Josh Klinghoffer may be best known for as the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers from 2007 to 2019, but he is also singularly known as the one-man band Pluralone. And his career has been (pardon the pun) more red-hot than ever. He’s been on a major creative tear since exiting the Peppers six years ago — touring and/or recording with Pearl Jam, Elton John and Brandi Carlile, Redd Kross, Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne, Morrissey, and Jane’s Addiction, not to mention releasing three new Pluralone albums, including his latest and fourth overall, A Drop in the Ocean.

Even before Klinghoffer broke off on his own in 2019, he’d already accomplished more than most musicians could ever dream of, getting his start at age 17 in Bob Forrest’s band the Bicycle Thief, playing with Sparks and Gnarls Barkley, and becoming the youngest Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee (at the time of the 2012 ceremony) at age 32. But interestingly, as he drops A Drop in the Ocean, he feels like he no longer has all the time in the world to pursue his passion.

“I’m now closer to 50 than I ever have been. And that’s shocking to me,” the multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter tells LPTV, sitting at Licorice Pizza Records in the San Fernando Valley where he grew up. “I feel like my life has always just been one upward slant toward creative mania. I beat myself up constantly about not getting enough done or not doing enough or not focusing enough on one thing and sort of diversifying my attention. I feel like it’s just I’m trying to focus and hone myself. I’m hoping it’s just going up and up and up. I hope I haven’t experienced a dip!”

On the contrary, while Klinghoffer still admittedly struggles with self-confidence and even hearing the sound of his own voice despite all his accomplishments, that newfound sense of urgency drove him to make his best and most personal Pluralone album yet — as he returned to his roots for A Drop in the Ocean, just himself and an acoustic guitar. One track on the record, “Give,” even dates way back to a “fork in the road” moment in his life, when he was “still just some kid” and considered pursuing a solo career more proactively, before his life obviously veered in another direction.

“There was a period where I stopped playing with Bob and something happened where I was able to record basically an album’s worth of stuff, uninterrupted. So, I have this [old, unreleased] record that I made on my eight-track, and with that music, I think I was planning on starting a whole new life,” Klinghoffer says of the long-ago sessions from which “Give,” a song he couldn’t “get out of his system” and recorded several times, originated. “If I could go back in time, now that I’ve experienced everything I experienced, I would perhaps go back to that moment and maybe just whisper into the ear of younger me or something. I don’t know. Or maybe I would just watch and get a real complete understanding of exactly why I didn’t pursue that harder, maybe.”

In the wildly entertaining and wide-ranging video above, and the edited-for-brevity-and-clarity Q&A below, Klinghoffer discusses Valley/Hollywood life in the ‘90s; the (unfortunately fleetingly) hopeful time in which A Drop in the Ocean was made; his love for Elliott Smith, T. Rex, and Gorillaz; the new song he wrote for dear departed friend Taylor Hawkins; and his various superstar collaborations, including Bonfire of Teenagers, the mythical lost Morrissey album that still has yet to come out.

LPTV: We’re very excited to have you visit Licorice Pizza Records, because you are L.A. and Valley adjacent royalty! We’re right by Laurel Canyon Blvd., the street that would lead us Valley kids “over the hill” to all the Hollywood clubs where you got your start. I wonder if you feel this way, but when I grew up in the 818, I did not think the Valley was cool. But now I have a bit of Valley pride. Do you feel the same way?

JOSH KLINGHOFFER: Exactly the same way! I certainly didn’t think it was cool growing up there, but mostly just because it was far. There was nothing going on.

How did you used to get over the hill to play your gigs, or shop on Melrose, or do all the other Hollywood fun stuff?

I got my driver’s license the very first second I was legally allowed to do that. I did it on my 16th birthday, the minute the DMV opened… and then I made it home in time on that October morning to see the O.J. verdict read. That was my 16th birthday.

Oh, wow. With your new driver’s license, you could have been on the same freeway next to that white Bronco! Although I guess that was a couple months before.

Yeah, the day [O.J. Simpson] was on that freeway being chased by the police, I had a gig at Mancini’s. Do you remember Mancini’s? There was deep Valley. … And I was late. I was like, “Who cares?” Something in me told myself, “This doesn’t matter. I got to watch this [car chase]. This is history.”

You have deep L.A. roots. I mentioned the Bicycle Thief — you were a teenager when you joined that band with Bob Forrest from Thelonious Monster. Was that your first band?

I had a band or two with friends in school or whatever, but they don’t really count. Actually, before that, my first music that I played outside of the Valley going into Hollywood was with Shepherd [Stevenson] from Pigmy Love Circus.

I remember Pigmy Love Circus. Didn’t they become Orgy? [Editor’s note: No, that was Electric Love Hogs.]

They could have been. Danny [Carey] from Tool played drums in Pigmy Love Circus, Green Jelly, and Tool at the time. So, through a friend of mine who was a bit older than me, he went to CSUN film school with Shepherd and he said, “Oh, there’s this guy, Shep.” I think Shepherd was his late thirties at the time. I was 15. I started playing with Bob when I was 17

We don’t need necessarily talk very much about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but what I remember from that era was when bands like Pigmy Love Circus started to become big in Hollywood, I kind of saw the RHCP effect. All the bands that had been dressed all hair-metal before were wearing cargos shorts and no shirts, and were starting to look a little more bro-y. And I remember being like, “They’re all trying to be like the Peppers!”

Yeah, I don’t know if it was one-sided or not, but there was maybe a little animosity between those two bands, anyway. Or there was a rude song written.

You’ve also played in Jane’s Addiction — you filled in for Dave Navarro recently. There was a time in L.A. when Jane’s, RHCP, Thelonious Monster, Fishbone, Mary’s Danish, and other bands were ushering in this changing of the guard. People talk about Nirvana as being the band that made the hair metal go away, but in L.A. it was those bands. Do you remember that transitional time?

Well, I was a little young to watch it happen firsthand, but I watched it happen on MTV and on the radio. Because I when I was younger, I was into some of those bands — Guns N’ Roses being an L.A. band. I was really into them. And then suddenly there was a cultural shift, and Motley Crue suddenly…

…started wearing shorts.

Yeah, I saw it happen sort of overnight. I missed all the amazing stuff that was going on here by a couple years, but I’ve been so lucky in my life to be able to jump on and somehow latch onto a few coattails, to the point where you’re calling me “Valley royalty”!

Since you mentioned Guns N’ Roses, it must have been a cool moment for you when were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the same night as GNR. At that time, you held the record for being the youngest inductee at. You’ve since been usurped.

Yes, by Ilan Rubin with Nine Inch Nails.

How many months or years did Ilan beat your record by?

Not much. I think he was 31 or something. … I think I was 32.

OK. But back to that Rock Hall night when RHCP and GNR got in, Axl Rose didn’t show up. It was before the Guns N’ Roses reunion.

They didn’t know if Axl was going to show right until the last minute. I remember being… somewhere in Cleveland. I went to a theater and watched — they didn’t want anybody to watch it, but we listened to GNR practice, because either they had another singer [Myles Kennedy] for a couple songs, or they thought Axl was going to show up. So, the whole band was ready to go and they were rehearsing, and me and [RHCP drummer] Chad [Smith] were listening.

From all the bands you’ve worked with, whether it’s the Peppers, Jane’s, or even Redd Kross, knowing how brothers be, you know firsthand that band situations can be fraught. It must be kind of nice way to do things on your own as Pluralone.

Yes. I definitely have the tendency sometimes to argue with myself and be indecisive, and then even rude to myself and abusive.

Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself!

Yeah, I know, but people are just completely ridiculous and unreasonable sometimes. But yeah, it’s fun to, at the end of the day, just have something to show for my choices.

The first time I interviewed you was when the 2020 Pluralone record came out. It was an interesting time. It was right before COVID, and very shortly after you had left the Chili Peppers. And you had just joined Pearl Jam and were supposed to go on tour with them, but then the pandemic happened. And Pearl Jam, to their credit, were one of the first bands to realize that touring was not a good idea then. So, then you were in lockdown for a while and you recorded I Don’t Feel Well. And that came out, I believe, during COVID. This is your fourth Pluralone album now, and each album has been made under very circumstances. What was going on during the making of this one? You’ve talked about how you made it during what seemed like a hopeful time, and now maybe it’s..

Less than? [laughs] For this one, a lot of these songs were born or written or begun during that sort of bright time towards right where we are now, spring of 2021, when we were sort of opening again and we thought maybe the pandemic [was over]. It was like pre-Omicron.

What was the other COVD variant? Delta?

Yeah. I think we got up pretty high in that alphabet! But there was this kind of sunny period. I went to New York. and some of the stuff was written there because it was like, “We’re opening again.” And I drove cross-country.

“We’re all vaccinated and the vaccination totally will work!”

Yeah, it was definitely around that time because I remember not being able to leave town until I got my second vaccination. So, there was a bit of a hopeful kind of feeling in the air. And then I flew back from that New York trip to play with Eddie [Vedder] at the “Vax Live” show [at SoFi Stadium on May 2, 2021].

That was the opening of SoFi, and I think one of the first really big shows in L.A., after all the stuff we’d been through.

It was the first live show at SoFi. It was myself and Eddie and these great brothers [White Reaper’s Nick and Sam Wilkerson], and it was like last-minute. I think I knew about it a week before, and I flew out and it was great.

Was it weird to be back onstage in a huge stadium after pretty much being in your house for like a year?

Yes. And everything was still a little funny; there was still probably some testing and some masks and whatever. I can’t remember how long after that everything kind of shut down again. I feel like that autumn, it got really intense again.

It was definitely weird time. So, I guess a lot of A Drop in the Ocean actually predates your second and third albums, in terms of when they were actually written. How does it feel to revisit songs that you made during a time when you were feeling like the world was a compassionate place, and to now release them in 2026?

Well, luckily, I always leave a bit sort of undone or unfinished until I really commit to it, until I put the vocal down. I’m sure I tweaked a little bit of the writing and sort of adapted them to whatever the world feels like now. I don’t know, I think the fact that there’s a hopefulness to these songs… well, I actually don’t know if it sounds like that, because after I played [the album] to someone recently, they were like, “Jesus!” So, I don’t know if it actually sounds hopeful! It was a hopeful time when a lot of the songs were born, but maybe I kind of dressed it up in 2026 clothing. It has my sort of overarching dichotomy, which is: I think this is a shitshow that we’re living amongst, but somehow there’s a hopefulness. Because if not, you can’t get out of bed, really.

I don’t think the record sounds hopeless. But there is a certain melancholy to it.

It’s a bit more direct. It’s a lot of acoustic songs. I think it’s just overall hard for me to sound happy and hopeful, really. But I think there’s a sweetness to some of it.

I assume you’re like a big Elliott Smith fan? Because I hear a lot of Elliott influence on this record.

Yeah. That’s very apparent on this. Sometimes I can’t even listen to him. I’ll have to go through long periods of not even putting him on, because it’ll just come out in my [music]. Like, everything I’m playing sounds like him.

I’m not saying in a way you’re ripping Elliott off or anything, just that I pick up on that vibe. Have you ever been told that your vocals sound like Marc Bolan, particularly In his Tyrannosaurus Rex folky era?

No, but that’s lovely. Chad and I made a T. Rex cover 7-inch where we did “Jeepster” for Record Store Day.

I’d never noticed it until this record, for some reason. There’s a certain trebly quality to your voice.

Well, I love that you caught that. I love [Bolan] and I love his singing. When we did that 7-inch, I was actually free to completely impersonate him. I’ve always had a hard time with my voice. There’s a lot of the times I can’t stand it, but I have a good ear and I’m a good mimic, so I can sound like lots of different people. But when it comes to sounding like myself, maybe this is a deeper personal philosophical kind of gap that I have, but sounding like myself sometimes is hard — and especially then liking what I hear back. I just sang karaoke the other night with some friends at a friend’s house. I went from Geto Boys to Nick Cave to Radiohead to the Beastie Boys. I was just doing impressions of all these people.

Did you ever play with Elliott Smith, by the way? He used to live in L.A.

Now that I think of it, this was a very Guinness-heavy time for me, but I think I played drums once at Largo with Jon Brion — I used to sort of weasel my way into Jon’s live shows once in a while — and I think Elliott was onstage with us once when I was playing drums. Did I make that up?

It’s kind of cool that you’ve had such a storied career that you can barely recall that. For some people being onstage with Elliott Smith would the highlight of their life, but for you, it’s just another night in L.A.! But to go back to something you just said, why don’t you like your voice?

It’s just always been the case.

Is that why you normally aren’t the frontman?

No, I think that’s just … Maybe, yeah. I mean, probably.

So, going back to this album, in your press release you said that for the first time in your life, you feel like you don’t have all the time in the world to make a record — that there was a sense of urgency to this.

Oh, I think I’m referring to the fact that I’m now closer to 50 than I ever have been. And that’s shocking to me. I mean, I still look like a child a lot of the time. And I still live very much like a child. So, for the first time, I’m sort of thinking about how many more records or how many more songs I get to record and release, and how much more of this I get to do. It’s the first time I ever thought of that.

Did that mindset affect any lyrics on A Drop in the Ocean?

Well, there’s one song where I’m talking about this very nostalgic lyrical content, “I Don’t Want to Let You Go.” And there’s many things that I don’t want to let go. The  last time I think you and spoke… I ran into you at a Gorillaz show. Thet played their full record [The Mountain] that night. I did a complete 180 on that record, and it was from how much I loved that show. And I listened to it nonstop for a couple weeks after that. I watched a bunch of press that [Gorillaz founders] Damon [Albarn] and Jamie [Hewlett] did, and they were talking about being anti-nostalgists or something like that. I can’t help a lot of time be nostalgic for a different time when life was less shit. And I mean that generally, just like when there was less social media and less distance between people, I think.

I think it’s OK to be nostalgic, as long as it doesn’t go to the extremes of that Boomer mentality, thinking everything sucks now and everything was better back in the day.

Which I’m guilty of, very much! [laughs]

If you could go back in a time machine to any year or age, any point within your lifetime, and freeze yourself in that halcyon era, what you would do?

It’s not even halcyon. There was a period where I stopped playing with Bob and something happened where I was able to record basically an album’s worth of stuff, uninterrupted. So, I have this record that I made on my eight-track, and with that music, I think I was planning on starting a whole new life. And it didn’t happen, because I started going on tour with people, which was an amazing experience. I can’t say that it’s something that I would’ve preferred to have done, but to answer your question, if I could go back in time, now that I’ve experienced everything I experienced, I would perhaps go back to that moment and maybe just whisper into the ear of younger me or something. I don’t know. Or maybe I would just watch and get a real complete understanding of exactly why I didn’t pursue that harder, maybe.

But you have your own thing now, so you did get to do it eventually.

Yes. And one of the songs on this album, “Give,” dates back to kind of that era. I mean, it’s so old. Every record I’ve made, I’ve always snuck one song on that’s just ancient for me that stuck around, that I can’t get out of my system. And this one was a funny one, because I recorded it four or five times — just made different demos of it, sang it with different lyrics. And finally, it exists.

Do you still have those eight-track recordings? Why not just put them out?

Well, they’re a little underconfident. When I hear them, I hear the potential. But especially vocally, I was really just being very un-enunciative, if that’s a word.

You had diction issues?

No, just confidence. It just sounds very underconfident. It was August of 2001 that I think I recorded this stuff. It was right before 9/11, because I had some lyric on there that was like “The towers you built, knocked over with pride,” or something like that. And I remember a couple of months after that, I was like, “Whoa.” … If I would’ve released my song in August of 2001 with that lyric, I would’ve seemed like a poetic genius.

Or conspiracy theorists might’ve had their way with you! Who knows? But I think it’s interesting that when I asked the time-machine question that there was this whole sliding-door thing — that maybe you could have had a different life. But because you didn’t do that, and you went on to have all these amazing adventures playing with not only the Chili Peppers, but with Pearl Jam, Elton John, Sparks, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop. You’ve played with the biggest of the big, entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, played the world’s biggest stages. So, I am surprised that was your answer, because then none of that would’ve happened.

And it’s only because of that, because when one looks at their life and wonders if anything could have been different, I sort of pinpoint it to that moment, because I still have those recordings. That was the real fork in the road for me. None of the things you just mentioned had transpired. I was still just some kid.

We were talking about Gorillaz’ The Mountain, and that whole album is about loss and death. There’s a song on A Drop in the Ocean about Taylor Hawkins, who died in 2022. I know that Chad was very good friends with Taylor. I assume you knew him too.

I wouldn’t say I knew him well, but I knew him. I just realized when he left us that I had known him for a long time, because I met him in 2000 when I was playing in the Bicycle Thief and then the Foo Fighters were playing next and then the Chili Peppers. I did three weeks of touring like that, and I was around him every day on that tour and we would just always talk in the hall and stuff like that. Then as the years went on, and in particular the last couple of weeks before he died, Eddie Vedder’s band the Earthlings were on tour… the last show of our tour with Eddie in San Diego, Taylor was on FaceTime backstage and kind of laughing and joking with everybody. And that was not very long before [he died]. I had a couple of long phone conversations with him in the year or two before. Once he was gone, I just saw a lot of kind of weird stuff floating around, just like lots of accusations or darkness around something that was already kind of heartbreaking. … There was just a cloud around the whole thing. It kept amplifying the sadness around it. Obviously, when someone has such an ending, I just can’t help but wonder or hope beyond hope that they knew how much they were loved. So, I was sitting with the guitar one day, and it’s not like me to write a song so specifically about a person or about a topical thing that’s just happened. … Writing a song about a person that had just died felt kind of like new territory for me. But I kept on with it, and those lyrics kind of came pretty quickly.

The title of that song is “I Hope You Knew.” I assume you mean, “I hope you knew you were loved.” I think Taylor knew.

I hope so. I mean, it’s more for just that idea. I hope everybody knows that they’re loved in general, because they most likely are by someone. I mean, I hope he knew, but more broadly, I hope everyone knows that they’re loved by someone, and if they’re not, or if they don’t know, that they either learn that they are or find love. … That was my hope with the song. No matter how much you might be told that you are loved or experience warmth and love in your day-to-day, you may forget it briefly. I feel like if you know that and you really know that all the time, hopefully you don’t put yourself in those situations. Hopefully.

Do you believe in some kind of afterlife?

I would say probably not, because I feel like at the end of the day, once our brain shuts off, the whole system shuts down. But at the same time, our body and the impact that we’ve left on other people, or the work we’ve left behind or the music or anything, that lives on. I’m not sure if the dead live on in any way or come back in any way; if they did, I would love it, but I have no idea. But again, people really leave their mark on the people around them.

You were talking about feeling like you don’t have all the time in the world, but you’ve been on a real creative tear in the past six years. You’ve put out multiple Pluralone albums. You’ve played with so many big artists. Have you been feeling an artistic resurgence now that you’re kind of a free agent? You can play by yourself, you can play with whoever you want, and it seems like there’s a huge demand for your talents.

I hope so! … I feel like my life has always just been one upward kind of slant toward creative mania. I beat myself up constantly about not getting enough done or not doing enough or not focusing enough on one thing and sort of diversifying my attention. I feel like it’s just I’m trying to focus and hone myself. I’m hoping it’s just going up and up and up. I hope I haven’t experienced a dip!

Oh, I don’t think you are.

OK, good. Yeah, I’m trying to just do it nonstop. That’s all I do.

I’d love to do a little lightning round of all the other projects you’ve been a part of. You’re part of an unofficial new “Wrecking Crew” with Chad Smith, Duff McKagan, and Andrew Watt. This wrecking crew played on the last two Ozzy Osbourne records. I want to know about that experience, because when Ozzy passed last year, we all were devastated, but what a way to go — because that guy, unlike most rock stars, got his flowers. He got to perform for beloved fans in his hometown of Birmingham one last time, just 17 days before he died.

See, that song that I kind of wrote for Taylor [Hawkins], I wouldn’t necessarily write that song for Ozzy. Because he strikes me as someone who knew. ….Chad always just had new recordings from those sessions and he would them and he seemed very excited. That was when I was just getting to know Andrew, and I was just really excited for all those guys. There seemed to be a real energy to what they were doing. And then 2021 rolls around and I’m sure we could talk about it a little bit, but as you well know, the world hasn’t heard the Morrissey album that we did…

Oh, of course I was going to ask about that!

That was the first record that I did with Andrew and Chad.

You’re talking about the Morrissey album that still hasn’t come out, Bonfire of Teenagers. Morrissey skipped straight to Makeup Is a Lie and did not put out Bonfire of Teenagers. But there was a lot of hype about the Bonfire record because it had you, Flea, Chad, Miley Cyrus, Iggy Pop. I’ve heard snippets of it, and it was very rockin’, much more rockin’ than you would expect from him. Why was it shelved?

Well, you know the way the world is now. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say anything, but he has just begun a relationship with Sire Records and put out the Makeup Is a Lie album. And since he has a label now, we’ll see.

What was it like working with him?

He would come in at the end of the night. It was incredible for all of us, an incredible process, because we were sort of giving carte blanche to do with his songs whatever we wanted. He had demo versions, and because that was sort of during COVID still, no one was traveling to studios or flying in band members or whatever. So, it was this weird moment where him and Andrew sort of got together and he said, “OK, well, just see what you can do.” And basically, we started one by one recording these songs that he had demoed, and he would show up at sort of dinnertime, 6 or 7PM, and he would, for the first time, hear his songs kind of a different way than he had left them. He had a demo and we would sort of make the song.

I’m surprised by this, because I would imagine Morrissey to be a control freak.

He may very well be, I’m not sure, but because of how odd the world was at this time and because of how fast Andrew particularly works, this was the way this album happened. And because [Morrissey] liked the results, it just carried on happening like that, day after day. I remember Jan. 6, and we all know what happened that day — that was the day that we did the title track. I remember doing the piano to that song and someone coming down the stairs saying, “Sorry, but you guys have got to see what’s going on. This is insane.”

It’s very interesting to me that you have these references, like “that was the day of the OJ chase,” or 9/11, or Jan. 6. It’s interesting how you associate moments in your career with various shitshows that were going on in the world at the time.

Yeah, I’m kind of date-y. I’m good with dates. I think I’ve freaked the Pearl Jam guys out a little bit, because they’ll start talking about something or mention a gig or a story, and because when I was a kid I memorized their tour dates. I’ll be like, “Oh, that was June 24, 1995.” I think they’re a little worried.

Well, Pearl Jam have kept you around, so I guess they’ve gotten over that! But back to Bonfire of Teenagers, you say that was the first time that your “wrecking crew” worked together, but I guess Morrissey liked what he heard, because you made a whole album.

Yeah, and it was only after the album was finished that he was just between labels at that point. So, that was the reason it never came out, because he just had a hard time securing a deal.

Why didn’t he put it out himself?

That’s a good question.

Like I said, I’ve only heard snippets of it, but it was a surprising sound from him. It was a rock record. It still sounded like Morrissey, but there was an oomph to it.

Well, there was also an oomph to it because we literally were doing a song a day and we were like, “Let’s just throw it down.” I mean, working with Andrew, especially in the studio he had at the time, which was the basement to a house in Benedict Canyon, for a couple of those songs in particular, I played bass, and I was this far from the drums. I was this far from Chad. I would feel the wind of the symbol. One of the greatest things about working with Andrew is that he really prizes live playing, and especially since I have such a relationship with Chad, it was so second- nature for me to be right there. I think my hearing has suffered from standing so close to Chad Smith, just because it’s almost like I can’t get close enough, because he’s so much fun to play with. And onstage we had such a jovial kind of smiley relationship, because Chad never plays the same thing twice. There’s always a new accent or fill. I started as a drummer, so I can’t stop looking at him and giving him winks and smiles.

I’m glad that the two of you have kept up not just your friendship, but also your working relationship. Was Morrissey nice, by the way?

Oh yeah, he was great. He was fantastic. He’s always been such a hero of mine, so at first I would just kind of hang in the back. He came in one time when I was in the vocal booth doing an acoustic guitar part, so we needed isolation — so I’m in there and from the vantage point I had, I could see that there was a new entry, and I go, “Shit! I’m not done yet! He’s going to be here when I’m throwing this down!” It was just an amazing moment to be working with him like that.

You worked on Elton John’s Who Believes in Angels? record last year that he did with Brandi Carlile. That was another surprising album. It was a very funky and skronky. The opening song was so glam-rock. A lot of that album hearkened back to what people think of as classic ’70s Elton. It had a lot of oomph to it too.

And the intro of the album is supposed to be kind of “Funeral for a Friend”-y, like the beginning of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. … I was given the task to make an intro, and I took a couple days and I wrote something that was like five minutes long. And then suddenly out of blue, Andrew said, “Oh, we’re coming over. Elton wants to hear what you’re doing.” I was like, “It’s not done. It’s not done!” And we listened to it and then [Elton] walked out and he told Andrew, “Oh, it’s great, but it’s too long” — which is like, of course it is! But I was given the assignment to do a “Funeral for a Friend” thing. … The experience doing that record was, again, was sort of a last-minute thing. Andrew said, “Hey, come down, bring your synth stuff.” Little did I know that I’d be doing it for a month, or however long we worked on it. It was such an incredible experience.

Your wrecking crew also worked on Iggy Pop’s Every Loser.

I can’t remember whose idea it was, but I know that I helped get Iggy’s contact info through a friend of mine who had worked with him. The idea came up to have Iggy’s voice on a song or at the end of a song, and it worked out perfectly. But in doing so, Andrew and Iggy developed a quick friendship over the phone and then he sent him some music. And then before you know it, we were doing an Iggy record, or Andrew’s doing one.

Did you tour in the band with Andrew, Chad, and Duff for the Iggy tour?

I was working with Pearl Jam, so I couldn’t do the tour, but I was able to do Jimmy Kimmel. And then we had a sort of celebration dinner at Andrew’s house.

Was Iggy wearing a shirt?

I don’t remember. But he was certainly not wearing a shirt when he came barreling onto the stage for the Jimmy Kimmel performance and he was like, “Fucking go!” He psyches everyone out for the song as it’s counted off, and it was incredible. He’s so rabid. But I gave his manager a note. I wrote [Iggy] a real sweet note, because he’s the hero of mine and I didn’t get a ton of time with him, because I couldn’t do the tour. I felt badly that I couldn’t give the tour. I don’t even know if he knows who I am or if he gives a shit … I don’t know if he knew like, “Oh, the guitar player over there can’t do it. ” But I wrote a note. It was heartbreaking to me that I couldn’t do the tour.

I have to ask what the note said!

I could actually pull it up. I could read it to you. I’m sure I could find it in my phone. But it just basically said, “It’s beyond an honor to be involved in this record. And luckily I’ve gotten to play with you today. I’m so sorry I can’t tour. You mean a lot to me.”

That’s very wholesome.

And that day and the previous night at dinner, he was just so genuinely sweet and kind of open. He seems like a real, special person. He has a very hard past, but I think a lot of people that I am drawn to, you can really tell that there’s a really big heart there and a really deep sort of human feeling.

I think Iggy is an amazing example of aging in rock, gracefully or ungracefully. Proudly ungracefully! You’ve worked with Sparks, who are on that new Gorillaz record, and they’re in their eighties. And they’re having the biggest moment of their career in decades. You played with Sparks for a couple years.

Yes, that was an amazing experience. And that was sort of [Redd Kross’s] Steve McDonald’s fault. He pulled me into that, and that was the universe opening up in this crazy way. They had a guitar player, Dean Menta, who played with Faith No More for a while. He was the guitar player, but they wanted a rhythm player. And Steve said, “Come on, you don’t have to learn. Just do the rhythm. It’ll be easy for you.”

I can’t imagine playing Sparks songs is easy, though!

No, not easy, but I didn’t have to learn solos. It was just the chords. And I think I knew most of the songs already! That’s what I mean by easy. I didn’t have a lot of responsibility.

Why weren’t you in the Sparks Brothers documentary?

That was pure scheduling. I was back and forth with [director] Edgar Wright’s team about that a few times, and it was just from my touring schedule. It was heartbreaking to me that I missed it.

So many people were in that doc — from Beck to Jack Antonoff off to Vince Clarke to Duran Duran to Weird Al — all talking about how great Sparks are. What would you have said if you’d been in the film?

That they’re the sort of epitome of creative dedication and nonstop drive and a sort of beautifully obsessive, uncompromising work ethic. And that is above all, to me, just the greatest thing. They’re clearly driven by a passion for what they do, and you just can’t say that about everybody. And it’s is own thing with the love between brothers. I mean, for people to do the amount of great work that they’ve done, over the span of time that they’ve done it, it’s unrivaled.

And there are the Red Kross brothers. They also had a great documentary, Born Innocent, and you are in that one, billed as their “82nd drummer” or something like that.

It’s some unrealistic number.

They’ve had a lot of drummers, and you drummed on their The Redd Album, the self-titled double-album they put out in 2024. You produced it too. You have a friendship that obviously goes way back, particularly with Steve, but how did that collaboration come about?

That came about at a Sparks show, actually! I went with Steve to see Sparks at the Hollywood Bowl. Steve bought tickets because we were convinced their guest list would be nuts. And then somehow we were sat right behind their manager and their close friends, so it was like this very sweet, loving, familial experience. And then [Redd Kross’s] Jeff [McDonald] came. ,,, Once we were there together, me and Jeff and Steve together, in Steve’s mind it was solidified. I actually had to push them back two weeks because of the Elton record. I didn’t trust anybody with all the synthesizer equipment I’d brought to that [Elton] session, so I was loading it, let’s say, on a Tuesday —I spent the whole day moving out of Sunset Sound where we did [Elton’s album] back to my space —and we started [the Redd Kross album] on a Wednesday. Literally the next day, I started with Redd Kross. And as I have said to them and to anyone who brings it up, it was the easiest production job probably on Earth or in the history of music, because the songs were so damn good. … It was so much fun to do and just so easy to do. Just the amount of brilliance in those songs was unquestionable. I didn’t have to do anything.

What would be your dream collaboration, someone you have not worked with yet?

Let’s put it out there. Since we talked about him… come on, Damon! Let’s do this!

Damon Albarn?

Yes. I went to Ethiopia with him. Right when I joined the Chili Peppers, Flea was asked to go to Ethiopia because he had done one of their Africa Express trips already and Chad and Anthony couldn’t just drop everything on a dime. I was like, “Let’s go!” So, Flea and I went. I think three days after he got the call, we were on a plane to London to meet up with the Africa Express [musical collective] group, which is an amazing thing that Damon and a couple other guys started. And next thing you know, we were in Addis Ababa and basically on a sort of a musical field trip. Every day, we had a new musical excursion. … And then on the last night, we all had a big jam at a bar. It was amazing.

Wow. What a life you’ve led!

One of my greatest talents has been weaseling my way into different things. But for some reason, [Damon] hasn’t taken the bait.

Well, I’m glad you weaseled your way into Licorice Pizza for this fascinating conversation. But in terms of Pluralone and whatever else you have planned for your career, what’s next for you?

Well, I started album number five last week. [A Drop in the Ocean] is 2022, all the stuff I started to record in 2022, and then there is the pile from 2023. I was trying to get them both out this year, because I need to empty the bin.

Will your new stuff be more reflective of the shitshow of our current dark times?

Yes. Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s mostly about the darkest of the dark.