The Red Hot Chili Peppers will be reuniting in October, according to the band's drummer Chad Smith. "That's the plan," Smith says, saying the band was originally going to take one year off, but it has turned into two. "Everybody was like, 'Y'know, I really like having this time off, not being a Chili Pepper and doing other things...It'll be two years in September, so now we're ready. You can't force people to play when they don't want to play or aren't ready to play or whatever -- not in our band, anyway." Smith says that while he expects Flea and guitarist John Frusciante may come in with a few ideas, the band will "do a lot of improvising and jamming and songs will come out of that, too. That's what we usually do. I don't know why it would be different."

Smith is currently on tour with the supergroup, Chickenfoot, featuring Joe Satriani, and Van Halen's Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony. The drummer is also about to release the first album of his band, Meatbats. The group first formed a few years back as an outgrowth of Smith, guitarist Jeff Kolman and keyboardist Ed Roth's work with Glenn Hughes. "It's all very loose," Smith says. "It's instrumental music -- power, funk, rock music. It's a niche. We're not going for the Mariah Carey crowd or anything. It's just really fun and they're great guys and we just have fun hanging out and playing." The album will be released September 15th, and the band has already recorded a second album that they hope to release early next year, and plans to release a live album as well.  "We have three albums in the can and none of them are out yet," Smith says with a laugh. "But we won't wait very long. It's not like we're putting out singles and we have to have some kind of strategy. This is stuff we can put out whenever it feels right."