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Bummed Out Chili Peppers

When you're in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, apparently "Give It Away" is just the name of a song. The Chilis are getting red hot under the collar over an Internet leak of their new album, Stadium Arcadium, that threatens to cut into sales when the double CD set hits stores next week.

Chilis bassist Flea posted a rambling blog, formatted like a stream-of-consciousness poem, on the band's website when news of the leak first surfaced earlier this week. In it, he begs fans not to download what he insists will be "a pale imitation of the record." The diminutive bass player laments:

"it will be of the poor sound quality of the technique they used to
get it on there
and that will break my heart
it will break john frusciante's heart
it will break anthony kiedis's heart
and it will break the heart of chad smith"

Flea goes on to describe how the band "worked for a year and a half to make the epic record of our lives" and explains that, "business reasons aside," what really bums him out is the likelihood that files ripped to the Internet will suffer some sound loss due to file compression. He notes that Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante, in particular, is "sensitive" about sound, and "the idea of anyone getting and hearing this thing that way will devastate him."

Plus, Flea adds, "it is stealing from us, and that is lame."

So far there is no word on the source of the leak, though the usual suspects are music journalists, studio engineers, and post-production plant employees. [Editor's Note: They never sent us a copy, so you know it wasn't us!] The Chilis' label, Warner Bros., did make some advance copies of the album available to journalists and industry insiders, although those were all "watermarked" with a special digital code that should, in theory, allow them to trace the source of the leak.

For those of who aren't, in Flea's words, "lame," you can get the official version of Stadium Arcadium in stores beginning on May 9th.

--The ARTISTdirect Staff
05.05.06