The Red Hot Chili Peppers song that marked Anthony Kiedis’ relapse: “Excruciating pain and guilt”
Behind the wide-eyed smile and bouncing dance moves of the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman, Anthony Kiedis, is an extremely dark and uncomfortable backstory.
Whether it was growing up under the stewardship of his drug-dealing father, with whom he would snort cocaine and take his first hit of heroin at the aged of 14, or the questionable romantic relationships that saw him date a 16-year-old, as a 24-year-old man, his formative years are marred in either controversy or trauma.
It was a recipe that ultimately made for disaster when he was eventually exposed to the heady realms of A-list fame. Being a rock star in the late 1980s and mid-1990s was as hedonistic as we’ve been led to imagine, particularly in the band’s native Los Angeles, where parties would rarely end, and the drugs would become an unlimited resource.
The limit of how this could facilitate creativity was quickly reached and abused by the band, whose rapidly growing profile saw them at the threshold of unlimited temptation. Sadly yet expectedly, this ended in tragedy in 1988, when the band’s first guitarist, Hillel Slovak, died of a heroin overdose. It was a moment that Kiedis has since remarked as his lowest moment in the band, bringing a tangible bottom line for the band to hit after years of spiralling.
Losing one of his best friends was pertinent enough for Kiedis, but it was compounded by the troubles he himself had experienced with heroin in the years leading up to Slovak’s death. Three years earlier, after the band released Freaky Styley, Kiedis admitted himself into rehab for his heroin addiction, after the band had grown tired and concerned over his behaviour. After reaching 50 days of sobriety and enjoying the early stages of recording their follow-up album, 1987’s Uplift Mofo Party Plan, Kiedis left the session and relapsed.
“I went downtown and found an El Salvadoran who hooked me up, and I was in that opiate haze one more time,” he said. “But all I could think about was the fact that I was supposed to be in the studio.”
It was one song in particular from the record that caused Kiedis to turn back around and commit himself to the studio, rather than his vices. He continued, explaining, “I started hearing [drummer] Jack Irons’ beat in my head for a song we were working on called the ‘Organic Beat-Box Band.’ I sat in a downtown park, surrounded by an odd mixture of park people, and wrote the lyrics.
“I felt excruciating pain and guilt and shame behind not being there for the beginning of the record, but I thought if I showed up with something good to offer, the heat would diminish. And it did.”
The song is a perfect example of how music could become a tonic for Kiedis and the band. It had all of the pent-up energy and tension that would motivate him to indulge in heroin use, and instead provided a safe environment in which Kiedis could express it. Sure, it wasn’t solved by that song, and there were a rocky few years ahead, but it was a pivotal moment in Kiedis ensuring himself a career.
