CHAD SMITH

'Chad Smith' (born Chadwick Gaylord Smith [2], 25 October 1961, Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S.) is the drummer of the American rock band, Red Hot Chili Peppers.
He joined the Chili Peppers in late 1988 after former drummer, Jack Irons quit because of the distress and chaos over former guitarist Hillel Slovak's death from a drug overdose. In 1993, he released "Red Hot Rhythm Method", an educational video for aspiring drummers.
At Live Earth in 2007, Smith was part of SOS Allstars with Roger Meddows-Taylor of Queen and close friend Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters.

Contents

Biography

Personal life

Equipment

Stadium Arcadium Tour Kit (2006-2007):

Selected Discography

Trivia

External links

Notes

Biography

Smith grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and attended Andover High School and Lahser High School, graduating from Lahser in 1980. While he was still at school, he ran away from home for a period of time. When he returned, his mother sent him to a boarding school. He then worked a series of jobs while playing in several bands, including Tilt, Tyrant, Terence and E-Trian. One of them, Toby Redd, put out a record; and opened for Kansas.
Later in his twenties, he moved to California, where his brother Brad lived, and ended up in Los Angeles where he joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers. According to Anthony Kiedis' autobiography ''Scar Tissue'' and Flea's liner notes on Mother's Milk reissue, after Smith's first audition for the band, Anthony Kiedis told him he was allowed to join the band if he would shave his head, to test Smith's devotion to the band, but mostly because of Kiedis' dislike of Smith's more conformitive Rock & Roll hair style (which Kiedis' likened to a Guns N' Roses look; long hair and a bandana), as it didn't mesh with the band's punk/funk, and Alternative image. Smith came back the next day with his hair still in a bandana, yet was allowed to stay as Kiedis found his obstinancy impressive, and according to Flea, they liked his funk-groove drumming style. Smith's tenacity to keep his long hair was most likely due to Smith's discomfort with his receding hairline, thus clarifying the reason why he almost always wears a baseball cap.
Although he is mainly known as the drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smith's drumming is featured on over a hundred albums, not including those recorded with Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has also toured the world extensively performing drum clinics, and recently did a series of clinics with one of his drumming heroes, Deep Purple's Ian Paice.
Smith is currently developing a side project called "Chickenfoot" with former Van Halen members Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony.^[1]

Personal life

Chad's parents are Curtis and Joan Smith. He has two older siblings, Bradley and Pamela. Many people thinks he look a lot like David Hasselhoff, and some even think that they are related. He was married in 1994 to Maria St. John and while together they had one child: Manon St. John (1997). He has three other children: Justin (1998), Ava (2000) and Cole (2005). The two divorced but he has since remarried to an architect named Nancy on 8 May, 2006 in Hopetown, Abaco, Bahamas. When not onstage or in the studio Smith enjoys scuba diving, baseball, basketball, and riding his Harleys (he owns a black Road King that he has personally done modifications on, and in a 2006 interview with Modern Drummer magazine, said that his 2003 100th Anniversary issue Soft Tail was his "main mode of transportation").
He also lives in a 1929 Spanish house that Cary Grant and Randolph Scott lived in together from 1932 to 1936. Ex-Deep Purple bassist Glenn Hughes recorded an album in Chad's "home studio" in late 2005 - early 2006.

Equipment

The kit presently used by Smith is a typical example of a Rock drum setup. He currently endorses Pearl Drums and Sabian Cymbals. He has made with Pearl his own signature snare drum. The Chad Smith Signature Snare is a 14x5” inch snare which has a Black Nickel Plated Shell. Chad has also designed 2 signature crash-cymbals with Sabian - the 18.5" Chad Smith Explosion Crash and the 20.5" Chad Smith Explosion Crash. Chad also endorses Vater drumsticks. He has a popular pair of signature sticks. The Chad Smith Funkblaster sticks have a unique shape wood tip which makes them stand out from Vater’s other signature sticks.
In 2005, Pearl and CeeLite created a drum kit incorporating CeeLite's lighting technology to illuminate Chad's Pearl Masters kit on stage. Chad's new Pearl kit is wrapped with CeeLite's flat, flexible Light Emitting Capacitor (LEC) panels which can be programmed to dim, fade and flash. The kit features 6 ply 7.5 mm 100% aged maple shells with chrome hardware.
Chad first played this kit on NBC's Saturday Night Live on the 5/6/2006.
The following is the CURRENT Drumkit used by Smith on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers:

Stadium Arcadium Tour Kit (2006-2007):

★ Pearl Master MRX Drums 6ply Maple Drums & Sabian Cymbals:

★ Drums - Custom CeeLight Finish

★
★ 12x10" Rack Tom

★
★ 14x14" Floor Tom

★
★ 16x16" Floor Tom

★
★ 14x5.5" Yamaha Jimmy Chamberlin Signature Snare

★
★ 14x5" Pearl Masters Snare (snare wire turned off, used as timbale)

★
★ 24x16" Bass Drum

★ Cymbals - Sabian (all with brilliant finish)

★
★ 14" AAX-Celerator Hi-Hats

★
★ 10" AA Splash

★
★ 21" AA Rock Ride

★
★ 19" AA Medium Crash

★
★ 20" AA Rock Crash

★
★ 20" AA China

★
★ 19" AAX China

Selected Discography

★ Glenn Hughes - ''Music For The Divine'' (June 2006)

★ Dixie Chicks - ''Taking The Long Way'' (2006)

★ Red Hot Chili Peppers - ''Stadium Arcadium'' (2006)

★ Glenn Hughes - ''Soul Mover'' (2005)

★ Glenn Hughes - ''Soulfully Live In The City Of Angels'' (2004)

★ John Frusciante - ''Shadows Collide With People'' (2004)

★ Hughes Turner Project - HTP 2 (2003)

★ Glenn Hughes - ''Songs In The Key Of Rock'' (2003)

★ Johnny Cash - ''Unearthed'' (2003)

★ Red Hot Chili Peppers - ''By the Way'' (2002)

★ Dave Navarro - ''Trust No One'' (2001)

★ Loud Rocks - Compilation (2000)

★ Fishbone - ''The Psychotic Friends Nuttwerk'' (2000)

★ Red Hot Chili Peppers - ''Californication'' (1999)

★ Leah Andreone - ''Alchemy'' (1998)

★ John Fogerty - ''Blue Moon Swamp'' (1997)

★ Lili Haydn - ''Lili'' (1997)

★ Howard Stern's Private Parts (1997)

★ Thermadore - ''Monkey on Rico'' (1996)

★ Wayne Kramer - ''Dangerous Madness'' (1996)

★ Grace of my Heart Soundtrack (1996)

★ Red Hot Chili Peppers - ''One Hot Minute'' (1995)

★ A Means to an End: The Music of Joy Division (1995)

★ General Clusterfunk- ''Starin' Straight at the Sun'' (1994)

★ Wild Colonials - ''Fruit of Life'' (1994)

★ Red Hot Chili Peppers - ''Blood Sugar Sex Magik'' (1991)

★ Queen Remix (1991)

★ Twenty Mondays - ''Twist Inside'' (1991)

★ Second Self - ''Mood Ring'' (1990)

★ Red Hot Chili Peppers - ''Mother's Milk'' (1989)

★ Toby Redd - ''In the Light'' (1986)

★ Pharaoh - ''Point Of Entry'' (1982)

Trivia

★ At 6'3 (191 cm), Chad is the tallest member of the Chili Peppers.^[2]

★ He holds a world record for playing with a 308-piece drum kit.^[3]

★ Chad was named the best drummer alive in a recent Doell & Ford Magazine writers poll.

★ During the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, Chad played drums with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the eventual album of the year winners, the Dixie Chicks.

★ Chad is a smoker.

★ Chad cites Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, Mitch Mitchell from The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Roger Taylor from Queen and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham as his primary influences.

★ Not to be confused with the drummer of the same name that was playing in Anacrusis.

★ He is best friends with Taylor Hawkins, Foo Fighters drummer.

★ He is also known for having an uncanny resemblance to actor Will Ferrell, leading to a joke that they are in fact the same person.

★ He dated Katherine L. O'Keefe (Macksey) For a brief period in high school

★ He has double jointed arms

★ He often sports a University of Michigan hat onstage and interviews

★ At the Live Earth concert, Smith played with friend Taylor Hawkins and one of his drumming influences, Roger Taylor.

External links

★ Red Hot Chili Peppers Official Website

★ Chad Smith Discussion Forum

★ Chad Smith Fan Site

★ Biography for Chad Smith on IMDb

★ Sabian Cymbals Official Website

★ Pearl Drums Official Website

Notes

1. http://www.vhnd.com/articles/070109-03.shtml
2. celebheights.com
3. [3]