The Red Hot Chili Peppers are based on a friendship that has lasted for 20 years. The Original peppers are Anthony Kiedis, Michael "Flea" Balzary, Hillel Slovak and Jack Irons. The friendship started in 1978 at Fairfax High where the peppers met. Anthony and Flea, both 15, met on campus. Flea had a kid in a headlock and was beating him when Anthony vame over and said, " If you lay another hand on him I'm going to have to ruff you up." Anthony was so intimidating that Flea let the kid go and when he and Anthony sat next to each other in drivers ed they became close friends. Both became friends with Hillel Slovak and the 3 became inseperable.
"Hillel and I, and Flea we were really a trio, and we spent alot of time of time listening to music, getting high, talking about life, going to the mountains, going to ocemity, going on back packing trips, just really becoming mutual friends."- Anthony Kiedis
"All the people I've seen no bodys like those three and they just found each other and it was fate." - James Slovak
Hillel got a guitar for his bar mitzva and taught Flea how to play bass. The 2 worked on their music together and felt a certain connection. The 3 graduated in 1980. In the summer of 1983 Anthony joined Flea and Hillel on stage and while they played their instruments Anthony sung a poem he wrote called Out In LA. Their sound was described by critics as "curiously original" and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were asked to come back. The peppers asked close friend Jack Irons to be the drummer and he accepted. The peppers first gig was at the Kit Kat Klub, a strip club in LA. The group only had 3 songs by then but when they recieved and encore from the audience, they came back out again wearing nothing but tube socks."It felt great to be onstage naked" says front man Anthony Kiedis. At frist the band was coined as a party band that would break up in a few years. But the peppers mix of punk, funk, and rock stayed around for 20 more years and counting.
"There was nothing like the Red Hot Chili Peppers." - Gwen Stefani
"They came on the scene and just blew the doors off traditional music as people knew it." - Kim White, Epitaph Radio Promotions
6 months later the peppers got a record deal. But their first self titled album wasnt what they wanted. So for the second album Freaky Styley they asked producer George Clinton to work with them.
"It was the best thing ever being embraced by George Clinton, such a prolific force in the history of music, you know, in this century one of the best liked us." - Anthony Kiedis
The Red Hot Chili Pepeprs toured non stop and soon audiences began to really notice them. Flea would play so agressivley that he wore a hole in his finger. Between songs some one would have to pour Krazy Glue into the hole. But Anthony was becoming addicted to heroin and by 1985 he was hooked. "It really ended up sinking its teeth into me, I started buying the lie," says Anthony of heroin. During the recording session for Freaky Styley it was discovered that Hillel was abusing heroin. The band was scared for Hillel and informed his brother James of Hillels addiction. When James confronted Hillel, he begged him not to tell their mother about his problem. But looking back James says "I would have told my mom if I had a second chance." Anthony and Hillel talked and decided to try to remain sober together but on June 24 James got a call from his brother. "He told me he was thinking of heroin again and I begged him not to do it. And uh, I told him it was like Russian Roulette, you know, spinning the barrel he could die at any time an there was a big pause and he said I was right. And that was like actually the first tim he said I love you. I said to him I said lets start hanging out more often, lets start doing things together and he said deffinitly, deffinitly, and I didnt have the chance ecause after that, you know." That was the last time James talked to his brother. James recalls that, "The night he called me and said I love you he knew he was going to do heroin that night. He was ashamed I'm pretty sure he was like, how did I get wrapped up in this drug." On Monday June 27 Hillels body was found in his apartment and it was predicted that he had died a few days prier of a drug overdose. Hillel was 26 years old.
After his best friends death, Anthony's girl friend informed him about Hillel and he wouldn't believe it. "I didn't accept it." For 10 days Anthony dissapeard to a small fishing village in Mexico. "I didn't actually stop using it. For whatever reason you would think your best friend dies,I've had enough. But it doesn't work that way, at least with my experience."10 days later he checked into rehab.
"When we started doing drugs we never thought, you know, oh this is dangerous it could kill us." - Anthony Kiedis
After Hillel's death Jack left the band, to sad to go on. BUt Anthonyand Flea decided to continue. "We knew that we weren't done yet. We knew that the life of the Red Hot Chili Peppers still had un tapped creative energy that we didn't want to go to waste." - Anthony Kiedis
The 2 remaining peppers chose one of their biggest fans, 18 year old John Fruciante to be their new guitarist. "He's deffinitly a genius. He's got that mad scientist guitar art, love, spirit genius in him. Nut he doesn't know how to drive a car. He doesn't have a credit card, you know, he doesn't function in the same road as the rest of the world. Which is what makes him so great," says Anthony. For a drummer, they picked Chad Smith, the last of more then 30 drummers to audition.
"And literally a month lter I'm standing out on the rocks of Malibu with a sock on. Hey, I am on the rocks with a sock on my (laughs) I'm in the band now." - Chad Smith
In September of 1989, the Red Hots released Mothers Milk, their first gold album. Songs like Knock Me down, had Mothers Milk on the charts for more then 8 months. For this album the band teamed up with Rick Rubin. One day while Anthony was showing Rick some of the lyrics he had written, Rick found Anthonys poem entitled Under The Bridge. Anthony said the poem was rflecting his past. Rick cinvinced Anthony to show it to the rest of the group. "And I read it to them and I sang it to them and I probablly sang it out of tune with 3 different keys at the same time but they heard what I was trying to express and instead of laughing they both went to their instruments and started playing.," Anthony recalls.
In October, 1991Blood Sugar Sex Magik was released an sold more then 8 million albums. The peppers were hotter then ever and were gaining a new respect of their listeners. "If he said take your shirt off and spin it in the air everyone would do it. To me that was like wow. How does he get everyone to listen to him?" - Gwen Stefani
On May 7, 1992 the Red Hot Chili Peppers were doing a concert in Japan when John announced a few hours before that he was quitting. The rest of the members convinced him to play that night but right after John dissapeared. A Dutch tv crew discoverd a few months later that John was abusing heroin. He said that he had never done drugs before he left the band. The rest of the band was scared for John.
"I thought I'd lost a friend forever and I didn't want John to die. So I prayed for him, don't let John die." - Anthony Kiedis
"I was sure John was going to die." - Flea
Guitaris Areeth Marshall had been filling in for John since Jily of 1992 but in September of 1993 Dave Navarro aceppted Flea'offer to join the band. It took over a year to complete One Hot Minute which was released in August of 1995. But everyone including critics noticed that Dave's style wasn't right for the peppers. He quit soon after.In the fall of 1997 John's friends convinced him to check into rehab. After a 6 year absense, John re-joined the band in April of 1998. The peppers biggest selling album Californication was released in the summer of 1999 and sold 13 million copies world wide. After touring and then settling down for awhile, the peppers are coming out with their latest and 8th album By The Way at the end of July 2002.
"I think that if Hillel could look down and see what were doing today that he would be incredibly proud and happy for us because even though he never got to experience this aspect of the dream, I think he'd be down for it." - Anthony Kiedis
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