Gill: 'Chili Peppers based career on us'

Andy Gill has claimed that Red Hot Chili Peppers based their career on his post-punk band Gang Of Four.

The guitarist told Metro that the Anthony Kiedis-fronted group are happy to acknowledge their debt to his band, who this week released new studio album Content.

Of people copying the Gang Of Four sound, Gill said: "I'm used to it now. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have obviously based their career on Gang Of Four and they'd admit that.

"The guitar on their single 'Can't Stop' was directly from one of our early songs and when I heard it I thought 'that's going a bit far'. I bumped into their bass player, Flea, a few years back at a party and he said, 'Andy, I just don't understand why you've never sued us'."

When it was noted that he produced Red Hot Chili Peppers' self-titled debut in 1984, Gill added: "That was a legendary album. One of the band members did a pile of s**t in a pizza box and placed it on the mixing desk in the middle of a mix. The engineer literally ran screaming from the studio. The last time I saw him he was running down Sunset Boulevard."