The Great Red Hot Chili Peppers Band

The Red Hot Chili Peppers created a synthesis of punk, funk, rock and rap to become one of the most popular and inventive groups of modern times. They have sold more than 60 million albums worldwide, and five of their albums have been certified multiplatinum in the U.S. They created two of the defining albums of the Nineties, Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Californication, and one of the most ambitious releases of the past decade, the double-disc Stadium Arcadium.

Their eclectic music has ranged from thrashy punk-funk to Hendrix-laced neopsychedelic rock to tuneful, ruminative California pop. “For all us to agree on a piece of music’s validity,” noted bassist Michael “Flea” Balzary, “that piece of music must cover all the blood types, all the seasons and all four corners of the globe.” The Red Hot Chili Peppers also rank high among rock’s most electrifying live acts, described by Flea as “a whirlwind of spontaneous anarchy, locked in with a cosmic hardcore soul groove.”