Brooks Wheelan And I Feel Good About Loving the Red Hot Chili Peppers

A discussion on growing up, figuring out who you are and realizing it's OK to be yourself, even if the lyrics are kinda dumb.

(Image credit NBC Universal)

Right out of the gate, a warning. This conversation could be dreadfully boring to some people. But for people like me—people who grew up thinking the Red Hot Chili Peppers were a cornerstone of musical history, then being embarrassed about thinking that, and then realizing you can still love them and think they’re great but recognize their flaws—this might be a fun read. To spice things up, I got comedian Brooks Wheelan to join me. So it’s not just my insane ramblings this time.

Everyone has that one thing they were way too into.

When I was in middle school and high school, if someone asked my favorite band, it was easy for me to respond, “Oh, yeah, Red Hot Chili Peppers.” All of my friends were like this. We’d listen to it pretty much constantly, we’d brag about being able to find Japanese B-sides on Limewire and keep them secret rather than send each other mp3’s, like they were trophies. We’d watch the “Off the Map” and “Live at Slane” DVD’s at every sleepover.

But we got older. We started actually paying attention and curating our tastes more. We (I) got into “cool” bands like Vampire Weekend and The Strokes and all those other bands Seth Rogen warned his high school girlfriend about in Pineapple Express. At one point, I had this feeling where I felt embarrassed for how much I loved the Chili Peppers before. I started trying to distance myself from that.

It was this very juvenile college freshman posturing to act like my tastes were so intellectual and refined, and that’s probably why I told people at parties I really liked Radiohead. Radiohead is fine and I like some songs but I was 100 percent bullshitting when I would provide any analysis deeper than “I like the wonky noises on ‘National Anthem’ and I like the ‘chu-chunk’ guitar on ‘Creep.’”

And then in my mid-20s, The Getaway came out, and I looked at it the way any pseudo-mature post-grad person does where I still could say I liked it, but with caveats. I sort of looked down on it, and the band that had meant so much to me for so long, as quaint.

I now feel like I’m in a place where I am fully aware that the Chili Peppers are weird and awesome and inappropriate and genuinely timeless simultaneously. They are Shroedinger’s Good Band.

I’m at a point where I can kinda chuckle when I hear a very dumb lyric like “Popcorn, peanuts, lookin’ at big butts,” and laugh at myself for never giving this a second thought at 14, and then also stand firm at 28 in the belief that Blood Sugar Sex Magik is an amazing album because it is.

I thought a lot about this process of growing up through the very specific lens of the relationship with RHCP, and thought of someone other than my friends.

Brooks Wheelan might be the most famous recovered RHCP fan in the U.S.

For those who might not know, Brooks is a hilarious standup comedian who used to be on SNL, and now hosts one of my favorite podcasts about weird and funny first jobs. At one point during his tenure at SNL, though, he appeared on Weekend Update to tell Seth Myers about his regrettable tattoos, one of them being the “Anthony Kiedis Tribal Tattoo.”

When I saw this, I immediately related to Brooks. I don’t have any RHCP tattoos, but that’s probably just because I fear commitment. And now, as I prepared this blog idea, I felt like he would understand my train of thought here, about growing up and making peace with your RHCP love and also being more embarrassed by your own insecure embarrassment than anything Anthony Kiedis says. 

It turns out he did, which validated my own overthinking. And what I had planned to be a conversation full of insightful questions about cultivating your own aesthetic as a young person and growing into yourself kind of turned into two dudes saying how much the Chili Peppers still rule and how certain albums are weird but are still also very sick, and how Flea is still the coolest. Basically, it’s not exactly how I planned on doing this, but it’s exactly what I had hoped it would turn out to be. And that’s pretty fitting for an exhaustive study into the stages of Red Hot Chili Peppers fandon.

So, please enjoy a relatively unabridged (we went long and went on tangents) transcript of my conversation with Brooks Wheelan. (I hope that everyone understands that every instance of Brooks or me calling them weird comes with an equal and opposite, but possibly nonverbal, statement that they are good and cool.)

Brendan: Let’s talk about the Chili Peppers. Like I said in my email, I know you’ve been very clear that you’re a longtime fan, but you ever have that kind of dip where you were consciously like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m a little embarrassed by them.’ Or like if you’re talking to someone about music you don’t lead with them anymore.

Brooks Wheelan: Yeah. I’m five years older than you. So, for me, Stadium Arcadium was when I was like, ‘I can’t really blast ‘Snow (Hey Oh).’ That was the first time I was like, ‘This is Mom Rock.’ And then, you know, I’ve barely touched the last two albums. But just the fact that Frusciante is coming back was when I was like ‘Oooh, let’s dive back into some Chili Peppers, and listen to Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Mother’s Milk. This is dope.’ I love them so much that, like, I was in high school when they reissued their first four albums, and I just freakin’, you know, willed myself to like their first album which is … not good.

It’s not good. And I think Anthony Kiedis even said himself that it sounds like shit. 

Yeah. They gave a bunch of like drugged, drunk guys with a good stage show a studio album. When “Scar Tissue” came out I was in high school, and I got it at, like, a Wal-Mart. It was amazing. Such a good book. I think I was 17 or 18, but I remember he talked a lot about pubic hair.

He’s a real weird dude.

Super duper weird. Oh, I have a really cool Chili Peppers story that will make you like them a little bit. I live in Silver Lake next to the Silver Lake Conservatory of Music, which is Flea’s music school. My friends were walking home from a bar one night, and were like, ‘What is this a Chili Peppers cover band?’ But it was legit all of the Chili Peppers playing in the parking lot of the graduating class of like Flea’s students. And students were getting up and singing with them in front of, like, their parents. They are genuinely friends, which I think is bizarre for a band that’s been around that long.

Yeah. You read about like Van Halen and they’re just like, ‘Yeah we hate each other.’

Yeah. I thought that was really cool. It made me really respect them. Kiedis doesn’t need to fucking get up for anything. But Flea’s like, ‘Hey, man, it’d be really nice if you did it.’ That’s so cool of him.

They all do seem like they’re definitely into it still. Like they don’t seem like they’re phoning it in at all. For better or worse, bands like them at least have their heart in it.

Oh yeah. When I saw them play this backyard show for an ocean benefit that I got invited to because of my tattoo, they went so hard for a bunch of rich old people. And what I reeeally loved—reeaaally loved—is that they didn’t play like one of their hits. They played like, ‘I Like Dirt’ and like ‘Universally Speaking.’ And I’m like, ‘I fucking love this! This is so amazing!’ Everyone else wants them to play other shit. I think they probably played ‘Scar Tissue’ or something.

They have to do one.

But I saw what I felt was really wonderful about the Chili Peppers. There were these two giant bodyguards standing next to me, and one of them was my age and one of them was probably 20. And they’re huge. And the older guy’s like, ‘I hope they play ‘Under the Bridge.’’ And the young guy is like, ‘I don’t know that song.’ And the older guy is like, ‘Yeah you do.’ And the younger guy’s like ‘No I don’t.’ and this fucking massive, like 6’8” huge dude started going like, ‘Sometimes I feeeeeel like,’ and he sang it to this other huge guy. And the young guy was like, ‘Ohhh I love that song!’ And he’s like ‘Yeah man! That’s this band!’ It was super cool. 

It’s weird that we’re at a point where you kind of have to say who they are, even though they’re still so ubiquitous. To get back to the original idea here a little, I’m With You came out when I was a sophomore in college, so like 2011 I guess. And then the last one I really didn’t get into. And the point I keep coming back to in my head is that I was like, ‘You know what? Maybe they’re not for me anymore. And that’s OK. I’ve moved on. They’ve moved on.’ I had this moment of, like, ‘Oh, I’m mature now. I’m moving past this. I’m curating myself more.’ And then a couple of months ago when John Frusciante was coming back, I was like giddy in my apartment texting all of my friends, and we were 15 again.

I felt that way when Pearl Jam put out that ‘Dance of the Clairvoyants.’ My way of looking at it was like ‘Sometimes mommies and daddies fall out of love.’

I had that same thought, but kinda settled on, like, ‘You know what? They can do whatever they want. They can try this out.’

And you know what? I ended up liking that album and that song, but it was kind of badass of them to be like, ‘We’re gonna really kind of fuck with everybody.’

[We get off track talking about Pearl Jam. Not analyzing our fandom of Pearl Jam or really relating it to this topic at hand. Just talking about how we both love Pearl Jam and how they’re rad live.]

As I got older, I think one sort of attempt at becoming a ‘mature’ Red Hot Chili Peppers fan was trying to focus more attention on the ‘thoughtful’ RHCP albums and be like, ‘Actually, I think By the Way might be the best album…’

I think it is their best album.

And I think right now I agree.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik still has some real dumb shit on it. By the Way is just like ‘These dudes are locked. in.’ 

And you can say, ‘This is stupid.’ But I think there’s a real genuineness in it. Like what you were saying—Anthony Kiedis is objectively a weird guy, so for him to write about something he doesn’t know or try to be someone he’s not for the sake of appealing to someone else would be real fuckin’ stupid and not them at all. At the risk of it coming off very crude sometimes, which it often does, I’d at least like him to be genuine in what he’s saying, which is usually ‘I like hanging out with girls and I like hanging out in LA,’ or gibberish.

Dude, By the Way came out fuckin’ primo for me. I think it was 2001 or 2002. I was like 16. Music used to come out on Tuesdays. And it was the first record where the single had come out, and I had a car, and I could go pick it up at midnight at Walmart. And I did and it was so exciting. And that’s why I think, and same with you, it seems like there’s such an affinity. I’ll never like anything in the world as much as I did like the Chili Peppers when I was 16.

Yeah. And I think it’s OK to be a rational adult and fully admit, ‘There’s a lot of bad, stupid shit. But this is also very good.’ And I think it’s infinitely cooler to say, ‘I love the Chili Peppers,’ than it is to say some other bands that either are worse or aging poorly due to some lack of self awareness. And it can be tough explaining them to outsiders

What I just did for my friend was, I just made him a Chili Peppers starter kit. Here’s five songs to prove to you they’re not all ‘Californication.’

I kind of did the same. I just told my friend to listen to By the Way. And he loved it.

Exactly. ‘Californication’ is the Chili Peppers’ version of Pearl Jam’s ‘Jeremy.’ I’m like, ‘I get why this turns people off. This is not what they do. This sucks.’ I love that album. It’s got ‘Parallel Universe,’ that’s like the fucking best. ‘Around the World.’ Californication the album rules. The song is trash.

And every band in middle school played it cause it’s easy on every instrument cause it’s when John Frusciante forgot how to play guitar.

I don’t know enough about instruments. I just know that I love Flea.

Flea is one of those guys that no matter how much someone wants to shit on the band, they have one of the best living bassists.

Yeah. That’s the other thing. It’s like shitting on a football team with a great quarterback. He’s awesome, and he’s fucking cool, and he does nice things for the neighborhood. What a good dude. What a good, artistic little guy. I mean I don’t need him to sing any more songs. One and done is fine with me.

You don’t want to hear “Pea” on every record?

No. I don’t need … You know what? Maybe I do. ‘Pea’ is their ‘Bugs’ by Pearl Jam. 

Dude. True. Very true. So you live in LA right now. But you grew up in Iowa. 

Yeah I grew up in Manchester, Iowa.

I feel like there’s a real appeal for a band like Red Hot Chili Peppers where they talk so much about this LA mythology that really appeals to landlocked kids who have no idea that it’s not really like that. 

I think what I also love so much about Chili Peppers was that neither of my brothers were into them. And it’s hard as a youngest brother to find a band that is yours and you have ownership of. That’s why I had to like Powerman 5000 instead of Rob Zombie. But I just loved them so much. I drove this Geo Prism, like a 1991 Geo Prism. It was like $300. And I remember for my birthday my dad put a CD player in it. And I had a real, honest thought and went with it, like ‘Any time’—unironically, I thought I was cool—’Any time someone gets in this car, they know the Chili Peppers will be playing.’ And I really lived by that.

I’ve kind of interrupted myself asking this question a couple of times, but did you ever consciously say, ‘OK. I need to distance myself from them.’ Or ever hide it? I mean it’s tough to hide with the tattoo. But have you ever said, ‘Oh yeah, I used to like them’?

In college. One thousand percent. There was that time when The Strokes and Kings of Leon and Yeah Yeah Yeahs blew up. That’s when I was like, ‘I like this. I don’t like Mom Rock.’ I even had that with Kings of Leon where I had to be like, ‘I actually don’t…’ Those guys ruled man. I’m being legit. It’s not our fault that the radio dug what they were doing. But there was a second in college where I had to be like …. Kings of Leon were my favorite band, and they still have some of my favorite albums of all time and might still be one of my favorite bands, well definitely are one of my favorite bands, but there was a moment in college where ‘Sex on Fire’ was played so much that I had to pretend I didn’t fucking love them. And I do. It’s great.

Also when I met certain people who loved the Chili Peppers, I was like, ‘I don’t relate to this guy at all’ like I do with my friends.

I only know one other guy who loves them as much as I do who’s my age who’s really cool. A lot of people turned their noses up at them, which I think is a pretentious thing.

Similarly to you, in high school I got really into The Strokes and Vampire Weekend and felt like I was kind of supposed to turn my nose up at certain things. I’m into these very aloof and cool bands now.

You know what book really helped me? It was this book by Chuck Klosterman called, ‘Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.’ He wrote it at a time where it was so uncool to like things, and he’s like, ‘It’s almost cooler to like things. Like them because you like them. That’s fine.’ And that was a really big turning point. I was like, ‘You know, I do like people who are nice and not up their own ass about shit.’

It’s like every teen movie where the unpopular kid abandons their good best friend of 13 years to get accepted into the popular crowd, but they all suck and they’re mean and they talk shit about his friend. And he looks over and sees his friend sitting alone at lunch and he’s like, ‘Well fuck you guys, he’s actually nice to me.’

It’s great. Anyone who gets stuck in ‘Your music sucks’ is an idiot.

And now that you’re in LA, did you have any preconceived notions, like did your life of listening to Anthony Kiedis describe LA hang in your mind before you got there?

What I did think would happen is I would get to see the Chili Peppers in the wild. And it’s insane that it does happen. But it’s only because Flea is very around. He hasn’t like secluded himself in a billion dollar house, which he could do if he wanted to.

He could never come out again and I don’t think people could even be mad at him. 

No. He doesn’t have to do anything. None of them have to do anything at all. And that’s what’s so cool. Who knows what’s going to happen for [their] music, but I was just excited that they were going to go on tour and we’d get to see Frusciante, and it’s very dope. 

I think for me and probably a lot of others it’s going to be a similar moment as what happened to me when Green Day played at my college in 2013. My friend and I went in with super limited expectations and sort of feigned aloofness and we were like, ‘Yeah this’ll be OK.’ As soon as the lights went down we went excited kids again. And I think it’s gonna be the same thing whenever the Chili Peppers come back, where I have this steely ‘mature’ exterior and I’m drinking my fancy beer, and think, ‘Yeah well they’re not gonna play ‘Knock Me Down’ or something. And then they will and I’ll lose it. Because, after all I paid for the ticket, despite any posturing.

I just got to see them. Every time I see them it just fucking brings me back to 16 and how happy I was getting that CD. And I’m like, ‘I can never be mad at four people who made me feel so excited.’ That’s why I hate that I panned them on SNL. That is blasphemy.

Did anyone in the band ever reach out to you about that?

It’s been a real, real, honest reason I’ve never gone up and told Flea I was a big fan. I’m terrified. I used them as a punchline to get a laugh because I was just drowning on a show, and I feel bad about it. Also, I got the fuckin’ tattoo, man. I feel like if anyone’s allowed to take a swing it’s the guy who tattooed them on his body.

But you said you got invited to a show because of it?

Well, yeah. They were playing a benefit for the ocean, of course, it’s the god damn Chili Peppers. My friend is doing very well acting, and his agent invited him with a plus-one, and he just knew. He was like, ‘Oh, Brooks has gooootta see the Chili Peppers in the backyard.’ And it was honestly very weird, and I cried and I gave him a big hug. This is, like, four months ago. And it’s just because what we think growing up in the midwest is going to happen if you go to Los Angles, and it literally happened.

Basically, to boil this down to my original idea. I could literally do this all day, though...

Yeah, no, this is so nice. I love what you wrote. It was so thoughtful and you nailed it exactly of what it is like to grow up. You like it because you like it, and then you think you shouldn’t like it because somebody cool doesn’t like it. And then you get back to comfort at an older age, like, ‘No. I like what I like.’

And it’s a clearer ‘like’ of it now. I know that’s just because I’m literally thinking of it now in the present, but when I put myself back in my shoes at 15 it feels like I have this very tenuous grasp on things, even the things I obsessed over. And now it feels like I still like those things, but now I can see the extra color that I couldn’t see before. 

Yes exactly. I’ve gone through this with two bands where I’ve had to talk myself out of not liking them just because they got massively popular. It was Black Keys and Kings of Leon. There’s that college phase of, ‘Oh, I don’t like that cause it’s popular.’ and then you leave college and you’re like, ‘No, it gets popular because it’s fucking rad. That’s why it’s popular. Because they’re rad.’ 

I don’t know what it is about music that makes us think we shouldn’t like things that other people like.

I mean, it is very fun. 

[At this point I mention that I live in Philadelphia. We talk about The War On Drugs. Not within the parameters of this post’s theme really. Just that The War On Drugs are very cool and great live. Also how Kurt Vile is cool but ‘Pretty Pimpin’ is a little long.]

Oh, talk about a thing I couldn’t get past as a music fan. When I was living in New York, The War On Drugs was playing at Bowery Ballroom, and the lead singer, I can’t think of his name.

Adam something. 

Yeah Adam something super Italian. Adam Spaghetti. He came out and he just looked so cool just rocking a jean jacket, so rad. And the drummer came out and he’s wearing a fucking sweater vest. I couldn’t get over it. I hated it. I hated that he was looking so lame. I was 27. I was just like, ‘This guy looks so lame. I can’t believe that this dude who has a cool band is letting the drummer look like such a fucking geek.’ A year later I realized that that only made Adam the lead singer cooler because he’s not trying to control anyone in the band. That’s a cooler move than being like, ‘No, actually, don’t wear that. That looks stupid.’

If he’s comfortable in a sweater vest, he’ll be confident and playing better.

Yeah. I still disagree with his choice. But I like that he’s given the option.

Anything becomes cool if you are cool.

Yeah exactly. A sweater vest will never be cool, though. I disagree with that choice.

Yeah, you look like Doug.

So, yeah. I totally agree with your assessment. Also, I think it’s that the Chili Peppers are nostalgic for me now. And just the fact that Frusciante is back is exciting. But I definitely had a phase where I pretended I didn’t have the tattoo that I have.

Have you ever thought about covering it up or getting rid of it?

No no no no no no. That’s a coward’s way out. I feel very confident, though. You know, what really helped me get over having it was was making fun of it on TV. Cause now if anybody’s like, ‘You think that’s cool?’ There’s physical evidence that I’m self-aware that it sucks, and I talked about it.

It could be a lot worse. At least you didn’t get like one of his Native American tattoos.

Dude, I probably would have. It’s a lot easier to deal with it after I addressed it on SNL, and been like, ‘I know that I’m not cool.’ That really helped me get over it. I used to never take my shirt off at the beach because I hated it so much. And now I have no problem with it because I’m like, ‘Nah, I made fun of it. I’m at peace with it.’

Yeah and it being on such a big TV show, people won’t see it and be shocked like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ It was on national television.

Also, man, I grew up in the … if you made it out of Iowa in 2005 without a fuckin’ bad tattoo, you dodged 80 bullets. It was just ... everyone was getting garbage, awful tattoos. I’m so jealous of these kids now who have, like, they do the, what am I thinking of? [Micro] tattoos. It’s great! It’s so cool! You got a subtle tattoo? You didn’t get a fuckin’ stamp? 

At this point somehow we get into where I went to college and how a disgraced former comedian and pudding spokesperson went there. And just like how he explained to his friend that not all RHCP music is ‘Californication,’ I explain that he shouldn’t be so closely associated with an otherwise reputable university, and I point out that Ted Bundy did a semester there, too. Go Owls.

I just really love talking about the Chili Peppers. I have a best friend Jarret who plays bass in a cool band in Chicago. When I got to go do a show at Lollapalooza, I was like, ‘Well I’m bringing the J Man cause the Chili Peppers are there.’ It was this fuckin’ wonderful time. 

Finally, at this point we talk about Tool and how neither of us really got into Tool but we’re fine with it if people are, and then we start talking about Danzig and how he’s a weird guy.

Danzig has a house here in Los Feliz. And I walk past it to get wine. It’s for sale, and man, it looks like, ‘Oh I bet Danzig lives there.’ He’s not pretending to be Danzig. He is Danzig.

And I think that’s a beautiful way to end this. It’s a poignant bow to wrap up an otherwise all-over-the-place conversation. Like what you like. Danzig can be himself. Anthony Kiedis can be himself. Brooks can be himself. I think I’m comfortable being myself.

(Editor’s note: If any other comedians have ever publicly mocked but also shown genuine admiration for Green Day on TV, I can easily write a second version of this.)

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Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is Pearl Jam