Explore Quotes by Chad Smith

I just try to approach and serve the music in the way that I think is right for the band I'm in at the time.

Going up north with the redwoods and driving along the coast, it's got everything, man. It's got the desert, the mountains, and the ocean. It's beautiful.

I'm a musician. It's what I do! I wouldn't be too good at anything else.

The Chili Peppers do a lot of improvising, but it's within the framework of song structures. The Meatbats is from a purely instrumental standpoint. But when you hear the term 'instrumental music' you think it's real serious stuff and everybody's playing a million notes and it's about playing fast. That's not what we do.

People who come up to me are drummers or fans of the band. I don't get it too much, but I'll be somewhere and someone will have me take a picture or something.

Sometimes one of us will have a riff or a bass line from home but it really gels when we come together. We really have a strong special chemistry that we take advantage of when we get together.

Its very sort of spontaneous and organic, not a preconceived sort of jamming. Now we record everything, cause sometimes you'll forget, you know, 'what was that thing again?' So we record everything.

Drums all have their own particulars - each drum has a place where they sound the best - where they ring out and resonate the best, and the head surface isn't too loose or too tight, mainly so you get a good rebound off of the head.

I'm being a dad and a good husband.

Jazz can be so serious, no sense of humor.

Family time is really important to me.

The Meatbats are a throwback band.

I'm a little more of a lead instrument in the Meatbats.

I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium.

That's really the thing that got me into playing a lot - getting excited about playing along with my favorite bands like Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

I met the guys through a friend of a friend, and their former drummer had quit. I wasn't too familiar with the Chili Peppers before that, so I joined at the end of 88' and we finished recording Mother's Milk at the end of 89', next thing I know I'm in Spin with a sock.

There's something about the rawness of the live thing, there's no rhythm guitars behind the solo, nothing other than what you hear the people playing at that moment. It's exciting, it's about the performance.

I just love to play and I get a chance to play with other musicians and I jump on it.

Playing along with records is key. And as far as equipment goes it has gotten so much more affordable and the drum sets are of great quality. I play Pearl; their Export Series is great for a beginner.

I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.

In some of the L.A. clubs, people can act too cool to get into your music. That can get to be a bit much.