Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith Answers Your Twitter Questions

Although Red Hot Chili Peppers member Chad Smith and his doppelgänger Will Ferrell may have spent much of 2014 trying to prove how different they are from one another, with their hilarious competition on The Tonight Show, the drummer does have something in common with the actor: he’s very funny. As Rolling Stone read the drummer the questions fans sent in via Twitter, he cracked wise about everything from the Chili Peppers’ penchant for wearing socks on their private parts to how Ferrell “robbed” him of the Golden Cowbell during his drum-off with the actor this year.

Over the past quarter century, Smith has played with the Chili Peppers, the supergroup Chickenfoot and various sessions with the likes of Kid Rock, the Dixie Chicks and Johnny Cash. And, with an eye toward helping other musicians, he has also spent time lobbying for music education in Washington, D.C. – including a recent trip to the White House – and building a drum community with his Chad Smith Drum App. The drummer’s steady, busy schedule has helped him amass a wide-ranging collection of funny stories, which he delved into deeply while answering Rolling Stone readers’ questions.

Would you rather jam with John Bonham, Keith Moon or Neil Peart?
— @jessgambino

I would like to take a lesson from Neil Peart. I would like to jam with Bonham and party with Keith Moon. If we were playing “fuck, marry, kill,” then it would be I’d probably marry Neil. [Sighs] Ah, I couldn’t fuck or kill either of those guys. Plus, they’re both dead. That’s not fair.

How do you and the band sort out the set list before a gig?
— @Fearganainm

There are certain songs that we play nightly, and we switch up a bunch of other ones that are up to Anthony and how his voice is feeling. So he writes out the sets, we chime in, but we try to mix it up a little bit, just to keep it fresh for us.

What’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you onstage?
— @liv_rhcp

Back in the days when we used to play clubs and smaller venues, people would jump up onstage and stage dive. Once in a while you get the overzealous fan that wants to get a little closer. And for encores, we used to play with socks [on our private parts and nothing else]. I had one female fan jump up onstage that was gung ho on trying to get my sock off. The other guys can run around a bit or put their guitars in front of them. For me, it was a battle for about two minutes, but I won. I stayed intact. It was very funny. She had balls…she almost had my balls.

Why did you guys stop doing the socks?
— Rolling Stone

It’s not that we stopped or never would do that again. It was fun to play like that. And 20 years ago, we were known for that. Somehow in Europe, it overshadowed the band a little bit. Like, “Oh, the guys with the socks on their dicks.” But it’s really just a spontaneous thing. We’ll be playing and we’ll finish, and somebody will say, “Hey, socks? OK!” It’s nothing really too planned out. You never know. I don’t know if anyone wants to see 50-year-old guys with socks on their dicks. That was a long time ago. But we like to entertain; we’re from Hollywood.

Would you ever do a tour playing an album in full live, like a Blood Sugar Sex Magik 25th Anniversary Tour 2016?
— @Chipeppers21

I wouldn’t say “never” to anything, but we’re always moving forward and we don’t look back too much. That seems to me that you’re really going back. We have so much other material, and so much music that we want to play. But, again, I wouldn’t say that we’d never do it, but it’s not something that’s ever really come up or discussed or talked about or anything. It’s not going to happen anytime in the near future.