
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have almost finished work on 'New Dynamic,' the group's tenth studio album and long-awaited follow-up to 2006's 'Stadium Arcadium.'
Work began on the album in late 2009, when the band ended its two-year hiatus. It wasn't until the summer of 2010, however, that the Peppers finally began recording in the studio, alongside producer Rick Rubin, and with a fresh face in the lineup. New guitarist Josh Klinghoffer replaced John Frusciante in 2009 after Frusciante revealed that he decided to leave the band during the hiatus.
With Klinghoffer on board, the band set about putting together an album after a lengthy break that saw plenty of change. During the hiatus, lead singer Anthony Kiedis became a father, while bassist Flea enrolled in music theory classes at USC.
According to Kiedis, all this upheaval strongly influenced the recording process. "I think that during the writing of this record I have been the most open-minded and refreshed than I have been in a long time," Kiedis told Spin. "I guess that comes from a much-needed hiatus and becoming a father."
Flea's studies also added a new dimension to the Peppers' studio experience. "Before, some of our jams were a bit hit-and-miss," Kiedis continued. "On this record, a decent number of songs were actually thought out and planned in a way we had never done before. That is, with Flea's new knowledge of music theory, we explored the writing process with a bit more precision."
'New Dynamic,' meanwhile, is an admittedly tentative title, but it has decidedly unique origins. According to Kiedis, the group settled on the title when a friend "was reminiscing about one of his legendary acid trips, and told us that he had been playing a sold-out show to the planets and moons, and his Number One hit was, well, that title."