Spin magazine, August 2002
By now, most of you are familiar with the Chili Peppers' backstory. How Kiedis and Flea met at Los Angeles' diverse Fairfax High in the late '70s, formed the band, and carried on after guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose in 1988 (original drummer Jack Irons quit after Sovak's death and was replaced by Smith). How Kiedis was still struggling with heroin (and Flea was far from sober) when Frusciante, a teenage guitar prodigy and absessive Chili Peppers fan, joined; and how the band exploded with Blood Sugar Sex Magik, its fifth album. How Frusciante later quit to become a full-time junkie (replaced by Dave Navarro for 1995's One Hot Minute) but finally cleaned up and returned for Californication, and how everyone became even more rich and famous.
Those are the raws facts. But the truth of the Chili Peppers' story is specific to the crucible where their young lives were shaped-public schoolyards, punk-rock parking lots, jazz gigs, and proto-rap clubs downtown. There was a moment in early-'80s L.A. when several musical movements were happening all at once; and to kids like the Chili Peppers, boundaries didn't much matter. Their initial sound was a mash-up of everything they heard.
"Anthony and I were street kids, basically," says Flea, who was mostly raised by his mom and stepfather,a jazz bassist and volatile alcoholic (like his biological father). At 11, Kiedis left his mom's home in Michigan to live with his father, aspiring actor Blackie Dammett. Dammet went on to have supporting roles in films (Lethal Weapon, Doctor Detroit) and on TV (Starsky and Hutch, Night Court).
"I had a very violent upbringing," says Flea. "[My stepfather] had shoot-outs with the cops. I slept in the backyard because I was scared. In a way, it gave me freedom. By the time I was 12 or 13, I was out until three or four in the morning, carousing, on drugs."
Kiedis and Flea were into funk, jazz, and early funk/rock hybrids like Parliaments/Funkadelic and Sly and the Family Stone. At 12, Flea's mom took him to see his idol, bebop jazzman Dizzy Gillepsie. "I snuck backstage, and there's Dizzy, holding his trumpet, talking to someone," Flea says excitedly. "I run up to him, and I'm like [looks up with wide eyes], 'Mr. Gillepsie.' And I can't even talk. I'm in awe. And he just puts his arm around me and hugs me real tight, so my head's kind of in his armpit. He smiles and just holds me there for, like, five minutes while he talks. I'm just frozen in joy - oh my God, oh my God, oh my God."
The boys' wasted youth began for real when Kiedis and Flea discovered the legendary West Hollywood punk/hippie/rock nexus, the Starwood. "We were hanging out in the parking lot, mostly," says Kiedis, "trying to sneak into Germs and Balck Flag and Circle Jerks shows."
"We weren't cool enough to get in," Flea adds, grinning. "One time we painted ourselves in my mother's lipstick and went out stark naked."
In the early '80s, Kiedis saw Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. "It was mind-blowing," he says. "I subconsciously vowed I would somehow create that type of energy to entertain others. I didn't have a clue how to write a song or sing, but I thought I could probably figure out how to tell a story in rhythm."
