Anthony Kiedis:

That’s a song that John brought—the arrangement and a version of that melody. I’m never able to recreate his melodies perfectly—he’s just on a different melodic level—so I usually put it through a simplification machine. I didn’t overthink it. It was the first idea that came to my mind when I heard that arrangement, which is very bombastic and almost like a huge classical orchestra, exploding and then going way back. It was a reflection on life in America, but not a good or a bad reflection—just, this is it. We might be bloated, we might be overloaded with more than we can handle, and let’s just take a step back and rethink it just a little bit. But it’s not ‘this is wrong and that’s right’. It’s just ‘this is who we’ve become’.

–via Apple Music

Flea:

John just walked in one day with this song structure, and it’s my favourite one…it just rocks is all I can say. And the parts go together so well. I love it when someone does something that I would never think of in a million years. The way it builds, and swells, and climaxes, and comes back down, and builds, and swells, and climaxes again, through this really beautiful just gorgeous chord movement…and, y'know, evolving into this thing thats so bombastic. Anthony’s vocals drive me crazy with how good they are, when he starts talking about the sound, the taste, the smell…it says so much without needing to go on some diatribe or narrative or billion words…just like, man, I feel you, I smell you, I taste you, I feel this…and I love this song. These Are the Ways, one of my favourite songs the Red Hot Chili Peppers have ever done.

–via Sirius XM