From Dua Lipa to Miley Cyrus, 5 pop artists Chad Smith has recorded with

Chad Smith He has established himself over the years as one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock. Uninterruptedly, the musician has been part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, one of the most popular bands of all time. In addition to his refined and excellent technique, he solved a stability problem in the group, which saw the drum stool change hands four times until his arrival.

What not everyone knows is that, in addition to their work with the chili peppers, Smith has a long career as a studio musician. And in this role, there is no distinction of musical style. He has recorded with heavy metal icons such as Ozzy Osbourne and Tarja Turunenin the same way that he worked with pop and hip hop stars.

The following list presents 5 pop artists with whom Chad already worked. The records were all made, as the agenda on the road with the Red Hot It’s always quite busy.

Lana Del Rey

Before 2019, Chad Smith You haven’t worked with as many pop artists. His record in the studio was already quite extensive, but it included rock names (Ozzy Osbourne, Tarja Turunen, Glenn Hughes, Joe Satriani, John Fogerty, Kid Rock, Wayne Kramer) and country (Johnny Cash, Brandi Carlile, Dixie Chicks, Jennifer Nettles).

The situation changed after he got a little more involved with Andrew Wattone of today’s great pop and hip hop producers — in addition to having recorded names like Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop and the aforementioned Ozzy, among many others. Apparently, working with the first pop artist in Smith of the curriculum, Lana Del Reyoccurred at the invitation of Wattone of the album’s producers Norman Fucking Rockwell!.

On this record, Chad was responsible for the drums on the fourth track, “Fuck It I Love You”, co-produced and co-signed by Watt.

Charli XCX

Also in 2019, Charli XCX released his third studio album, Charlie. This is another record co-produced by Andrew Wattpossibly responsible for the invitation to Chad Smith.

In this work, the drummer of Red Hot Chili Peppers plays on track 9, “White Mercedes”. The song was chosen by XCX to be one of the singles from the album, also receiving a music video.

Halsey

At the beginning of 2020, Halsey released his third studio album, Manic. The script is the same: Watt was one of the album’s producers and Smith ended up participating.

Here, Chad was in charge of track 8, “3AM”. Curiously, Andrew did not produce it: he was involved with other songs on the material. Greg Kurstin led the recordings of this song.

Dua Lipa

Maybe it’s from Dua Lipa the best-known pop song in the catalog of Chad Smith. In 2020, the artist released her second studio album, Future Nostalgia. Its eighth track, “Break My Heart”brings drums from the member of Red Hot Chili Peppers and co-production of Andrew Wattalso co-author.

In an interview with Drum, Smith confirmed that he was hired for this job through Watt. He said:

“My friend Andrew Watt is an extraordinary producer and was working with Dua Lipa. I got to the studio and they were finishing the session, they kind of created everything, practically. Andrew said: ‘I’m so glad you’re here! We were talking about how this song needs live drums [em vez de eletrônica]!’ I thought, ‘Here we go! Excellent!’.”

He then made an interesting observation about his mindset when working with Dua Lipa — probably replicated in his other pop works. The member of the chili peppers he was conscious enough to leave the spotlight on the singer, performing a drum line that didn’t offer more than was necessary.

“In a situation where you’re part of the artist’s ‘band,’ if you’re a singer, you’re just trying to do what they need or want to help make the song good. I’m not trying to put my stuff there. I just want to play. I just want to be like the drummer in her band for, I don’t know, two weeks, however long it takes to record. I just added drums to an already finished song. They already had electronic drums, but they wanted a disco-funk feel to the track.”

Miley Cyrus

And give him partnership Chad Smith/Andrew Watt once again. In 2021, the Metallica released an album called The Metallica Blacklist. Aiming to honor the 30th anniversary of his 1991 album of the same name (also known as Black Album), the group invited several artists from different styles to re-record their songs.

Shaken “Nothing Else Matters”, the work’s biggest hit, won 12 versions in total. One of them was recorded by a strong cast: Miley Cyrus on vocals, Chad Smith on the battery, Andrew Watt on guitar, Elton John on the piano, Yo-Yo Ma on the cello and the bassist himself Metallica, Robert Trujilloon the instrument in question.