Red Hot Chili Peppers, ‘Brendan’s Death Song’

The newest single from the Red Hot Chili Peppers is an anthem dedicated to a dearly departed friend. It’s half funeral march and half rock ’n’ roll wake.

The Brendan in question is Brendan Mullen, a Los Angeles club owner that helped give the living legends their first big break. As the L.A. Times reports, the story goes like this: Frontman Anthony Keatis was on his way to the first days of the Peppers’ crucial 2009 reunion rehearsals when he received a mournful text message — Mullen had just died of a stroke while celebrating his 60th birthday.

Keatis showed up at the studio epically bummed. Mullen had been working on an oral history of the Peppers — he knew them all well. And so a jam in his memory began, and that slow, sensitive groove was the seed of ‘Brendan’s Death Song.’ The track begins with strummed guitar, tom beats and Keatis singing, “And you are love, you are the lucid dream, you are the ride / And when you hear this you know it’s your jam, it’s your goodbye.”

But more than only sorrow, the fifth single off of ‘I’m With You’ is also celebration:

“Brendan Mullen had a lot of friends. I was one of them. Brendan was an intellectual, a musician, a writer, a partyer and a regular dude,” said bassist Flea, along with the release of the song to radio. “And I speak for all of us when I say to Brendan … a love supreme! Brendan has broken through to the other side!”

Brendan will be missed — and celebrated.

Listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Brendan’s Death Song’ (Radio Edit)