Did you know Red Hot Chili Peppers had one of their relatives sing backup on one of their biggest songs?
Mother knows best, and sometimes sings best, too.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers needed to call Mom for help while recording their biggest hit.
Which Chili Peppers Member Called His Mom?
The Red Hot Chili Peppers spent part of 1991 recording at The Mansion, a four-bedroom home owned by Rick Rubin that sits in the Laurel Canyon portion of Los Angeles. The music would not only be released later that year as Blood Sugar Sex Majik, but it would also encourage Rubin to use the home more regularly for recording sessions moving forward with such acts as Linkin Park, System of a Down, Slipknot and Audioslave.
Eventually, it was time to lay down the tracks for “Under The Bridge.” According to the 2004 book Fornication: The Red Hot Chili Peppers Story, Rubin felt the song needed a natural progression from the “wall of voices” that had been on previous Chili Peppers recordings, such as their cover of “Higher Ground” and “Knock Me Down.”
Rubin wanted a chorus, and guitarist John Frusciante knew how to quickly get one into the studio. He just needed to call his mom.
John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers
How John Frusciante’s Mom Helped In The Studio
Adding a choir to the song not only provided depth but also an easy solution for how the Chili Peppers could end the song without having to repeat the chorus yet again.
“The chorus was such a massive standout throughout the song that simply closing the track with repetition seemed like an anti-climax, so they had to figure out a workaround,” Far Out magazine wrote about the recording of “Under The Bridge.”
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Frusciante called his mom, Gail Bruno, who was a trained vocalist who also sang in her church choir. Bruno joined the band at The Mansion where Rubin got her voice on tape singing the lyrics “under the bridge downtown.”
“She would go on to add the key harmony vocal to the song, which was then multi-tracked by Rubin,” Jeff Apter wrote in Fornication: The Red Hot Chili Peppers Story.
Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Under the Bridge”
Far Out credited the move to add choir vocals as what turned “Under The Bridge” from a slow rock song to the Chili Peppers’ first ballad.
“The fact you can hear the original vocal amongst the choir sound also helps, as it keeps that heir of familiarity within the piece whilst taking it higher,” Far Out wrote in a 2024 article.
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