Drummer Chad Smith (CHICKENFOOT, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS) is featured in a new interview with Ultimate Guitar discussing his side-project, BOMBASTIC MEATBATS. An excerpt is available below:

UG: You first started playing with Jeff Kollman (guitars/COSMOSQUAD) and Ed Roth (keyboards/RONNIE MONTROSE) from the band that would become the Bombastic Meatbats when you were the backing band for GLENN HUGHES?

Smith: "Yeah, myself, Ed and Jeff were kind of Glenn's band when he would do some shows once in a while. For some reason singers they don't always show up on time. It's like I don't know maybe 'cause they got no equipment to bring."

UG: Singers don't show up on time? Oh, my God.

Smith: "Shocking, I know. So we'd be just like jamming waiting for him to show up and it was kind of like, 'This is fun, man. This is cool. Let's make some songs.' Really that's how it came about. I don't remember whose great idea it was so that's what we did. We just got together. Ed, Jeff and I had played together in different things but mainly in Glenn's situation. And yeah, that's how it happened. Sh-t, it was fun-music should be fun. We like to have fun and that was it. Now we're making songs and making records and yeah, why not?"

UG: The stuff you were originally jamming on when you were waiting for Glenn to show up had the essence of what the Meatbats music would sound like?

Smith: "Yeah, that funk kind of thing. Exactly, yeah, pretty much. It's easy for us to go there; that's a lot of our influences and that's the kind of music we gravitate towards. It's very natural. We're not trying to be retro or anything. It's just kind of our vibe and stuff we grew up on and there's no singing of course. It's an instrumental band so there's a lot of room for improvising and stretching out and having conversations and taking risks. We just jam, man, and it's fun. But you have to have trust and be a good listener. The live album has all of that."

Go to this location for the complete interview.