Red Hot Chili Peppers Announce New Album Unlimited Love, Share Video for New Song “Black Summer”: Watch
The band’s first new music since guitarist John Frusciante rejoined the lineup in 2019.
Red Hot Chili Peppers are back with their first new song since 2016. “Black Summer” also marks the band’s first song since guitarist John Frusciante rejoined the lineup in 2019. The track leads the band’s new album, Unlimited Love, which is produced by Rick Rubin and out April 1 via Warner. Watch the video for “Black Summer” below.
The new single arrives ahead of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ upcoming stadium tour. The group has shows lined up with support from A$AP Rocky, Thundercat, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, Haim, Beck, the Strokes, King Princess, and St. Vincent. The trek is currently slated to begin in June and continue through September.
“Our only goal is to get lost in the music,” the members of Red Hot Chili Peppers said of their forthcoming album in a press release. “We (John, Anthony, Chad, and Flea) spent thousands of hours, collectively and individually, honing our craft and showing up for one another, to make the best album we could. Our antennae attuned to the divine cosmos, we were just so damn grateful for the opportunity to be in a room together, and, once again, try to get better. Days, weeks and months spent listening to each other, composing, jamming freely, and arranging the fruit of those jams with great care and purpose. The sounds, rhythms, vibrations, words and melodies had us enrapt.” They continued:
We yearn to shine a light in the world, to uplift, connect, and bring people together. Each of the songs on our new album Unlimited Love, is a facet of us, reflecting our view of the universe. This is our life’s mission. We work, focus, and prepare, so that when the biggest wave comes, we are ready to ride it. The ocean has gifted us a mighty wave and this record is the ride that is the sum of our lives. Thank you for listening, we hope you enjoy it. ROCK OUT MOTHERFUCKERS!
Frusciante added: “When we got together to start writing material, we began by playing old songs by people like Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, the Kinks, the New York Dolls, Richard Barrett, and others. Ever so gradually, we started bringing in new ideas, and turning jams into songs, and after a couple of months the new stuff was all we were playing. The feeling of effortless fun we had when we were playing songs by other people, stayed with us the whole time we were writing. For me, this record represents our love for, and faith in each other.”
Content
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ previous album, The Getaway, was released in 2016. The record, produced by Danger Mouse, marked their last with Josh Klinghoffer, who began playing with Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2007. Shortly after his departure, Klinghoffer said it was a “complete shock but not a surprise” that he was out of the group. He added, however, that he felt a “great wave of love for [his former bandmates], and love for everything [he] was able to do with them.”
Frusciante’s return to Red Hot Chili Peppers was announced in December 2019. A couple of months later, he joined Anthony Kiedis and Flea on stage for a brief set at a memorial concert.
John Frusciante joined Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1988 after the death of the band’s founding guitarist Hillel Slovak. He played with the group for 1989’s Mother’s Milk and 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik before departing for the first time in 1992. Prior to his return to the band in 1998, Frusciante released the solo albums Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994) and Smile From the Streets You Hold (1997). Once back in the fold, Frusciante performed on Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication (1999), By the Way (2002), and Stadium Arcadium (2006) before, once again, departing in 2009.
Unlimited Love:
01 Black Summer
02 Here Ever After
03 Aquatic Mouth Dance
04 Not the One
05 Poster Child
06 The Great Apes
07 It’s Only Natural
08 She’s a Lover
09 These Are the Ways
10 Whatchu Thinkin’
11 Bastards of Light
12 White Braids & Pillow Chair
13 One Way Traffic
14 Veronica
15 Let ’Em Cry
16 The Heavy Wing
17 Tangelo