Jeff Kollman: Chad Smith discusses the meatbats

Were the Bombastic Meatbats always destined be an instrumental band?
Yes, because they came from playing with your friend and mine, Glenn Hughes. What happened was that Glenn was late for rehearsal one day and Ed [Roth], Jeff [Kollman] and I started jamming together. I suggested we write some songs, and that’s exactly what happened. Our jumping off point was Blow By Blow [Jeff Beck’s instrumental album from 1975]. We didn’t bother with lyrics and nobody wants to hear me sing, believe me.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s a 70s funk thing going on.
Playing in the Chili Peppers, obviously I have a love of that style. The Meatbats definitely lends itself to that, yeah, but we wanted to bring it into 2009.

It could’ve turned into a bit of a muso wankfest, but the hooks are there if you listen out for them.
[Laughing]: A muso wankfest! That’s great. The perception of this type of music is that it’s super-serious and an impenetrable bunch of notes. We didn’t want that. It’s party music, basically. We’re called the Meatbats; how serious do you want us to be?
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