Jeff Kollman: Rolling Stone get down with Chad Smith's Bombastic Meatbats

Chad Smith's Bombastic Meatbats decided the time was right to unleash their first concert recording, Live Meat and Potatoes, in May on Marmaduke Records. Recorded over two nights in 2009 at the Baked Potato in North Hollywood, the all-instrumental, double-disc set captures Smith and his bandmates – guitarist Jeff Kollman, bassist Kevin Chown and keyboardist Ed Roth – in their preferred environment.

"It's really our most comfortable medium," Smith tells Rolling Stone. "The band was born out of a live setting. We're really about improvisation and taking chances. That's really where we do our best work and shine. We stretched out on the songs – they're like seven minutes long! For a band like us, it's important that we're all in the same room, feeding off each other, listening, and trying to take it different places. We try to play different every night, and we captured a pretty good performance. I think it was over two nights, but most of it's from one night. It's all live – there's no overdubs or anything."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/chili-peppers-chad-smith-talks-im-with-you-b-sides-bombastic-meatbats-lp-2012071