Huighes’ rehearsals we would warm up with some Jeff Beck-esque grooves. One day Chad said, ‘Hey, we should record something like this!’ Next thing you know we were in the studio making an album!” Needing a bass player to complete the group, Kollman contacted long-time friend, bassist Kevin Chown (Motor City). ” I called him on the day of the first recording sessions. He came over and saved the day - we got five tunes down in no time and the rest is history!”

“My influences were so many of the groups that came out of England in the late 60’s and early 70’s,” reflects Chad, “Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, Ginger Baker from Cream, Ian Paice from Deep Purple, Queen’s Roger Taylor, The Who’s Keith Moon; those groups were the ones I really loved. I wanted to play like those guys. When I started learning to read music in school during fourth grade, initially I held sticks in the traditional grip. But, I remember practicing and thinking if I turned my left stick around I could get a lot more power and hit harder. Hitting hard is very important for me - that’s the way I play and the way I feel it. Playing guitar, that’s all great and everything, but hittin’ stuff…AWESOME!”

The album consists of 10 songs written over a few days in Chad’s pool house in Malibu. “This was the least amount of time each of us has spent agonizing over a record,” notes Kollman. “It’s funky, musical and compositional. The melody is King.”

“These recording are very much live in the studio… it’s totally old school that way,” adds Ed Roth. “Nothing feels as good as a record cut with four guys recording live together, listening and playing off each other. Even without a vocal, you can sing almost everything that everyone played on this record. That’s real soul.”

“The band was the thing!” insists Kollman. “You can tell Chown and Chad both did their time in Detroit. They come from the same place, musically and geographically. They are the funky heartbeat of this group. Chown’s a mix of Detroit Rock and Motown, while Chad brings that sick rock/funk groove that has helped the Chili Peppers for all these years. Ed’s got the gritty funk and the 70’s R&B thing going on. His playing is genius and he’s so great with leaving space in the arrangements. He has taste, knows just what to play, and his life goal is always ‘keeping it sexy.’ As for myself, I protect and defend the rock guitar.”

Other Band Photographs By Autumn Lee