If Jared Leto had recruited Chad Smith instead of his brother Shannon to play in Thirty Seconds to Mars, then this may be what they would’ve sounded like.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer attempts to play along with the Mars hit “The Kill” in a new video for the YouTube channel Drumeo, which asks drummers to put their spin on a song that they’ve never heard before.
“What the f*** was that?” Smith asks after hearing “The Kill” for the first time. “Is that, like, My Chemical Romance or something? … It’s some kind of emo thing, I don’t know what the f*** it is.”
While it may seem hard to believe that Smith never heard a single that at one point held the record for most weeks on Billboard‘s Alternative Airplay chart, he shares that songs like “The Kill” are “not my normal wheelhouse.” Even still, Smith delivers a passionate and energetic performance alongside “The Kill,” even breaking a stick at one point.
“It was fun, because I love improvising and jamming to new music and whatever it is,” Smith says.
At the end of the video, he laughs, “Let’s get back to s*** that I know.”
You can hear plenty of that on RHCP’s two 2022 albums, Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen.
Thirty Seconds to Mars, meanwhile, dropped a new record, It’s the End of the World but It’s a Beautiful Day, earlier in September.
(Video contains uncensored profanity.)
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