We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.

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.

Flea and Anthony are into funk, like old school Meters and stuff like that.

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.

I had sort of exhausted all the avenues playing in Detroit. So again, through the stewardship of my brother, I ended up in California and went to the Musicians Institute in L.A. I wanted to get better as a player.

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.

Playing well with others is important - not being too flashy, just keeping good time and of course coming up with cool beats. A good snare drum, kick drum, high hat. Just getting good at the hand feet coordination.