Exclusive Interview by Paul Salfen and Remington Rafael, Text by Christine Thompson for AMFM Magazine
In an exclusive conversation with AMFM Magazine’s Paul Salfen and Remington Rafael, multi-instrumentalist Josh Klinghoffer opens up about the long, nonlinear journey behind his fourth Pluralone album, A Drop in the Ocean, out today on Org Music. The former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist and current Pearl Jam touring member reflects on songs that refused to let go for years, the grounding decision to return to acoustic guitar, the quiet power of making music for its own sake, and why even after collaborating with rock legends he still pinches himself daily. With characteristic humility and hard-won wisdom, Klinghoffer shares the personal philosophy that has carried him from teenage rebellion to some of the biggest stages in the world: there was never a Plan B, and there still isn’t.
When Josh Klinghoffer picks up the phone, he sounds exactly like the guy who has spent the last two decades quietly (and sometimes loudly) shaping some of modern rock’s most memorable moments – humble, thoughtful, and still slightly amazed by his own life. Speaking with AMFM Magazine’s Paul Salfen and Rafael Remington just as A Drop in the Ocean arrives, the multi-instrumentalist behind Pluralone, Dot Hacker, and high-profile stints with Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Jane’s Addiction, and more, is in a reflective mood.
The new album, his fourth under the Pluralone banner, feels both ancient and brand new. Many of these songs began taking shape in 2022, with recording starting that year, additional work in 2023, and final touches completed in late 2025. “It feels like it’s ancient to me because it’s never finished,” Klinghoffer says with a laugh. “And you’re like, it’s never finished. And it’s still not out.” Even now, with the record finally seeing the light of day, he’s already deep into the next one, piecing together ideas that have been simmering just as long.
The leadoff track, “I Feel Like I’ve Done Wrong,” carries special weight for him. Written quickly at the tail end of sessions for his previous album with producer Clint Walsh, it arrived with an energy that has stayed with Klinghoffer ever since. “That song has been exciting to me since the day I wrote it,” he says. “It’s the one that comes out sort of like with a bit of a splash.”
Throughout A Drop in the Ocean, Klinghoffer deliberately stripped things back. A multi-instrumentalist accustomed to endless sonic choices, he found clarity by returning to the basics – primarily himself and an acoustic guitar. The result is an album that feels lived-in, intimate, and emotionally direct. Loss threads through the record, most poignantly on “I Hope You Knew,” which was quietly released on March 25, the anniversary of his friend Taylor Hawkins’ passing. Other tracks wrestle with grief, self-doubt, and the unstable “you” that sometimes feels like it’s aimed at the world and sometimes squarely at himself.
Klinghoffer’s humility is disarming. When asked about the natural musical gift that has carried him through a remarkable career, he immediately pivots to everything he hasn’t done. “All I do is run down the checklist of the gifts I don’t have,” he says. He credits (and gently indicts) his younger self for relying heavily on natural ability rather than rigorous technical study. “I was a bit lazy when it came to the actual study… guitar scales or rudiments on the drums.” His long-term memory is extraordinary when it comes to film dialogue and specific vocal inflections from movies he saw as a child, yet lyrics, his own or anyone else’s, remain slippery. “I have a terrible time remembering lyrics,” he admits. “I guess some type of visual melody.”
The most powerful thread running through the conversation is the story of how he got here. Around age 15, Klinghoffer essentially left high school. The attendance policy felt absurd to him, and the whole process of trying to graduate had become a comedy he no longer wanted to participate in. “That was kind of the moment where I guess there was no turning back,” he says. He taught himself guitar by staying up all night and sleeping during the day to avoid his parents. There was no Plan B. Music wasn’t a hobby anymore, it was the path.
That same fearless commitment has defined his career. From those teenage nights to sharing stages with the bands he grew up worshipping, Klinghoffer still experiences daily moments of “extreme shock and awe.” His advice to young musicians is simple but profound: be yourself, do what you love as much as possible, explore every avenue, and keep going even when it gets hard. Most importantly, do it for the inner reward—not for money, likes, or validation. “Fear won’t really get you anywhere,” he says. “It’ll just get you regretting what you didn’t do.”
That philosophy extends to performing. While he opened for Pearl Jam solo a couple of years ago (after the original 2020 dates were postponed), Klinghoffer has a complicated relationship with playing alone. Small stages, where he can see people’s faces and hear glasses clinking, feel more exposing than arenas. For the next Pluralone record—which he’s already finishing, he plans to assemble a trio and properly hit the road. “Someday soon, I hope to… learn trio versions of songs that I’ll now have over five records to pick from,” he says. “That seems like a good time to go on the road.”
At the heart of everything is a simple, almost spiritual drive. When Klinghoffer reflects on his purpose, he lands on something deceptively modest: “to make the world a better place somehow… through music and what I do professionally.” He knows music has the power to brighten someone’s world, because it still does that for him. Even after all these years, when he’s in the car listening to working mixes, he can still access that same feeling of wonder he had as a kid discovering music for the first time.
A Drop in the Ocean captures that feeling in its rawest, most honest form. It’s the sound of an artist who has done everything (stadiums, side projects, high-profile collaborations) returning to the quiet, essential act of creation. As Klinghoffer sings on the closing track “Sadly,” over a preserved iPhone voice memo: “I’m gonna try / No idea why / It’s a drop in the ocean.”
Sometimes the smallest drops are the ones that ripple the farthest.
The Taylor Hawkins Tribute in Josh Klinghoffer’s A Drop in the Ocean
One of the most quietly powerful moments on Pluralone’s new album A Drop in the Ocean (released today, June 12, 2026) is the track “I Hope You Knew.” Klinghoffer released it early and without much fanfare on March 25, 2026 — the fourth anniversary of Taylor Hawkins’ death.
It is a genuine tribute, but like much of Klinghoffer’s songwriting, it refuses to stay in the purely personal. It expands into something broader, more universal, and ultimately hopeful.
Klinghoffer knew Taylor Hawkins for a long time — since around 2000, when their circles overlapped in the Los Angeles rock scene (Klinghoffer was playing with The Bicycle Thief; Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers were often nearby). He wasn’t as close to Hawkins as mutual friends like Chad Smith or Chris Chaney, but it was a real, longstanding acquaintance. They shared stages and social spaces over the years, including a memorable 2019 moment at Peak To Sky where Klinghoffer performed alongside Hawkins.
When Hawkins died in March 2022 at age 50, the music community was devastated. Klinghoffer later said that amid the grief and the rumors that circulated afterward, his strongest recurring thought was simple and human: “I fucking hoped he knew how much people really loved him.”
That thought became the seed of the song.
In recent interviews around the album rollout, Klinghoffer has been clear that “I Hope You Knew” is not only about Taylor Hawkins. It uses that loss as a doorway into a larger idea:
He hopes everyone knows they are loved — because even when people tell you repeatedly, it’s easy to forget in dark moments. And that knowledge, he suggests, can be protective. If you truly feel loved and worthy, maybe you don’t end up in situations that put you at risk.
“I hope you knew you were loved… I hope everybody knows that they’re loved in general, because they most likely are by someone… That was my hope with the song. No matter how much you might be told that you are loved or experience warmth and love in your day-to-day, you may forget it briefly.”
It’s a gentle, almost spiritual message wrapped in grief. The song doesn’t scream or over-explain. It sits with the ache and then offers a quiet lifeline.
This track is a perfect microcosm of A Drop in the Ocean’s emotional core. The whole record deals with loss, time, self-doubt, and the fragile hope that keeps people moving forward. Other songs touch on anticipating heartbreak (“I Don’t Want to Let You Go”) or the disorientation of grief and memory. “I Hope You Knew” anchors that theme with real-world weight.
It also embodies the creative philosophy Klinghoffer shared with us in the AMFM interview: music as a way to make the world a little brighter, to process heavy emotions without letting fear paralyze you, and to create from a place of inner reward rather than external noise. Releasing the song on the exact anniversary and then placing it on the full album feels deliberate — an act of remembrance that also serves the living.
The rock world has seen many public tributes to Taylor Hawkins since 2022 (Pearl Jam, with whom Klinghoffer now tours and records, has participated in several). What makes this one distinctive is its restraint and introspection. There’s no big production or stadium singalong here. It’s one musician speaking directly to another — and, by extension, to anyone who has ever lost someone or struggled to feel worthy of love.
Klinghoffer has always had a reputation as a generous collaborator and a deeply feeling artist. On A Drop in the Ocean, and especially on “I Hope You Knew,” that generosity turns inward and outward at the same time. He’s honoring a friend while offering the rest of us a reminder we all need: You are loved. Try to remember it.
It’s one of the most moving and human moments on an already intimate record.
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