Chad Smith Quotations

I'm being a dad and a good husband.

Playing well with others is important - not being too flashy, just keeping good time and of course coming up with cool beats. A good snare drum, kick drum, high hat. Just getting good at the hand feet coordination.

Drums all have their own particulars - each drum has a place where they sound the best - where they ring out and resonate the best, and the head surface isn't too loose or too tight, mainly so you get a good rebound off of the head.

Edible names are what drives me as a musician. My next band will be called the Hot Dogs.

The Chili Peppers do a lot of improvising, but it's within the framework of song structures. The Meatbats is from a purely instrumental standpoint. But when you hear the term 'instrumental music' you think it's real serious stuff and everybody's playing a million notes and it's about playing fast. That's not what we do.

That's really the thing that got me into playing a lot - getting excited about playing along with my favorite bands like Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

For live you need a microphone for the snare and the high hat, the kick drum, a nice stereo overhead and one for the toms - you can get away with using four mikes.

I met the guys through a friend of a friend, and their former drummer had quit. I wasn't too familiar with the Chili Peppers before that, so I joined at the end of 88' and we finished recording Mother's Milk at the end of 89', next thing I know I'm in Spin with a sock.

I'm a musician. It's what I do! I wouldn't be too good at anything else.

I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.

I just love to play and I get a chance to play with other musicians and I jump on it.

Playing along with records is key. And as far as equipment goes it has gotten so much more affordable and the drum sets are of great quality. I play Pearl; their Export Series is great for a beginner.

Going up north with the redwoods and driving along the coast, it's got everything, man. It's got the desert, the mountains, and the ocean. It's beautiful.

Sometimes one of us will have a riff or a bass line from home but it really gels when we come together. We really have a strong special chemistry that we take advantage of when we get together.

We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.

Flea and Anthony are into funk, like old school Meters and stuff like that.

I just try to approach and serve the music in the way that I think is right for the band I'm in at the time.

I'm a little more of a lead instrument in the Meatbats.

Jazz can be so serious, no sense of humor.

I had sort of exhausted all the avenues playing in Detroit. So again, through the stewardship of my brother, I ended up in California and went to the Musicians Institute in L.A. I wanted to get better as a player.

I took a private lesson, but it didn't really work out, so I went back to playing along with records. That's really the thing that got me into playing a lot - getting excited about playing along with my favorite bands like Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Its very sort of spontaneous and organic, not a preconceived sort of jamming. Now we record everything, cause sometimes you'll forget, you know, 'what was that thing again?' So we record everything.

I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium.

In some of the L.A. clubs, people can act too cool to get into your music. That can get to be a bit much.

Cardiff Stadium was a warm up for the 3 Hyde Park shows. James Brown opened. And I think it may be the only time we played Mini Epic live.

Family time is really important to me.

There's something about the rawness of the live thing, there's no rhythm guitars behind the solo, nothing other than what you hear the people playing at that moment. It's exciting, it's about the performance.

People who come up to me are drummers or fans of the band. I don't get it too much, but I'll be somewhere and someone will have me take a picture or something.

The Meatbats are a throwback band.

Music doesn't solve your problems..but allows you to dance all over them

There are exactly four sopranos on the planet who have sung that music. I know Tom's music well, so I knew who these sopranos were.

People will leave here with not a sense of loss. They'll leave here with a sense of hope.

I think it has been great for us. The exposure we get has been great.

Last week was much more indicative of how we play. We're hoping the wind won't be a factor next week at districts, and if everything goes right, we could have a shot at qualifying for state.

Our kids played exceptionally well today. They are doing a much better job of managing the course.

It creates a sense of pride -- that we're not only people of the past, we're people of the present and we're going to be a people of the future.

We have a very young team this year. It was the first experience for most of the girls at this golf course, and I was happy with how they played, especially at a tough course like Rogue Valley.

The proposal now reflects a lot of the good work we as stakeholders did over the summer on this. There's a lot to be said for starting small to help break through the rhetoric.

Flea got into rock later on in life, came up in jazz as a jazz trumpet player, and then got into punk rock, playing in Fear and stuff like that.

In some of the L.A. clubs, people can act too cool to get into your music. That can get to be a bit much.

I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium.

The Cherokee Nation appreciates the interest that IBM shows in our children's futures and in making technology access and training available to our people. Technology can play a key role in not only preserving our past, but also in enabling our people to access educational, employment and quality of life opportunities that can help to enhance our future.