On June 17, 2016, the Red Hot Chili Peppers delivered their 11th album, called The Getaway. One of its songs, “Sick Love,” features Elton playing piano, and at a release party, the band explained how he came to record on it.

“The song that he plays on was a song that we were working on for awhile before we started recording it,” guitarist Josh Klinghoffer told iHeartRadio in the video above, “and it just sounded like Elton was involved somehow, someway, So we thought we should just invite him down and see if he likes it and wants to play on it.”

The melody to “Sick Love” is very similar to Elton’s 1973 hit, “Bennie and the Jets.” Elton and Taupin were given co-writing credit on “Sick Love.”

And while you would think that somebody with a career that’s been as long and proflic as Elton’s would treat a recording studio like his second home, drummer Chad Smith remarked that it was quite the opposite. “He was kind of nervous, it was actually really kind of cute. When he came in, he looked for somewhere to sit really quick, and he sat down.”

Smith also spoke about the reasons why they got Danger Mouse to produce The Getaway after having worked exclusively with Rick Rubin since 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik. “He’s smart, handsome, powerful and has excellent taste in music.” The Getaway, which was mixed by Radiohead engineer Nigel Godrich, is the Chili Peppers’ first album since 2011’s I’m With You. They have previewed three songs to date, “Dark Necessities,” “We Turn Red” and the title track.

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