(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sun 25 January 2026 18:57, UK
In order to develop, bands can’t continuously make the song countless times, and evolving is necessary, even if, like Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, they find it to be a daunting proposition.
For Kiedis, it didn’t initially come naturally to open up about the deepest and darkest feelings of his mind in his work. While he had jotted down his thoughts onto a piece of paper during his darkest hour, this was for his own sanity, rather than to be used on a Red Hot Chili Peppers single for public consumption.
Thankfully, for us, there was Rick Rubin on hand in the studio to point Kiedis in the right direction. A producer’s job is to allow the artist they are working with to fulfil their potential and maximise the best of their collaborator. While Rubin has come under scrutiny from many artists for his unusual methods, without him, it was a match made in heaven between him and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Rubin first worked with them on their commercial breakthrough album Blood Sugar Sex Magick, released in 1991. Following its success, the LP naturally acted as the start of a longstanding partnership which has served both parties well over the last three decades. In total, they have worked together on nine studio albums, with Rubin essentially becoming an honorary member of the band.
At the time of recording Blood Sugar Sex Magick, Rubin and Kiedis were inseparable, helping the singer reach new creative heights. They developed a relationship that transcended music, allowing Kiedis to share the darkest and most profound elements of himself, leading to some of his best work.
Anthony Kiedis in his pomp. (Credit: Alamy)
As Kiedis felt comfortable around Rubin, he was able to show him material that he felt scared of showing to anybody else, even his bandmates, such as ‘Under The Bridge‘. Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the frontman recalled: “We were writing Blood Sugar Sex Magick, and we would spend our days together. He was a lot less busy, he wasn’t a dad, and we would just hang all day.”
“I showed him sexy songs, heavy funky songs, and he was like, ‘That’s good; we can work on that. Anything else in the book?’” Kiedis continued.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman then explained how ‘Under The Bridge’ was initially viewed as a “‘poem that isn’t a song”, before recalling that he told Rubin, “It has a melody, but I don’t think it’s for us’.”
Although Kiedis felt this song was “kind of embarrassing” because it was a “little sentimental” and dealt with his struggles with addiction, he was eventually persuaded to perform it for Rubin.
He continued: “So I sang him ‘Under The Bridge’, and he was like, ‘That’s your best song.’ I was like, ‘It’s just a poem’. (He said) ‘Bring it to the boys, show them the song’. So without Rick’s push for the counter-intuitive sensitive guy song, we might never have had a chance to write that.”
During an interview with Newsweek in 2013, Rubin remembered events from his perspective: “My thinking was that the Chili Peppers were not limited to being a funk band with rapping. And I remember Anthony was embarrassed to show the song to the other guys in the band. But he sang it to John [Frusciante, guitarist], and John came up with his part. Then he played it for Flea [bassist], and Flea came up with his part. And it ended up being a really good song—even though they didn’t realise how good it was until people started responding to it.”
At that stage in his career, Kiedis believed Red Hot Chili Peppers songs needed to exist within a specific mould. However, thanks to Rubin, he could rid himself of this thought process, rip up the blueprint and express a side of himself that he once considered too vulnerable to share with fans.
With ‘Under The Bridge’, which contained a beautiful sense of fragility, Kiedis also expressed himself in a three-dimensional manner. The classic song allowed listeners to truly get underneath his skin and understand him in a whole new light. However, without Rubin coaxing it out of him, it would never have seen the light of day.
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