In the 90s the rock genre was moving towards the sounds of alternative rock and grunge. This category of rock music emerged from the underground music scene, and bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., and Jane's Addiction started gaining mainstream notoriety. But amidst all these great alternative sounding bands was the quirky Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band created their own distinct sound by combining the sounds of alternative rock with funk, punk, and psychedelic rock. They were fresh, edgy, and wonderfully strange. However, the band was also famous for many of their off-stage issues and faced their fair share of struggles and tragedy. Here are the details.
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00:00The iconic and funky Red Hot Chili Peppers have been rocking fans for decades, but their
00:05history is filled with struggles, pain, and even death, as everyone in the group has struggled
00:09with their own demons.
00:11This is the tragic, real-life story of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
00:15The Red Hot Chili Peppers that most people know are singer Anthony Kiedis, bassist Flea,
00:19drummer Chad Smith, and whoever happens to be their current guitarist.
00:23From John Frusciante to Dave Navarro to Frusciante again to Josh Klinghoffer to a revolving door
00:28of lesser-known names, guitarists have always been the Peppers' equivalent of spinal-tap
00:33drummers.
00:34The reason behind that revolving door, though, is rooted in the tragic loss of the band's
00:38original lead guitarist Hillel Slovak.
00:40In 1988, the 26-year-old Slovak was found lifeless in his apartment.
00:45The cause of death was a heroin overdose.
00:47Understandably, this shook the rest of the band since Slovak was not only a founding
00:51member but also a massive influence on the others.
00:54I don't think any of us ever really thought that that would happen, even though we were
00:59pretty messed up at that point."
01:01Slovak's signature funk rock style essentially established the band's sound, and original
01:06drummer Jack Irons decided to leave the band shortly after his passing.
01:10Flea has even said that he only picked up the bass instrument because Slovak asked him
01:13to.
01:14It's easy to assume that a man professionally known as Flea didn't have the most conventional
01:19of childhoods, but few could believe just how rough things really were for him.
01:23The musician basically grew up in one of the seedier episodes of Breaking Bad, as he was
01:27raised in a violent, alcoholic household.
01:30His father left the family when he was only six, and his mother and stepfather left the
01:34young boy terrified.
01:35This less-than-optimal start in life created a snowball effect that took Flea to some very
01:40dark places.
01:41By the time he was 11, he sought solace from his turbulent home on the streets, where he'd
01:45routinely hang out until 4 a.m.
01:48This was also when he started smoking marijuana, and soon enough, he started abusing virtually
01:52any drug he could get a hold of.
01:54He got in trouble with dealers and cops alike, and gun-toting criminals started lurking around
01:59him.
02:00Overdoses were a part of life, and Flea lost three of his best friends before they turned
02:0426.
02:05It was a brutal way of life that he couldn't quite shake until his 30s, and he was 40 before
02:10he could consider forgiving his parents for the environment they raised him in.
02:13I stopped doing drugs, drinking alcohol, when I was about 30.
02:18And then I started feeling everything, and sometimes it was a river of pain.
02:24Under the Bridge, released in 1992, is arguably the Red Hot Chili Peppers' most beloved song,
02:29and its lyrics are famously about Anthony Kiedis' struggle with drug addiction.
02:33But it turns out that the true story behind the song is actually somewhat more complicated
02:37than that.
02:38Under the Bridge depicts a period in time when the freshly drug-free Kiedis felt growing
02:42alienation from his bandmates who were still using drugs, and from society in general.
02:47He sought to deal with this by roaming all around Los Angeles, and he ended up developing
02:51a fairly interesting connection with the city.
02:53As he explained,
02:54"...I felt an unspoken bond between me and my city.
02:57I'd spent so much time wandering through the streets of L.A. and hiking through the Hollywood
03:01Hills that I sensed there was a non-human entity, maybe the spirit of the hills and
03:05the city, who had me in her sights and was looking after me."
03:08While this strange state of mind contributed to the general feeling of the song, the darker
03:12references come from a very specific memory.
03:14In his anguished need to score drugs, Kiedis once attempted to enter gang territory under
03:19a particular bridge, rumored to be the one in L.A.'s MacArthur Park.
03:23He supposedly wormed his way in by pretending that he was engaged to a sister of a gang
03:27member.
03:28Understandably, he ranks this desperate maneuver as one of the worst steps he's ever sunk to.
03:33In 1990, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were wild up-and-comers, and sometimes their crazy on-stage
03:38antics got more than a little inappropriate.
03:41Which was the case with their MTV-filmed Spring Break performance in Daytona Beach,
03:45Florida, which led to half the band getting arrested.
03:48During the performance, Flea and Chad Smith decided to kick things up a notch by leaping
03:52off the stage and assaulting an audience member.
03:55The band had already whipped itself into a furious state when Flea unexpectedly pounced
03:59a female spectator and started spinning her on his shoulders.
04:02Smith joined the fray by pulling her swimsuit aside and slapping her rear end.
04:06It got even worse when Flea then got on top of the woman and started to simulate a vulgar
04:10act.
04:11The shocked woman called for help, and the Peppers were swiftly escorted away.
04:15Smith ended up getting charged with battery, while Flea's list of misdeeds included battery,
04:20disorderly conduct, and solicitation to commit an unnatural and lascivious act.
04:25Chad Smith prefers the occasional drink and joint to hard drugs, and he's referred to
04:29his childhood as Blue Collar rather than Tragic.
04:32This has helped him to keep his feet mostly dry even during the years when the rest of
04:36the band kept rocking the boat.
04:38But that doesn't mean he has no notable weaknesses.
04:40In fact, he used to be a self-confessed serial relationship ender.
04:44Over the years, he's had six children with four different women.
04:48When The Guardian asked him about this in 2003, he grudgingly admitted this particular
04:52flaw in his personality, noting,
04:54"...I'm the dumper.
04:55I fall in love easily, but I get restless.
04:57I'll figure it out one day.
04:59Can we talk about something else?"
05:00To be fair, it appears that Smith indeed fulfilled his promise of figuring it out in the end,
05:05as he married his second wife, architect Nancy Mack, in 2004, and they've been together
05:09ever since.
05:11In 1992, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were on the cusp of true greatness, only for tensions
05:16inside the band to almost tear them apart.
05:18They were riding high on the wave of their 1991 smash hit album Blood Sugar Sex Magic,
05:23and superstardom was there for the taking.
05:25But John Frusciante, who was a relatively recent addition at the time, felt uncomfortable
05:29with the sudden fame.
05:31He started arguing with Anthony Kiedis about the direction of the band.
05:34Kiedis remembers Frusciante telling him,
05:36"...We're too popular.
05:37I don't need to be at this level of success.
05:39I would just be proud to be playing this music in clubs like you guys were doing two years
05:43ago."
05:45The tensions between Frusciante and the others kept growing, and it didn't exactly help that
05:48Kiedis was a recovering addict at the time, while Frusciante was increasingly into drugs.
05:53Frusciante botched an important Saturday Night Live performance, which Kiedis called intentional
05:57sabotage.
05:59Things finally came to a head during a trip to Japan, when the disconnected guitarist
06:02unexpectedly informed the band's manager that he was out.
06:06The other Peppers managed to talk him into playing the show they had scheduled that night,
06:09but after that, Frusciante was gone.
06:11His departure was so swift that Rolling Stone had to hastily scrub him off the cover photo
06:16of an upcoming issue.
06:17"...I remember thinking, before John left, that that could happen, that he would leave,
06:23because things were feeling kind of dysfunctional."
06:27After Frusciante left the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the first time in 1992, his life went
06:31downhill so fast, it's almost a miracle that he managed to return to the land of the living.
06:36His exit was largely fueled by his desire for creative freedom as opposed to the performing
06:40monkey act he believed the Red Hot Chili Peppers were becoming.
06:43But when he actually left the band, his creativity was soon curbed by depression, and later,
06:48all the heroin and cocaine he could get his hands on.
06:51He voluntarily embarked on the path of a full-time junkie, with all the nasty trimmings that
06:55entailed, to the point that Flea, who had spent his life around drug users, soon drifted
07:00away from him.
07:01Even when his friend, actor River Phoenix, died of an overdose at the age of 23, Frusciante
07:05didn't stray from his path.
07:07In 1998, Frusciante eventually realized that he was marching towards an inevitable death,
07:12and after a few false starts, he ended his years in the wilderness by becoming stone-cold
07:16sober.
07:17Later that year, he rejoined the struggling Peppers at Flea's behest.
07:21At this point, he had suffered five near-fatal overdoses, and his teeth were so utterly destroyed
07:25that the dental bill was $90,000.
07:28However, he was undoubtedly back, and he stayed with the band until 2009.
07:33Every rock star worth their salt has feuded with a colleague, and Anthony Kiedis is no
07:37exception.
07:38His particular opponent of choice was Mike Patton, Faith No More's thousand-voiced frontman.
07:43In the 1980s, both bands had a similar funk metal sound, and Faith No More had even played
07:48as an opener for the Peppers.
07:49However, when both bands started breaking big, Kiedis saw Faith No More's video for
07:53the song, Epic, and took offense, as he felt Patton was copying his mannerisms.
07:58Kiedis started taking public potshots at Patton.
08:01But when the Faith No More frontman declined to respond, things calmed down.
08:05Unfortunately, though, the animosity started anew in 1999, when Patton and his other band,
08:10Mr. Bungle, were removed from various festivals.
08:12They discovered that this was apparently at the behest of Kiedis, who threatened to pull
08:16the Peppers out if Patton's group stayed in the lineup.
08:19Why this happened is anyone's guess, though it's worth noting that Mr. Bungle had an album
08:23called California coming out at roughly the same time that the Peppers' Californication
08:27was released.
08:28Regardless, this prompted Patton to start publicly ripping into Kiedis, and another
08:32one of his bands, Fantomas, even ruthlessly mocked the Peppers on stage.
08:37Fortunately, things seemed to have mellowed out since then.
08:40In a 2010 interview with Bazaar magazine, Patton said about the feud,
08:43"'I've no idea what it was about then and I don't know now.
08:46But I'd bet we'd have a warm embrace if we saw each other now.'"
08:50Many bands have found it difficult to work on their new albums.
08:53But when it comes to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, their troubles have been a little more serious
08:57than the usual, the guitarist wandered off again variety.
09:00In 2018, the Peppers were working on their new album when their efforts were suddenly
09:04halted by the monstrous Woolsey Fire, which the Los Angeles Times noted was the most destructive
09:09wildfire on record in Los Angeles and Detroit County.
09:13While the house the band was working in was ultimately untouched by the flames, both Chad
09:17Smith and Anthony Kiedis lived in the Point Doom area, which was badly damaged by the
09:21fire, with 70 houses burned down in the community.
09:24The band later did their part in rebuilding by playing a benefit show for the victims
09:28of the fire at the Hollywood Palladium.
09:30In 2018, Flea wrote an essay for Time magazine in which he railed against the opioid crisis.
09:36It came from a very personal place, as the musician had broken his arm while snowboarding
09:40and had to have surgery.
09:42He's grateful to his doctor for fixing the damage so well that his ability to play remained
09:46intact, but he also believes that he was prescribed more OxyContin than he really needed.
09:51The supposed dosage was four pills a day, but one Oxy every 24 hours was enough to kill
09:56the pain and to turn him into an emotionalist, depressed zombie.
09:59Flea ultimately kept his dosage low and stopped popping pills after a month, but he claims
10:03that he could have easily gotten a refill.
10:06The experience made him realize that the supposedly trustworthy Doctors of America prescribe such
10:10brain-numbing medication to people from all walks of life, potentially leading to addiction
10:15and death.
10:16He told the world about this, along with his own darker history with substance abuse, in
10:20an effort to raise awareness of the opioid crisis.
10:22I still, you know, wrestle with a little numbness in there and I got this real weird lump on
10:26my arm, but, um, everything's rockin'.