{"id":426766,"date":"2026-01-22T22:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T22:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/426766\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T22:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T22:30:08","slug":"red-hot-chili-peppers-producer-claims-anthony-kiedis-is-tone-deaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/426766\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Hot Chili Peppers Producer Claims Anthony Kiedis Is “Tone Deaf”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Hot Chili Peppers<\/a> have sold millions of albums, were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and continue to sell out stadiums around the world. Not bad for a band whose singer is apparently tone deaf.<\/p>\n

Michael Beinhorn, who produced the band\u2019s third and fourth albums \u2014 1987\u2019s The Uplift Mofo Party Plan and 1989\u2019s Mother\u2019s Milk \u2014 made the revelation about Anthony Kiedis<\/a> in a recent Reddit \u201cAsk Me Anything\u201d session<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the online Q&A, a fan asked why guitarist John Frusciante shared lead vocals with Kiedis on the song \u201cKnock Me Down,\u201d especially since it was a tribute to Kiedis\u2019 close friend and late bandmate Hillel Slovak, who preceded Frusciante as the Chili Peppers\u2019 original guitarist.<\/p>\n

Related Video<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad you love \u2018Knock Me Down\u2019 so much \u2014 it was a major departure from the RHCP sound up till that point,\u201d responded Beinhorn. \u201cJohn sang the song (or rather, his voice was louder in the mix) because the song was melodic and Anthony was\/is tone-deaf (ie- he can\u2019t hear pitch). At any rate, John essentially wrote the song, including the melody, so it wasn\u2019t entirely inappropriate for him to sing it (plus he somewhat idolized Hillel).\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cAs for how the band reacted to the final product\u2026well\u2026I never found out what they thought of the final mix. However, when I finally played Anthony the tracks with the finished guitars on them for the first time (he hadn\u2018t been to any of the sessions up till then), he freaked out- not in a good way. I think the band kind of disowned the record because of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Frusciante once mentioned Kiedis\u2019 lack of musicality<\/a> in a 2003 interview, at one point saying the singer \u201cdoesn\u2019t know anything about music, or notes, or anything of these things.\u201d However, the guitarist wasn\u2019t poking fun at his bandmate, but rather talking about the positive aspects of having someone who \u201ccomes at it from a standpoint of someone whose feelings for music are very concise, and he has a big capacity for feeling music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Revisit the music video for Red Hot Chili Peppers\u2019 \u201cKnock Me Down\u201d below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Hot Chili Peppers have sold millions of albums, were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-426766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}