Red Hot Chili Peppers were “against the hair-metal scene”.
The ‘Californication’ hitmakers rose up through the Hollywood music scene in the mid-1980s where they focused on the art punk underground, and bassist Flea admitted there was a lot of “petty bulls***” at that time.
He told Classic Rock magazine: “We were definitely against the hair-metal scene. We were like, ‘F*** them. We’re the underground, art-rock, get-weird east side guys; those guys are just rehashing Aerosmith and KISS.’
“In retrospect it was all petty bulls***. A lot of those bands were f****** great. Guns N’ Roses was a great band.”
There were also some similarities between Chili Peppers – completed by drummer Chad Smith, and guitarist John Frusciante – and their rivals on the Sunset Strip.
Frontman Anthony Kiedis said: “We were a party band, but you have to bring something to the party.
“Flea was instrumental in saying, ‘We have to be good, we have to write some new s***, we have to have osmething to move these people.
“We always came fully loaded.”
Meanwhile, Flea admitted there was a level of “arrogance” in their early years as they saw themselves as genuine rock stars.
Flea explained: “There was a certain arrogance. A ‘F*** the world, f*** the system, f*** the authority, f*** the powers that be, we’re us and we’re doing our thing our way, we’re street kids’ thing.
“We were going hard and being wild.”
And Kiedis explained how the band – whose 12th studio album ‘Unlimited Love’ will be released on April 1 – didn’t have ambitious beyond the underground scene at that pont.
He added: “It didn’t dawn on us that there was something other than selling out clubs and making people happy and being original.”