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What keeps the Red Hot Chili Peppers from retiring to the beach to sit and eat burritos? Rob Fitzpatrick asks the LA rock aristocrats how they keep things chaotic after all this time Half of the Red Hot Chili Peppers are sitting opposite me on a pair of sumptuously plump sofas in a corner suite at the top of a beachfront hotel in Santa Monica, California. Outside the window to my left is the Pacific, while outside the one to my right are the fleshpots and fairgrounds of Venice Beach. It’s 2pm and the sun thumps down in thick, exhausting waves. Even the guy lying flat on his back by the pool, the one with his legs artfully spread so his inner thighs don’t miss out, yanks his towel up in submission and retreats to the tented shade by the bar. On the beach, huge bulldozers roll back and forth endlessly shifting sand, their reverse gear beeps punctuating our every sentence. Bass player Michael “Flea” Balzary – incredibly, this advert for perpetual adolescence is now 48 – is explaining something about how his love of surfing informs his love of songwriting, and I’m trying to keep up, but his outfit and demeanour aren’t helping me concentrate.