{"id":155261,"date":"2025-09-23T11:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/155261\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:23:09","slug":"edward-nortons-infatuation-with-the-red-hot-chili-peppers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/155261\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Norton’s infatuation with the Red Hot Chili Peppers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Edward<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ LG\uc804\uc790 \/ Sven Mandel)<\/p>\n

Mon 22 September 2025 22:30, UK <\/p>\n

Edward Norton<\/a>\u2018s status as a Red Hot Chili Peppers superfan and close friend of the band has been common knowledge for a long time.<\/p>\n

The Fight Club star has been spotted dancing up a storm at Chili Peppers\u2019 gigs in recent years, and the band\u2019s iconic bassist Flea<\/a> played on a song used in Norton\u2019s 2019 directorial effort Motherless Brooklyn. Norton has also revealed that he is in personal contact with singer Anthony Keidis, which is how he was able to find out the backstory behind a recent song he considers one of the greatest things the band has ever recorded.<\/p>\n

As with most showbiz stories these days, the tale of Norton\u2019s infatuation with a recent RHCP track that mainstream audiences probably don\u2019t know exists came to light on a podcast. Fittingly, that podcast was Rick Rubin\u2019s Tetragrammaton, and it treated fans to almost three hours of the American History X star waxing lyrical about the band to their most frequent producer. Obviously, Norton went through a potted history of his fandom, but became most passionate when speaking about the Chili\u2019s latest works, the 2022 albums Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not often that a band as long in the tooth as RHCP creates an album that can stack up with their best material after four decades making music. It\u2019s even rarer that, even if a band manages this miraculous accomplishment, their fans acknowledge it as such. However, these records, which were created in a burst of creativity fuelled by the return of mercurial guitarist John Frusciante, showcased a band renewed with vigour and purpose. <\/p>\n

The band recorded nearly 50 tracks, and initially intended to release 40 of them in a seven-disc box set. Warner Records understandably baulked at this, but compromised by allowing two separate studio albums with 34 tracks between them, released six months apart. 34 tracks of new material released in one calendar year is still a lot of RHCP content to spring on an unsuspecting public, but it wound up music to everyone\u2019s ears, especially Unlimited Love, which most agreed was the marginally stronger record. <\/p>\n

\"Red<\/a>(Credits: Red Hot Chilli Peppers)<\/p>\n

This album was full of many of the best songs RHCP had written since the last time Frusciante was around (2006\u2019s double-album Stadium Arcadium), but it was the bizarrely named 12th track, \u2018White Braids & Pillow Chair\u2019, that affected Norton most strongly. When he spoke to Rubin, who produced both albums<\/a>, he noted, \u201cWhen I pulled up, I was playing\u2026 \u2018White Braids & Pillow Chair\u2019. I think it\u2019s one of the best things they\u2019ve ever done.\u201d <\/p>\n

He went on to praise the back half of the album, with other tracks like \u2018It\u2019s Only Natural\u2019 and \u2018Let \u2018Em Cry\u2019 also wowing him. \u201cThey\u2019re in such a fucking groove,\u201d he gushed. \u201cI was listening to it over and over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

While those songs were great, and Norton was stunned by the \u201clevel of musicianship\u201d on display, he couldn\u2019t get \u2018White Braids & Pillow Chair\u2019 in particular out of mind. He wanted to know the story behind the song because, as with many RHCP tunes, the meaning of the lyrics wasn\u2019t immediately obvious. This is common in the band\u2019s discography, because Keidis has always written lyrics that are a teensy bit impenetrable at best, and defiantly nonsensical at worst. <\/p>\n

So, Norton did the only thing a famous man with connections like him can do in that situation: he went straight to the horse\u2019s mouth. He wrote to Keidis and claimed the singer responded, \u201cI saw the scene of those two people in a cafe, like, 20 years ago, and I wrote it down. I\u2019ve been sitting on the image of this couple.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other interviews, Keidis confirmed this inspiration. It really was an elderly hippie couple in a cafe, and the song truly was 20 years in the making. In his recollection, the man \u201cwas immaculate with his waist-long white braids\u201d and his \u201cbeautiful partner\u201d had brought a pillow with her to make the hard coffee shop seat more comfortable. <\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with their love, and made a mental note,\u201d Keidis remembered. \u201cWhite braids and pillow chair needs to be a song someday.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ LG\uc804\uc790 \/ Sven Mandel) Mon 22 September 2025 22:30, UK Edward Norton\u2018s status as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[71134,96,128,71135,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-155261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-edward-norton","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-red-hot-chili-peppers","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}