Anthony Kiedis thinks the Red Hot Chili Peppers have a "unique" sound because of his idiotic personality.

Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis

Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis

The 53-year-old frontman co-founded the band along with bassist Flea - whom he became friends with at Fairfax High School - and he believes his lack of music training helped them develop their unmatched style of rock/funk songwriting.

In an interview with Chris Evans on his breakfast show on BBC Radio 2, Kiedis said: "My guys [the other band members] studied music since they were young boys. I did not, so I think adding the idiot to the equation of very talented musicians gave us a unique

rub.

"We grew up in high school together and we all brought something different to the table. They started off young wanting to study and I didn't want to get into that. We found that if you added that person to this mix you got us."

During their 33-year career, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have released eleven studio albums - the most recent 'I'm Beside You' coming out this week - which have seen them always strive to reinvent their sound.

Kiedis says the style of their music was borne out of a desire to set themselves apart from other bands.

He said: "We didn't think about it but we never wanted to sound like anybody else."

Although the 'Under The Bridge' singer doesn't write about the same things he did in his younger years, he believes the band is very much the same as they always were, despite numerous line-up changes over the years.

Kiedis - who is joined in RHCP by Flea, Chad Smith and Josh Klinghoffer - explained: "The energy is similar, because I saw some old footage of us shot in France, dredged out of god knows where, and I was like, 'OK, the energy's still there.' The collective love of music, poetry and the brotherhood of sound I attribute that to the team."