Cave was asked about the quote in the latest entry for his Red Hand Files Q&A website. He chalked it up to being a "troublemaker, a shit-stirrer, feeling most at ease in the role of a societal irritant" in his younger days.

Cave’s comments about the Los Angeles funk-rockers have circulated as something of a punchline for roughly 25 years now. Though their exact origins appear to have been lost to time, the quote is often attributed to Cave as, “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always ‘The Red Hot Chili Peppers.’”

Nick Cave has addressed comments he made 25 years ago about US band the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Australian musician said the "offhand and somewhat uncharitable remark" has "followed me around for the last quarter-century",

I was unable to fully grasp at that point in my life, that Flea was a human being of an entirely different calibre”

Nick Cave explains how his Red Hot Chili Peppers diss became a meme and how he and Flea have since become friends.

There’s a famous Nick Cave quote that gets passed around whenever anyone wants to dismiss the music of a certain long-running Los Angeles funk-metal act: “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?