The Red Hot Chili Peppers started carving out a more popular space for themselves with the release of Blood Sugar Sex Magik in 1991. The band’s next big offering came in 1999. Of course, in between there was One Hot Minute, which took a drastic left turn stylistically due to John Frusciante’s departure, Dave Navarro’s guest spot, and Anthony Kiedis’ return to drugs. But the Red Hot Chili Peppers got their train back on the funk-rock tracks with Californication.
The album produced several huge hits, including “Otherside” and “Scar Tissue”. But the title track held the most sway with fans and critics. It topped a couple of Billboard charts and was named the best Red Hot Chili Peppers song in multiple publications.
According to an interview with Kiedis around the album’s release—his blond era to be exact, so probably 1999, early 2000s-ish—”Californication” came about after Kiedis and Frusciante sifted through a mountain of lyrics.
“The first song we tried to write,” said Kiedis, “John and I tried to write the song ‘Californication’, because I had pages and pages and pages of words for that song. Too. many words.”
He continued, “So I went to John, and I said, ‘I’ve got these lyrics, I’ve got this melody, can we put some music to it?’ And he’s like, ‘Yep.’”
Anthony Kiedis Tells the Brief History of ‘Californication,’ the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Most Popular Song
The humble beginnings of “Californication” eventually exploded into the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ entire aesthetic. With that song on that album, they further cemented themselves as Los Angeles treasures. They even sued Showtime in 2007 over the David Duchovny-led series of the same name.
Although series producer Tom Kapinos was actually inspired by a 70s bumper sticker reading “Don’t Californicate Oregon,” as was explained during the lawsuit. They didn’t coin the term (or trademark it before Showtime did), but it has become synonymous with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Still, as Kiedis explained, it took several drafts to get to that level.
“We started, and we thought we had it,” he said, “And then somewhere along the way we threw it out. It wasn’t right. So the very first song that we started to write was actually the very last song that we finished.”
Kiedis continued, “It wasn’t until we were almost done recording that John said, ‘You know that song you came to me with in the very beginning?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, let’s do something with it.’ He said, ‘I think I have it.’”
Frusciante then came through with the recognizable opening guitar riff. “He played me these very sparse, kind of spacey-sounding guitar notes,” Kiedis explained. “And I said, ‘How does that work?’ And he said, ‘Like this.’”
Cue the sweeping chorus. “Dream of Californication,“ a mantric repetition ironically set against the backdrop of bleak Hollywood reality in each verse. Musically, it’s the black sheep of the album. But, as Kiedis said in his 2004 memoir, “As soon as I heard it, I knew it was our new song.”
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