There are not a whole lot of hills I’m willing to die on, but I have a few:
600-person venues are the ideal size.
Band names should be unique enough to be Googleable. Miss me with “Sticky Fingers” and “Tennis.”
Merch tables should still take crumpled cash and Venmo.
But defending Red Hot Chili Peppers?
That one even surprised me.
Let me be clear about something up front: I am not here to argue that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are the greatest band in the world. Or even a good band. I am, however, sure that they are a band. I am not here to tell you their discography is flawless. I am not here to convince you that the last two decades of Chili Peppers albums belong in a different cultural stratosphere as the first two decades.
This is not a musical defense.
This is a philosophical one.
Because in a world where every artist is trying to reinvent themselves every six months — chasing algorithms, aesthetics, reinventions, and TikTok-friendly personas — the Red Hot Chili Peppers have done something almost radical.
They have spent more than forty years being unapologetically, stubbornly, and occasionally stupidly themselves.
This whole thought started because I heard a track connected to Flea’s debut solo album, Honora, and had a moment of clarity: these guys could absolutely be doing weird avant-garde music if they wanted to. This cover of Frank Ocean is great, it’s soulful, and it’s… an instrumental. Which makes sense when you realize what’s going on.
Flea has played with jazz musicians. Experimental composers. Indie weirdos. The guy could pivot into some hyper-serious art music lane tomorrow if he felt like it.
Instead he still shows up in basketball shorts, sticks his tongue out, drops into that ridiculous crab stance, and slaps the bass like he’s just chugged a sixer of Banquet while playing a backyard party in 1987.
And honestly? I respect it.
The world already has plenty of artists trying to prove how bold and avant-garde they are. Reinvention has become the default setting in pop culture. Everyone needs a new era, a new aesthetic, a new persona.
Take JoJo Siwa, who recently decided the best way to signal artistic maturity was to dress like a Power Rangers villain and declare a whole new phase of her career.
That’s fine, whatever. Everyone needs to find themselves. Reinvention can be great. But after a while the constant rebranding starts to feel exhausting. Everyone trying to out-weird everyone else. Just chill the fuck out.
Meanwhile the Chili Peppers are just… still the Chili Peppers.
Funk bass.
Choppy guitar.
Songs about California.
The same basic formula they’ve been running since I was three.
And the funny thing is, I don’t even really listen to them anymore. Middle school me absolutely did. I damn near wore out a copy of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, though I had to keep it quiet when my great grandma drove me to church, because explaining those lyrics would’ve been a whole thing I was not prepared for.
Adult me doesn’t wake up craving Chili Peppers. I couldn’t tell you the last time I listened to them. Maybe while at Michaels as my wife picked up some yarn? Who knows?
But it’s still comforting to know they’re out there.
The world right now feels chaotic in ways that would sound absurd if you tried to explain them to someone twenty years ago. Genocides called a kerfuffle or whatever, conspiracies, geopolitical nonsense that somehow always involves the U.S., a news cycle that feels like it’s being written by a very tired Mad Magazine writer.
Everything feels unstable.
And in the middle of all that noise, the Red Hot Chili Peppers remain exactly what they’ve always been: four weird dudes playing funk-rock songs about California. (did you know they released a new album in 2022? I didn’t. But I ain’t sad about it.
They didn’t reinvent themselves into high-concept art musicians. They didn’t suddenly decide to become austere minimalists or orchestral experimenters. They just kept doing the thing they’ve always loved doing.
Somewhere right now, Flea is probably onstage in his 60s, tongue out, hammering out the bass line to “Give It Away” for the ten-thousandth time.
You don’t have to love the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
You don’t even have to like them.
But in a world where everyone is trying to constantly reinvent themselves, there’s something oddly reassuring about a band that just decided to keep being exactly who they are.
No rebrand required.