Original subtitles

So, uh, Hillel,

what does it take to be, uh, a g-guitar player for the Chili Peppers?

I don't know.

They won't tell me what it takes. I keep ask--

I ask them almost every day what it takes, but they won't tell me.

Can you show us a bit?

- Show you a little bit? Uh… - Yeah, sure.

Make some noise!

For the Red Hot Chili Peppers!

I guess you have to be-- Kind of like, play like me.

You can definitely be guitar player for the Peppers.

We were a trio

of best friends.

There was chaos, and there was peace, and there was funk, and there was color.

We were wild, and we were young, and it felt free.

We were just, like, staking our claim in the world.

It's so easy to feed off each other's energy.

We really feel above it all.

We weren't aspiring to become these professional entities.

We were happy just making each other laugh.

And we've managed to make music through all of it.

Hillel changed everything about my life

and gave me the life that I have today.

I never would've played bass without him.

Chili Peppers would never have started without him.

Everything about the Red Hot Chili Peppers

was all Hillel's vision.

I have the best friends in the world.

I know it will lead to a new breed of rock.

Just… time is a factor against me.

Okay.

I had just moved to Hollywood

from this quaint little Midwestern town

to living in a West Hollywood bungalow with my father,

who had just gotten out of the drug dealing business

and gotten into the acting business.

I had just moved to LA.

I was born in Australia.

Came to LA in 1972.

I was a new kid.

You know, didn't know a soul.

And then when it came time to go to high school,

I went to Fairfax High.

And… that's where I met Flea.

Me and Anthony met,

just bonded like magnets that stick together.

We just became a twosome everywhere we went.

And at that point, his name was Mike, or Michael by his mother.

I was kind of a weird kid. Kind of a loner, kind of a geek, you know?

I wanted to be a jazz trumpet player.

I had, like, friends, but I just wasn't…

Um… Yeah, I wasn't cool. Let's put it that way.

All the love I miss loving

We had become best friends.

We were, like, these kind of outcasts, misfits,

both from pretty broken homes.

Anthony was also weird, but in a different way.

He was very aggressive and outward-going and always had something smart to say.

You know, we were also little punk assholes.

You know, let-- let's be clear, like, we were teenage boys just wreaking havoc.

All the love I miss loving

Our lives revolved around shoplifting and smoking weed.

Stealing shit, wrecking shit, being nice, being mean.

You know, we were all over the map.

We were animals, you know.

And then our first exposure to Hillel Slovak

may have been a lunchtime rock and roll concert

featuring the band Anthym.

That was Jack, Alain, Hillel, and Todd Strassman on bass guitar.

We had the school talent show and they came out.

They had that shit together, man.

We were probably around 14 when we started playing together.

It was all about Jack's bedroom.

Every day after school, we would get together and jam.

I was the guy walking around

with drumsticks out in my pocket, you know.

I always wanted to be the drummer.

We would do, like, Kiss and, you know, Queen and Rush stuff.

You know, it was really cool.

Hillel, Jack, and I had this tremendous connection straightaway.

Always on the phone talking about music.

Uh, "I got a new song. Listen to it."

And I'd go, "Oh, yeah, that's cool." You know?

We were best friends.

We just became, like, everything to each other.

Alain was already a great musician.

I don't know why Alain stuck with us.

I mean, honestly, if I listen back, we weren't very good.

They were incredible.

I didn't even like rock music. I thought rock music was for dumb people.

But I was like, "These guys got something going on."

It was impressive, but it seemed a little old-fashioned to me.

I remember thinking, "Wow, these guys are, like, you know,

stuck in a few years back."

But I was like, "Amazing."

"These 16-year-old boys are, like, shining in-- in what they like to do."

And where did it go from there?

Me and Anthony were always up to something.

And one day we had gone out to North Hollywood to…

I think try to ride the bumper cars.

And we hitchhiked everywhere we went.

So we're, like, hitchhiking, and we see this green Datsun B210

riding down the street, and it's Hillel Slovak riding it.

And we're like, "I know that dude!" You know?

We're always, like, hustling for a ride.

We didn't know him at all, but we knew that he went to our school.

We ran up, we were like, "Hey, hey!" We're, like, banging on the car.

He was like, "What's up?" "Can you--" And he gave us a ride.

I did have a handmade Anthym pin, which Hillel probably made.

And I think one of us might have had some weed.

We just bonded. Like, it-- We thought it was just going to be a ride,

but we just connected, you know.

And, um, we started hanging out.

Like, me and Anthony's duo became a trio.

It absolutely did become a trio.

I want you to hit it

Good God, hit it…

Anthony and I and Hillel were just together every day.

Hillel had a car with a tape deck.

We'd ride around and get up to whatever we could get up to.

Music, girls…

Making each other laugh.

We called ourselves the Faces.

Yeah, we did skits. I forgot about that.

And our influences were the Three Stooges.

We were connecting on sense of style and being chaotic troublemakers.

We were just into adventure.

Like, we'd stay up all night,

drive out to the beach, 5:00 in the morning,

swim with the dolphins, and fall asleep on the beach.

You can shake it to the east, yeah Shake it to the west…

Day in, day out, it was like, "What are we gonna do?"

We're gonna hang out.

And get into whatever mischief or whatever we could find

in the streets of Hollywood in the '70s to have some fun.

Hit it

Good God, hit it…

Even just going to his house to make spaghetti

was the greatest plan in the world.

You know, we're gonna make spaghetti and listen to records.

Hillel had a slightly upgraded stereo system,

which was a big deal to us then.

I didn't know anything about rock music.

I didn't really care about it.

And he started playing me rock music that I started loving.

Sitting there, smoking crappy weed,

and we would just listen.

We listened to Rush and Led Zeppelin and Bill Bruford.

Allan Holdsworth, Benny Goodman.

- Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix. - Blondie.

And that was like gold.

As I look back, the more time we just sat there playing records,

the closer we got, like, the more we understood each other,

and-- and the more we kind of, you know,

just did this mind meld of art and brotherhood.

And we just got closer and closer and closer.

The bonds only intensified with time.

God, we all brought so many different things

to the friendship.

Both me and Anthony were, like, always being theatrical

and trying to be funny and succeeding sometimes,

being obnoxious other times. Like, I would just do anything,

I'd be like… You know what I mean? Like, whatever.

Just wanting to be what we thought was wild and shocking and different.

And Hillel was kind of the poetic one of us.

He was super artistic.

He was always painting, he was drawing, he was playing guitar,

had long hair, he dressed cool.

He was like lanky, and I kind of like fell in love with him.

He was beautiful.

He was cool, man.

And not in, like, a-- Like, "I'm a popular kid at school" cool.

Like, he was just more thought-out.

We would, like, turn on and be corny, you know what I mean?

And he had that kind of thing,

but he wouldn't go with us into being, like, ridiculous and silly that much.

One of the things that we would do was go to this big bridge over the river

where the train went,

and jump into this river, and it was a long jump.

It was a good 30 feet.

But we would just jump, jump, jump, jump.

And Hillel would just, like--

He was like, "Okay, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it."

And he'd go stand on the edge and look over the edge, and…

We're like, "Come on! You can do it!"

"Come on, man, just jump! It's fine, it's fine!"

Like, laughing so hard to try to convince him.

And finally, I remember he looked,

and he kinda, like, you know, kinda leaned forward a little bit

like he was about to do it, then he held up his finger and he said-- he said,

"Jews don't jump."

My brother, he was born in Haifa, Israel.

My grandparents and my mom basically escaped the Nazis

and made it to Israel.

A few years later, we moved to LA.

And all of a sudden, he's playing guitar in the bedroom.

Whether it was this little acoustic toy guitar

or playing with a broomstick,

we knew he wanted to play it from a very young age.

My dad wasn't affectionate, and the divorce affected Hillel,

but my mom raised us to be very independent.

Hillel liked to write letters to my mom and kept a journal.

I'd see him journaling all the time.

And I think it was a very personal and private thing for him.

Spending much time with Mom and Jamie. I love them both so much.

Painted a still life of vase and flowers.

I think I'm giving to Michael for his B-day, Friday.

We grew up in a very artistic home.

My mom was an amazing painter and artist

and definitely influenced us to get into the art world.

I sort of inspected the house,

and I noticed that there were, like, drawings and paintings.

And I was like, you know, "What…?" He was like, "Yeah, my mother did that."

And I was like, "Your mother did that?"

His mom had great art books in the house,

and we would just look at these beautiful books of artwork.

We would have these sessions

where we would sit at Hillel's dining room table.

We would just throw out an idea.

Like, "Let's draw somebody who's been in a terrible car accident."

We would just sit there for 20 minutes in silence, drawing.

And then we would pass the drawings around.

And I think for Hillel, when he was drawing,

he was just with himself, you know.

He could express feelings of loneliness or fear, anxiety, anger,

whatever, that we all have, but in a healthy way.

And I think he just grew up with, like, "That's what you do."

It was really beautiful for me as a kid to feel that, you know?

I came from a world that was pretty harsh and scary.

You know, I grew up in a very, um… a violent, dysfunctional household.

By the time I was 11 years old, I was out till 4:00, 5:00 in the morning.

I was on the streets of Hollywood hustling.

And spending time with Hillel just made me feel good.

Like, he really filled a place in my life that I hadn't had before.

I think for Anthony, too.

It was a house that I would end up spending a lot of time in.

And of course, Hillel's mother

was a warm, loving, and inviting presence in my life.

You know, Flea and I didn't have traditional households

or a mother and a father looking out for us.

We found family in each other.

Concurrently with us becoming friends,

Hillel was still in Anthym.

And that's when we met Flea and Anthony.

And all of us were hanging out all the time.

And they played tons of shows at high schools,

and that was a blast.

One time, the principal charged across the field

and went to unplug the amps.

And I stood there like a bulldog,

and it was like, "Nobody touches these plugs."

And he actually fought off a security guard from unplugging us.

I ended up being sort of the cheerleader for Anthym,

as well as, like, just being a spasmodic dancer at all of their shows.

Anthony started being their kind of emcee.

Lawrence Welk calls them the hottest rockers in LA.

The band call themselves perpetrators of American rock and roll music.

He would say, "Their fathers call 'em crazy,

the girls call 'em all the time."

"But I call 'em like I see 'em, and I call 'em Anthym!"

And then I would spin off the stage, do a backflip,

and land on some poor unsuspecting freshman.

And Hillel was just so cool.

I was, like, playing scales.

He was like, you know, pursing his lips,

and leaning back, and being cool as fuck.

The way that he believed in the music so much,

how much it meant to him,

like, that was what he was gonna do.

I always had in my head, "Well, if I don't be a trumpet player,

I could-- you know, maybe I could own a 7-Eleven."

I'd have some, like, kooky, nutty plan in my head.

You know what I mean? Like, I just didn't know anything.

And I was like, there's something else here.

One day, I'm hanging out with Hillel.

It was raining outside.

We're sitting out in front of his house in his Datsun.

We used to listen to this guy Jim Ladd on the radio.

I'm Jim Ladd, and you're listening to KMET Los Angeles. More…

And Jim Ladd started playing "Riders on the Storm" by The Doors.

He was like, "And this is fitting for this moment."

I remember Hillel specifically, he was like, "Jim Ladd is so rad."

I've got the seats back, and we're laying there,

we're probably stoned or something, you know?

And we're just like-- like feeling the moment, you know?

Like you can only do when you're a teenage boy,

just like, "Yeah, we're so fucking cool."

Riders on the storm…

And at that moment, Hillel was like, "Hey, Mike."

"You know, uh… You know, Todd,"

the bass player in Anthym, "he doesn't really love it."

"He doesn't really believe in it, you know."

"And I was thinking maybe you could learn the bass and play with us."

I couldn't even believe it, you know?

I was just like, "Wow, you want me?"

You know, like no one wanted me. I was a weirdo.

You know, I was…

You know, I wasn't cool.

And I don't think

that the other guys even wanted me.

But he…

Like, he believed in me, he saw me.

And in that moment, you know…

and obviously still,

um, it really touched my heart.

The next day, I was like, "How do I get the money to get a bass?"

And went over to Jack Irons' bedroom, started playing with those guys.

They were like, "In two weeks, we have a show."

"Gazzarri's on the Sunset Strip." You know, "Can you do this?"

And I was like, "I can do this."

And, um, two weeks, I was up on stage with Hillel.

You know, never played bass before, totally, like, by the numbers.

Um, but it changed my life forever, you know.

In real time, I could feel worlds opening, you know, just like…

Incredible. It was incredible.

And Hillel gave me that gift.

The shape of-- of our future was being laid down

by Hillel's intuition and awareness of somebody's musical capacity,

which Flea had.

So we all graduate.

There's a photograph of Hillel, Flea, and myself graduating.

And they both still have giant poodle hair.

Our three faces are squished in.

And you can just tell by the looks on our faces, like,

these boys are a team, no matter what.

And we really were.

I was a fucking awful student. Barely got through.

Like, I wasn't going to any good college or anything.

If I could pay rent and eat and just be in a band, done.

That was the biggest success that I could consciously realize.

We relied on each other.

Finding ways to get food, finding ways to get drink.

Those guys were, like, you know, getting little apartments in kind of funky places.

We were living in the Wilton Hilton.

The single worst part of Hollywood imaginable,

but for us it was home.

I wasn't as into that scene, you know.

There was just an energy I wasn't comfortable with.

I was more of a homebody. And the same with Alain.

I was just afraid of that world.

I was afraid it was gonna get in the way of music and be damaging.

I just felt it was better for me to stay home

with my grandmother and my sister.

I could sit in my room and practice all day long and just be left alone.

You know, that was around the time when more drugs came into the picture.

It was just always about having fun, partying.

And then drugs seemed like another adventure.

That was 1980 going into 1981.

LA in the '80s…

Oh my God, it was, uh, pretty magical.

Hair metal scene, new wave scene, punk rock scene.

Weird electronic bands, the earliest hip-hop shows.

All kinds of music was around us constantly.

And we were up for all of it.

We started finding this world,

this underground of, like, the new wave and punk rock.

Real artistic music, not like big '70s rock bands.

It was intense, man.

We'd go to a Black Flag show

and it was like you were gonna get the shit kicked out of you.

I ended up getting my ass kicked,

so I was like, "Okay, I'm g-- I'm gonna stick to the jazz shows."

Not to mention the cops waiting outside with nightsticks to beat your fucking ass.

All right, chill out, man.

It was just crazy.

Sonic reducer!

Anthym wanted to be a part of it.

So I would try to get us gigs.

I would call up every nightclub that could have us.

And I'd say, "Hey, you know, we've got this band Anthym."

They'd be, "Anthym, what's that?"

Let you be me

Let me be you

Through the times And through the pains

Through the days of our lives

And I didn't know anything, but we'd-- we-- we-- we were kind of corny.

Let's face it, we were kind of fucking corny.

We thought, "Okay, we-- we're-- we need to change."

That sounds-- That sounds cool.

I liked what you were doing in the beginning.

We started to write much more adventurously.

Just sort of like, "Who has something?"

I'd say, "I got this new beat."

Then Flea might come up with a part, then Hillel, then Alain.

And then we would just jam.

And we're like, "Anthym sounds like an old metal band."

"We should change the name."

And I think Hillel came up with the name What Is This.

There was no question mark. We used to say,

"It's a statement, not a question."

I cut my hair real short. Hillel cut his hair short.

We all started to wear, like, cool suits from the '50s.

Flea was playing trumpet.

It was kind of like, uh, you know, a growing-up thing.

And Hillel started developing a style that I was like, "Wow!"

So close…

It didn't sound like a guy playing guitar.

It sounded like a guy playing himself.

Like hard, scratchy rhythms.

Very angular, minimal, and uniquely him.

We were aware at the moment this was special.

There was something happening.

And we were on the scene. We were doing it.

Just playing shows, playing shows, playing shows.

And it started to really get active for us.

- Oh, you're recording? - Yup.

I would go to all of their practices,

but I wasn't, you know, in the band.

I did spend some time at UCLA

just to see what that was and quickly decided that it was just…

not gonna work.

It was like the beginning of my homeless period.

Couch-surfing,

going out dancing all night and showing up to whatever show was-- was playing,

just to check it out.

And one day I was listening to the radio

and hearing "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash.

Ha, ha, ha, ha It's like a jungle sometimes

It makes me wonder How I keep from going under

And I was like, you know, "These guys are such good writers."

…too much, it's just not healthy All My Children in the daytime…

I loved the storytelling, the lyrics, and the funkiness.

You know, it made me feel so amazing and awake

and, like, wanting to write some poetry.

We were absorbing all of it.

You know, it was a lot of art galleries, it was a lot of music and art openings.

We started to meet more, you know, of the artists, the-- the painters,

the performance artists.

And that's when we met Gary Allen.

Oops, it's an accident

Uh, wow, so many things.

It's hard for me to actually… remember everything.

I was Elton John's chef,

Frank Zappa's chef,

fashion designer for Billy Idol.

Oops, it's an accident

My life, an accident

Counterfeit men chant

Give me my mind back

I was a gay Black guy growing up in Los Angeles,

completely smothered in fashion.

And one particular night, I'm in Hollywood

and I'm in the punk scene,

out of my comfort zone.

I saw this crazy band, What Is This.

I watched Flea play,

and I said, "That guy is gonna be famous."

And Hillel… was a funk magnet.

He pulled funk to him.

After the concert,

Flea introduced me to their friend Anthony,

and Anthony was, like, gung ho!

I had a mohawk that stood up like a brush,

and I would wear a long white dress with nothing under it,

and combat boots,

and, like, let it all hang out on the dance floor.

Wow! It was fantastic!

They were a part of the scene.

We were family with no titles.

A big Hollywood family.

Gary Allen was a really big part of our whole thing.

He showed me a different kind of possibility that I didn't know about.

He was kind of like our little Andy Warhol.

He wanted to celebrate other people's art and expression.

Like, "Let's create an opportunity for you to do what you love doing."

And I was like, "Well, I like writing poetry."

And he's like, "Well, here's a typewriter."

That's when everybody got a nickname.

Hillel's nickname was "Slim" because he was, like, cool in the '60s.

Anthony was "Swan,"

and Flea goes, "I want to be known as 'Flea.'"

I said, "Why would you want to be called an insect

that gets under your skin and sucks your blood?"

And he said, "Exactly!"

We all loved him very much.

And especially Hillel.

There would be the famous phone call

coming from Hillel to say,

"Uh, hey, where's the tofu?"

"Tofu" was our code name for coke.

We'd get together, get dressed up,

and, you know, have a wild night.

I mean, you know, I-- Fuck, we-- we-- we…

We were crazy.

Back then, I worked in the vet.

And I would steal all these pills from the animal hospital.

They're, like, these brightly colored capsules.

I don't know what they were. They were, like, for deworming dogs,

and, you know, if you've got an itchy asshole or whatever.

Like all these, you know, veterinary medicine.

And I would just arrange it kind of like it's an art installation.

And then we'd have this huge fucking party.

All these crazy-ass people came who we didn't know,

and just got really wild.

People thought they were party favors, you know?

It was d-- You know, they're all just, like, shitting themselves.

Fucking throwing up.

Fucking so stupid.

So stupid.

Let me free no more

Let me free no more…

I was getting kind of wilder. I'd moved into this after-hours club

called the C.A.S.H. Club.

It was this real underground club that went seven nights a week,

all night long.

A lot of drugs, a lot of wildness.

Everyone else would, like, go to hang out there. I lived there.

I moved in. Got a couch in the corner.

And I started, like, really becoming a part of the underground.

And one night, I took acid, and I went to go see this band Fear.

And I was just like… "This is where it's at."

Damn! Like, how do we get that feeling of really touching people,

of moving people, of getting to that core of humanity?

I love livin' in the city

Literally after I saw them, maybe like a week later,

I see an ad in the paper, you know,

"Fear's looking for a new bass player." I went, and I got the job.

And, um, I went to Hillel.

And said, you know, uh,

"What we're doing isn't touching people's hearts like it should."

"There's-- There's just something missing."

"I'm leaving the band. I'm going to join Fear."

And Hillel was…

He was disgusted with me.

He was just like,

"You fucking loser."

"You… Benedict Arnold, betraying motherfucker."

He just looked at me and was really fucking hurt.

Pissed, angry. Just didn't say a word and got up and walked out.

He didn't talk to me for a long time.

Been spending much time alone.

I'm not really happy, but that will change.

My playing… is in a good place.

Loving you, what's this new feeling?

I had this rehearsal studio on Heliotrope,

and that's where the band What Is This rehearsed.

And after a rehearsal one time,

I was just kind of sticking to myself,

you know, alone and just reading.

And Hillel came in the room, and he just gave me a big hug.

And that's how we met.

These are days of reflection

Today, I came really close to calling Addie.

I drove by her house and she was there.

I feel such a longing for her.

I'm so lonely.

I'd come home at night.

"Oh, my gosh, there he is again! His car is outside! Oh!"

There was just no getting rid of him, really.

From that point, we were always up to something.

He was filled with a love of life

and love of his friends.

They were brothers to him.

During this time,

he and I were as close as could be as-- as friends.

There's a very famous hotel on Sunset Boulevard

called the Continental Hyatt House.

And eventually, we found a way of taking an elevator to a staircase,

to this thing where we could shimmy up between two staircases,

and we would go to the penthouse that was rarely open.

And so we would have this restaurant and bar to ourselves,

and we would do these rap battles.

We would just look at each other and, you know, spit rhymes at each other,

and that was really the beginning of starting to form the idea

of, like, you know, anything lyrical,

or, you know, the structure of what would later fit into a song.

It was an important little moment in our creative connection.

But with Hillel and Flea,

there was still static.

There was a lot of static.

And I was afraid their friendship was over.

And so on one fateful moment, Gary just blurted out…

"Why don't you guys get together a band and open up for me at the show,

you know, at the-- at the Grandia Room?"

And sort of as maybe even like an act of forgiveness,

Hillel and Flea, you know, wanted to play again together, and…

Yeah, 'cause I don't think Hillel wanted to hold that grudge against Flea.

Like, there was too much love there.

Gary was like, "You know, why don't you let Anthony sing a song?"

And Flea and Hillel and Jack were like, "Are you crazy?"

"What-- What does that have to do with anything? Like…"

"We're musicians. He's not."

"Just let him try. Just let him try." He was insistent.

And he was so lovable

that they were like, "Okay, we'll let him try."

And I was like, "Great, I'll-- I'll write up a little rap."

If for no other reason than to just have fun for a night.

Hillel and Jack and Anthony got together

just in the living room of the house.

We had one song.

Anthony had a rap.

I had a bass line in my head, but no amps or anything.

We just kind of played it, and, like, "Jack, you play a funky beat."

You know, Hillel…

You know, I'm…

I would just watch Flea and Hillel, like, get into it,

and their-- their syncopation and their rhythmic understanding,

like they just knew where they were going.

And I did my rap, and it was like, "Oh, well, that all fits."

We just went out that night,

the same night that we came up with the song.

And I was pretty nervous, and I was by myself.

And I had to walk from Hollywood Boulevard down to Melrose.

And the whole way, I'm just like practicing my lyrics,

and making sure that I've got the arrangement right in my head.

They're getting ready to play,

and Anthony came in with a boom box on his shoulder,

and he just, like, marched in and he just threw it down,

and they tore it up.

Ow! LA is the place Sets my mind ablaze…

We're going for it, and I'm looking at the people, and they're all just, like…

like, getting moved, you know what I mean? They can't fucking stop.

The club was in a roar.

Everybody was throbbing and jumping around.

Town makes me jump Got a bunch of bad chicks

Sure, it's got some chumps I still get my kicks…

And this is something you can't control.

You can't convince people, "Come on, everybody, wave your hands in the air!"

"Come on, come on! Get up and dance!" Like, you can't do that.

You can't! Either the spirit fucking moves you, or it doesn't.

Anthony had never sung in a band or anything like that before,

and that was shocking and amazing.

And people were just, like, stunned.

And I felt Hillel, and I felt Jack, and I felt Flea.

And it was like time stood still.

We started playing, and it was just…

everything without the effort.

It was just there.

It was the perfect time.

It was unplanned, it was unrehearsed, it was un-everything.

And just chemistry.

It was, you know, of-- of course, it was our friendship.

It was the history that we shared.

All the times of being the Faces, of running around.

Just being in the street, looking for something to do.

Doing comedy sketches together, and freestyling together,

and driving in the rain together, and listening to music,

all of this unleashed in one little moment.

And really, it was all of us.

It was all of us.

It was fights we had had, it was the misunderstandings we had had,

it was the deep love and shared--

The love that we had expressed to one another.

You know, "I love you, I love you, I love you,"

we would say to each other. You know?

And, um, that night we went out, and it was just…

it just all came out.

We were together, we were the same, we were one.

When I saw them play that one song,

I knew that I had seen the future.

I was so proud of them.

It was the greatest musical event of my life.

And I just went, "Whoa."

"Uh-oh, this is trouble."

Because I was like, "Here's-- Here's half my band," you know?

"And this is kicking ass,

and I don't know what's gonna happen now."

Let's do it!

The club promoter was like, "Can you please come back next week

with two songs?" We're like, "Yeah, I think we can."

Police helicopter Sharking through the sky

Anthony's energy was insane.

Police helicopter landin' on my eye…

An incredible frontman. We never had that.

Those early shows were an explosion filled with youth.

It was like, "Wow!"

Police helicopter takes a nose dive

We played anywhere in LA that would have us.

And however weird, shocking, upsetting, out of control,

we were gonna be the most wild, intense band that ever lived.

It was sexy, it was irreverent.

My whole thing was always, like, the music is gonna express itself

through my body as much as the amplifier.

Our heads just came flying off of our bodies

'cause that's who we were.

You know, the Chili Peppers had this upward trajectory.

We played all the time.

Next show, we had two songs. Next show, three.

Everybody wanted what they were giving 'em.

It was fucking red-hot.

It was red-hot.

And that's how I came up with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

We took off quick.

We thought that we had taken over the world,

playing for audiences of 20 people in tiny little basements of clubs.

And the crowds just grew and grew.

All of a sudden, we were in all the gossip columns

in the local rags.

The underground wanted us.

Our third or fourth gig, they were lining up around the block

to get in to see us.

But it's still, at that point…

Um, it was still just for fun.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers was just a joke at first.

It was just meant to be a one-off.

It was like, okay, we now have a side project,

or they had a side project.

I had a main project,

but everybody else had shows that they had to play

and money that they had to get paid.

I was still playing in Fear,

and Jack and Hillel were still very much in What Is This.

They'd been with Alain since eighth grade,

and there was no way they were going to abandon that.

But we were like, "Let's just go for it."

We went and recorded a demo.

We went into this downtrodden recording studio

in the basement of the pool hall.

It was just, like, drugs,

prostitutes, pimps,

and a recording studio for $250 a day.

For some reason, I had $250.

It was all the money I had in the world, but I was like, "I'll pay for it."

Get up and jump

Get up and jump

I remember distinctly floating above my body while we were playing.

Get up and jump

Get up and jump

Yeah, there was a magic to it.

The producer goes, "There's steam coming off the board."

That was the first time I found the thing that I wanted.

When I left What Is This, I went to Fear because I couldn't get it there.

Now we had it.

And it's one of my favorite recordings

that the Chili Peppers ever made in our whole 42-year career.

So we start shopping it around.

Me and Anthony went to New York, tried to book the band gigs.

You know, looking to get a record deal and all that stuff.

Hillel and Jack were in both bands, What Is This and the Peppers,

simultaneously.

You know, we're just playing gigs, having fun, partying,

making a little money.

We were on the verge of getting a record deal with Enigma EMI

because of some crazy record company guy who liked our shows.

And then it happened.

The most impossible moment you could think of.

Both What Is This and the Red Hot Chili Peppers

got record deal offers the same week.

I said, "Guys, I'm not gonna ask you two to stay."

"I think you have a better shot with the Peppers."

And then we got a call from Jack Irons and Hillel Slovak

explaining to us that they were quitting the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

So, why…

Yeah, they left.

Got me back.

Out of complete love of Alain,

Hillel and I decided to stay with What Is This.

Which was a shock, but I was just really grateful.

Flea and I just couldn't understand. Like, "How is this happening?"

Our dreams are unfolding.

All of a sudden it's like, "Oh, we're gonna go on a tour."

"We're gonna make an album with a producer in a real recording studio."

And now we were just like…

fucked.

Why can't I touch it?

It was a shocking, fucked-up… tragedy of a moment.

And plugging in now, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I dig the dirt and I dig the dust I barbecue…

Me and Anthony make a record

with a guy called Jack Sherman on guitar and Cliff Martinez on drums.

It's the only record that I kind of regret.

Wasn't as good as the demo tape.

I'm gonna ride a saber tooth horse Through the Hollywood Hills…

We kind of fell in a little bit of a creative abyss.

We were increasingly frustrated in terms of connection.

It's not that those guys weren't good musicians.

We just didn't have the magic with them.

But for whatever reason, you know,

Flea and I have this… never-say-quit

element to us.

I don't know what else we would do.

- Okay, Flea, so you guys… - Look at the camera. Look at the camera.

He's coaching him. Flea, you're on. Be a big star.

- Yeah, get a close-up right now. - Hi, Mom.

You guys have done some eccentric things on stage.

- This is kinda low-key for you right now. - Because we rock, man.

We rock out with our ***** out. We slide, we glide, we move, we groove.

- Hip-hop, we rock the spot. - We do it.

- Show him how we pick up girls. - This is how you pick up girls.

And, you know, it was around this time

when drugs started coming into the picture in an unhealthy way.

One of the guys we lived with was dealing heroin at the house.

We'd do dope.

And at one point, Anthony got really strung out.

And I went to Hillel.

I was like, "I wanna leave the Chili Peppers,

come back and play with you in What Is This."

He was like, "Look, Anthony's sick."

"You gotta believe in him for him to get better."

And he convinced me to not do it.

And I went to Anthony. He's all fucked up, laying in bed.

And I was like, "Dude, you're in bed. It's four o'clock in the afternoon."

You know, "We had rehearsal. You didn't come for a week."

And he's like, "Yeah, but I'm the James Brown of the '80s."

And I thought it was so funny when he said it. I was like, "Okay."

And I stayed.

And Jack and Hillel went and did What Is This,

and played with Alain and did their thing.

It's always cold

Even in summer

Oh, when trust is shattеred by green…

We made the EP. We went on tour straightaway.

I remember crossing paths a little bit here and there

on the club scene.

I'd meet somebody and they're like, "Oh, yeah, What Is This was here."

"And I met the guitar player, so funny and cool."

"I was hanging out with him."

I was like, "Yeah, yeah. He's the best."

My mind have still I

We did a video for the single.

We stayed up all night to finish it.

It was really cool.

But it got banned in Australia,

and some networks wouldn't play it because it could induce seizures.

There was strobing in the beginning,

which was too much.

We didn't have a lot of luck. Let's just put it that way.

It wasn't a successful run.

What Is This hadn't succeeded. The Peppers were-- were doing better.

Not a lot better. They hadn't broken yet, you know?

But better enough that I could see its effects on Hillel.

This is Videowave. My name is Tim Sommer.

We're here with the band What Is This. It's Alain, Hillel.

Now being on a major label, is that all it's cracked up to be?

Well, it's kinda, you know… It's, uh…

You know, there's been ups and downs and stuff.

Were you offered other labels before you signed with MCA?

Yeah, there was a few around.

- Were there a few? - Actually, only two or three at the time.

I don't think there were any. I think-- I think we jumped on it. No.

- No. - There might have been a few.

- Yeah, we kind of jumped on it. - Sure. There were a few.

We jumped on it. Yeah.

Yeah, we jumped on it.

Now Red Hot Chili Peppers are a pretty, pretty hot band.

They're getting a lot of attention.

- Yeah. - Which, you know…

Do you feel maybe you made the wrong decision?

No, I didn't make the wrong one.

I made the right one.

When you get off tour, you're gonna start work on the album?

- Mm-hmm. - Yeah.

Now talking with you, you're obviously open-minded people.

In that interview…

…Hillel was more distant, like really inside his head.

And it's-- I could feel it.

Like, "I think he's gonna go." You know?

Dear Mom and Jamie,

I haven't said anything to Alain yet,

but I spoke to Flea the other day and officially rejoined the Peppers.

Everyone is very excited. I feel good about the decision.

Take care and write me.

Love, Hillel.

Hillel coming back to the band was about as natural as it could be.

Oh, give me a home Where the buffalo roam

And the death of a race is a game…

Our record company came to us and they said,

"If you could have anybody in the world,

who would you want to produce your second record?"

And…

we said, "George Clinton."

Can we get funky now, George?

Hillel was just getting back with 'em, but it seemed like it was them three

against the world.

As good as they were, they didn't want to come off that good.

They wanted to be playing like they was a live show.

…can ghost dance

Punk rock, headbanging.

You know, they had to tape the earphones to their head

so they didn't throw 'em off.

George saw a new way to just, like, spread himself about the world through us.

He saw what was in us, he knew it,

and he just kept us go-- going until we just tapped in.

And George really joined the band for those sessions.

His way of producing was to arouse energy.

Hillel was, like, a really good guitar player,

and if his solo was too good, he'd tell you to take it off.

And don't turn it off, take it off.

Erase it.

Nevermind the "Pack Jam…"

We were totally enthralled being in the studio with George.

We did it. We made a record we were really proud of.

We're the Red Hot

- Who? - Chili

Say what?

Peppers

Nevermind the British bands…

We jammed out.

We played a lot of gigs.

We were very good.

We'd been playing all this funk.

Peppers!

George was coming out and joining us, Maceo Parker.

Then Jack came back and got the original lineup back together.

We toured like crazy.

I mean, we did 50 shows in 56 days in 50 different cities.

Nevermind the Soft Cell shit…

We had, like, a cool little group of loyal fans.

We had a show on the East Coast, and we were walking down the street

and this pack of kids walked by, and they were singing,

'Cause we're the Red Hot!

And I was like, "How is this possible?"

Peppers!

It was happening.

But that record, that tour…

the drug thing was always present.

In the beginning, he said, "It's a recreational thing."

"I can handle this."

Hillel would always say that it's an accent, it's an enhancer.

We were young, you know?

You can get away with it for a certain… point.

Sometimes you'd feel like you're in control,

like it's kinda a party, you do a little bit here and there,

and sometimes, it's not under control at all.

He used to have this expression,

"It's Friday, where's the tofu?"

And that meant he was going off to do drugs.

But then I started to notice that "It's Friday, where's the tofu?"

became very regular.

I certainly wasn't fond of the drugs.

They were just all over.

We were doing so much fucking cocaine,

and smoking crack,

trying to get heroin where we could.

Using whenever possible.

We wanted to see what was out there. We wanted to feel everything.

And-- And we didn't really… have an understanding of consequences.

And I felt very uncomfortable, you know, about it.

It got to the point where I was starting to really frown on it.

Biggest hypocrite in the world, right? I did drugs all the time.

But I thought, like, you know, "Well, I don't let it hurt the band."

"And you guys are-- are fucking up."

And at one point, I was like, "Okay, I need to buy some new bass strings."

And the record company was like, "Oh, all the money's gone."

I went, "The money's gone?"

But I'm like, "Where'd it go?"

It was like, they bought-- they spent it all on-- on drugs.

And I was fucking pissed.

Hillel and I had always been inseparable during that time,

and when we were younger and naive, we would get high together.

But we would try to hide it once we realized this is not okay.

This is-- This is hurtful.

Okay, we're gonna-- Are we going to get a question in here edgewise or not?

Yes, go ahead. Ask.

Looking at what you guys-- Hey!

While these maniacs are getting ready to get up on stage, we're gonna look…

We recorded a demo tape for our next album,

Uplift Mofo Party Plan.

And, um, you know, didn't work out, those sessions.

The recordings didn't go well.

Too many drugs, just wasn't-- wasn't happening.

I got a five-song demo tape for their-- their next record.

And I was like,

"This is really terrible."

We're the Red Hot Chili Peppers! I'm Flea!

Anthony! Hey!

Hillel! Wait.

I mean, musically, they're just all over the shop.

It's an absolute mess.

But there was something in there.

This very strange, sort of otherworldly vibe.

I kept listening to this tape over and over and over again,

kind of obsessively.

There's something about these guys as a unit that's really special.

And something clicked.

And I was like, "I really want to do this."

So I flew into LAX and was picked up at the airport by Flea and Jack.

Jack just happened to mention

two of the guys have heroin addiction problems.

And I was kind of like, "Huh?"

I was a mess

and spiraling downward.

Staying up all night and showing up wasted at rehearsals.

And that wasn't entirely new,

but I was kind of coming apart at the seams.

With Anthony, it was incredibly obvious

because the guy wouldn't show up for like weeks at a time to rehearsal.

Hillel was different.

I didn't know when Hillel was high.

He was able to maintain a sense of normalcy

and an ability to be able to work through whatever he was doing.

But here's the singer of the band who's just checked out.

Finally got to that point

where I was starting to hurt the collective.

The rest of the guys are sort of looking at this project,

seeing it sort of, like, dissolving into the air.

Going like, "Oh, my God. My life is evaporating in front of me."

I was like, "Dude, stop this shit. It's pathetic. You're fucking up."

"What are you doing?" You know what I mean? Like, why?

We were starting work on what became "Fight Like a Brave."

Somehow, we got him to a rehearsal.

And I was like, "Cool, where are the lyrics?"

Anthony came in with nothing written or anything.

And that was it.

I was like, "Motherfucker, how dare you walk into this fucking studio

and disrespect me and these guys in your band?"

"How dare you?"

"Get the fuck out of this studio right now. You're fucking fired."

And his jaw hit the ground.

I was officially kicked out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

And I was so kind of…

addicted to my ways,

I was like, "Okay, this gives me more time to, you know, destroy myself."

We didn't know how to-- oftentimes how to be there for each other

in a way that we should've been.

Anthony has been out of the band for a few weeks now.

My heart feels like an anvil soaked in lead.

He's going to Michigan for a while.

He said, "Hopefully, when I get back,

I'll be myself and be able to get positive without drugs."

I ended up going to a Salvation Army detox

and had this "get sober" moment.

I went 30 days without using,

and that was my very first foray into sobriety.

I pray that Anthony returns to cosmic soulness

and a new love and respect will happen.

I don't preach about our mutual well-being regarding drugs.

And I don't point fingers.

But with myself, I find hypocrisy.

When I showed my interest in getting sober,

independent of what the results of-- were with the band,

they became like, "Oh." You know? "Anthony's back. He's himself again."

He was in fighting form. Like, I'd never seen him like this before.

He was just brimming with vitality.

Like, it was almost as if he'd been reborn or something.

And I came back, and my thing was,

"I'm not gonna use while I'm making our next record."

Which, of course, is where "Fight Like a Brave" comes from.

Rah!

It was like a complete 180.

It pulled them out of any kind of slump they'd been in.

All the battery packs got put in, and they were at full strength.

This is no showdown, so throw…

They were working their asses off.

You could see this machine that was, like, running and running and running.

We're gonna rehearse constantly, we're gonna make these records,

we're gonna fucking live this music,

and we're gonna be the greatest band in the world.

Fight like a brave

Don't be a slave

No one can tell you You got to be afraid

Hillel was great. He was so funky and had so much swagger.

He played magnificently.

He came up with this part for this song called "Behind the Sun."

It's really beautiful.

"Behind the Sun" was different than just a rhythmic throwdown.

I remember being like, "Wow, that's like a song."

Just completely different than everything else we had played before.

The spirit and the groove and the energy,

it's really fucking good, man.

I'm so extremely proud of everybody's work.

Jack and Flea jam their freaky brains out.

Anthony sincerely never ceases to amaze me.

Who said you could do what you do?

We had a ton of moments

where we would just look at each other and we're like,

"This is the shit, this is the one."

A funky crime

Funky crime…

And I remember being in the studio with Hillel

recording "Funky Crime."

Funky crime against a state of mind…

I loved what he did, he loved what I did,

and we were so proud of that song.

The expression of it, the format, the funkiness.

Listening to playback and going,

"This shit is good. We did it."

Funky crime

That music felt like it was starting to form in a way

that was very meaningful.

And for the first time,

I had a concept of what it was to…

be a sober individual,

be an emotionally sober or physically sober person.

And… there was a sense of accomplishment

and a, you know, "we have arrived."

We stopped and had a moment of pride.

I think we celebrated by getting wasted, by the way.

Um, which turned out to be a really bad decision.

Man, it's a real poison.

It really… separates you.

But it was around this time I really started noticing

Hillel wither a little bit.

As out of control and kind of self-destructive as I was,

I did start to notice a…

an expression on his face.

It was like… a flatness.

There came an evening,

I said, "Really, Hillel, this is not a party anymore."

"This is getting to be way too much."

And there was just this glazed look on his face.

He just was blank.

And he wasn't there.

He hid it from me.

He hid it from the family.

But I remember one particular time,

my mom came up to me,

said she felt that he was sick or something.

Something wasn't right.

Hillel was like a-- a glowing artist.

He had lightness in his footsteps.

He was very vibrant. His spirit was so alive, he sparkled.

But now a physical frailty was starting to emerge in both of us.

You know, I see pictures of us during that time,

and we're both looking pretty haggard.

And I started to see it getting the best of us.

Been rooming with Anthony.

Too many drugs.

Both high on H.

Fleeting feelings of self-dread,

and that I've allowed myself to sink into a very scary and tricky place.

It sneaks up on you.

My dog Honey Bear had arthritis,

and I had syringes that the vet had given me.

And I caught him trying to steal one.

And I was, "Hillel!"

"Wake up. Stop this."

When I knew that he was…

doing drugs that much,

I didn't know how to be there for him.

I was mad.

I was so gung ho about the band.

I was like, "This doesn't serve me."

"When you're doing what you're doing, it doesn't fucking serve me."

And obviously it's deeper than that. I cared about him.

I wanted him to thrive in himself.

But my anger was selfish.

I was selfish.

Things got really bad on heroin for Anthony too.

It was just scary to me.

These were my magic guys.

And I would see them just suffer.

I don't know,

with Hillel,

where all his pain came from.

I remember once…

we were on tour in a van.

I was going to play something, like some Stevie Wonder, I think.

It was some, like, emotional Stevie Wonder stuff.

And he was like, "Don't, don't. Don't, I can't.

"I know if I hear that, I'm just going to be sobbing and sobbing. I can't."

"I can't." I was like, "Whoa!" Like, I-- You know, he was sitting there.

We were just sitting with each other. But I didn't realize that he was…

sitting there on the verge of tears about just being.

Certainly, like, the same thing that drove him to be as creative as he was

hurt him too.

And he was carrying it with him all the time.

After the record was done, we went on tour to Europe.

We flew to London.

We were playing in London for the first time.

We're excited to be bringing our shows to the world.

Rock 'n' roll!

Fuckin' right!

I happened to be in London, and they came over on tour.

They had a show, which was really important to them at the time.

Go!

And Hillel came out, and he was a mess.

He was too strung out to get on stage. Like, "I can't."

Put down the guitar, walked off the stage.

And I was just, like, devastated.

It was clear in my mind, like, okay, no more.

Jack was like, "Man, this is really bad."

"This has to stop."

Jack and I kind of converged and said, "What should we do about him?"

And we went through his stuff and found his drugs.

And I was scared to death.

I said, you know, "I love you. Please don't do it." You know?

And Jack got him to flush it all down the toilet.

Hillel just sort of hung his head in shame.

A few days later, Hillel and I were going through Norway.

We were both in a train compartment together,

just the two of us.

And, you know, you reach a point

where it stops working.

And I felt like we were both at that point.

And I was trying to share my experience of what it had been like

when I went 30 days without using. I was like…

"It's-- It's kind of fun." Like, "There-- There's something to it."

And I was… ever so gently saying, "Something to check out."

He was shocked to find out that if you stop doing drugs altogether,

your-- your body may, you know, withdraw

and take some time to recover.

Hillel went through like a week or so of being really sick.

But then got it together.

And then we had a really cool tour.

Me and my, me and my, me and my Me and my, me and my friends

Me and my, me and my, me and my Me and my, me and my friends

Me and my, me and my, me and my…

We did these shows, and he was great.

We were rocking, we were playing every night.

Played the Rex Club in Paris, it was off the fucking chart.

Me and my, me and my, me and my Me and my, me and my friends

The Red Hot Chili Peppers…

We saw him in Germany, and he was really clean.

Like, really straight.

Me and my, me and my, me and my…

That was, like, "Wow."

That was really positive.

We were, like, alive and doing stuff and excited.

And I was like, "We're back in the saddle."

MTV's Summer Rock 1988

brings you live coverage of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The amount of people coming was different.

…me and my, me and my Me and my, me and my friends

People started to really love us.

…me and my, me and my Me and my, me and my friends

And we were all looking around going,

"Something's changing. This record changed something."

A very rough year.

But I know this experience will make me stronger.

Fuck drugs.

Music is my destiny.

Bonjour, monsieur.

You told me the other day that you, uh,

actually miss-- miss your, uh, family and mother?

Uh, yeah.

You know, I-- I just look forward to, like, coming home

and buying my mom a nice gift and just spending time with them.

'Cause w-when-- when I go home,

I think it-- I have a new way of l-looking at life, I think.

What's that?

I have a new way of looking at life.

- Oh, you want to know what…? - Yeah, what's the new way?

Uh, well, it's kind of involved,

but, um, one of-- one of the main things I've, uh, kind of,

I have a new way of… resigning myself to being on tour a lot,

to being away from home a lot.

So I-- the way that I look at home now is kind of a different way.

It's-- It's very complicated, kind of a personal thing

that I could probably expound on for hours.

- But won't get into it. - You'd rather not talk about it?

Oh, well, no. I'll just tell you that everything is cool.

When we got back from that tour,

my dream of, like, paying rent and eating

without having to have a job was fulfilled.

I fell in love with a woman.

I was about to have a baby.

I really was excited. I very much wanted to be a father.

And it was one of the happiest times of my entire life.

But it's funny 'cause in this time…

…we'd become more separated.

You know, we had kind of become a little bit successful,

but we weren't as together as much.

We were together all the time. We're in a band together.

But not like when you're every day scrapping around,

"How're we gonna get lunch today?" Shit like that.

You know what I mean? Like, we could afford lunch now.

The need for that street family was less.

We were feeling so young and kind of unstoppable.

But Hillel and I, we had not,

you know, found any relief, um,

outside of getting high.

So we both started using again.

I was, like, on one side of town, and he was on another,

because it had gotten to that point

where we weren't even like, "Oh, let's go get high together."

It was like, "You go your way, I'll go mine."

We had rehearsal, and he called in sick.

And I went to, um…

have sushi that night,

and there he was, you know, at the sushi bar.

And I was like, "I thought you were home sick?" You know?

And he was-- You know, he was high. I could see his eyes were pinned.

And I was just like, "Oh. I see."

I went out to a club, and he came in the room,

and he didn't even recognize me.

Like, he was in such bad shape.

Days are so weird as far as length.

Long, short, I can't tell.

I feel tested.

I do think of death often,

not in a wishful way.

Just… I don't know.

I feel, in a way, that my time is limited.

I remember that Perry Farrell,

um, came over to my house,

and Perry had the new Jane's Addiction album,

Nothing's Shocking.

He was like, "You gotta hear my new album."

I was like, "Okay, yeah, Jane's Addiction."

You know what I mean? They were like… We were the Chili Peppers.

And he popped it in, and I was like, "Holy shit, they're really fucking good."

And we and my wife, we all drove over to a friend's house

to go watch the Mike Tyson fight.

We had a big barbecue.

It was just like, I couldn't have been happier.

You know what I mean? I mean, life was just going so good, man.

Um, and I remember I got home. It was like…

"You have 39 messages," you know?

I was like, "What the fuck?" You know? I pick it up, it was, "Call me, call me."

"Call me."

No one's saying anything. "Call me." What the fuck?

I had been off getting high.

And I had abandoned a girlfriend, Ione, who, you know, meant the world to me,

and finally got to that point where I had to make the payphone call

to say, "I'm so sorry. I'm an idiot."

"Please forgive me. I'm coming home."

And she was sobbing uncontrollably.

And I was like, "I promise, I'm-- I'm gonna come home."

Like, "It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna, like, change my ways."

And she was like, "No, you don't understand."

I was with my friend in my apartment.

We're hanging out. There was a knock at the door.

And it was three of Hillel's friends.

I said, "Hey, what's up? Come on in."

And they go, "No, come outside."

And…

they were pale.

And they were like, "James,

your brother's dead."

"He overdosed."

You know, I'm 21 years old.

And that was it. It was like… my life is over.

I was in such a state of shock that I would not accept those words.

I was like, "No, he's fine. Don't be crazy."

"Whatever you heard is a rumor."

"That's my guy. He's not dead."

I could not accept it. I--

In that moment, for my survival or whatever,

I was like, "He is not dead."

That experience of losing your…

your brother, your friend,

it's more than you can really handle feeling.

I fell over, you know.

I don't know, I just dropped the phone.

My-- My legs went out from under me. I hit the ground.

And, uh…

you know.

Hillel was so excited for my baby girl.

We didn't know it was gonna be a girl, but he always said it was gonna be a girl.

And he, um, talked about it all the time with me.

Like, always thinking of names, and…

He was like, "This is going to be so beautiful."

The way I dealt with it was to, um, not face the truth,

not face the sobering reality

of, like, his family lost their son,

his girlfriend lost her soulmate,

we lost our best friend.

Um, it was too much.

My mom ended up walking in circles for three days straight,

24 hours a day,

until she dropped.

We had the funeral.

All of Hillel's friends came.

A few hundred people outside, you know.

Flea was a pallbearer.

But Anthony, he was nowhere to be found.

He didn't show up.

I remember hearing that, you know, his mother

was holding me responsible to some degree.

I had such a reputation at that time as a druggie.

So I decided this is a person…

who I'm just gonna give space to,

you know, forever.

And-- And not, you know, put her through… me.

And I tried to… just disappear.

I continued to try to get high for a while,

and-- and that truly stopped working.

Like, nothing could…

Nothing could shut my mind off at that point,

and, um, I knew that the gig was up.

The days of just consuming was up.

And then the reality, like, set in.

Like, I'm not gonna wake up from the bad dream.

And, um…

And that kind of began my…

my real journey of-- of becoming sober,

um, and my real journey of dealing

with the… the loss of-- of Hillel.

You know, the worst thing that could happen, happened.

And I just said, "Guys, I can't go on. You know, I just can't go on."

So I left the Chili Peppers.

I was in a very bad place.

I ended up in a mental facility for a while.

You know, I just couldn't face it.

I was also questioning doing it anymore.

When Hillel died,

it changed forever.

With Hillel, it was like we'd look at each other and just be fucking playing.

It felt like we could do anything.

We could play fucking anything and it would be beautiful,

because we were connecting,

and we were doing something that we thought was fucking beautiful.

And we'd be in a trance.

Um, and when that was gone, I didn't know that,

um, I would ever have that again, you know, that really natural feeling.

Yeah.

John Frusciante emerges,

and he knew everything about the Red Hot Chili Peppers

up to that moment.

He had come to see the Chili Peppers every time,

and Hillel was a huge influence on him.

Like, serious.

I have lots of memories of-- of solos,

and they…

It was as if they didn't have notes to them.

It was as if it was just this electrical swirl

wrapping around me.

With Hillel, it was about his style.

A lot of the guitar players in the '80s

were sacrificing style at the time just to stay current.

And Hillel had the strength of character

to not be touched by any of that.

You know, when that… tragic window

revealed itself…

It's a very sweet night tonight.

…John stepped forward.

This is John. He's only 18 years old.

One, two, three, four!

Ow! LA is the place Sets my mind ablaze…

For about the first nine months that I was in the band,

I was still trying to show off a certain amount.

You know, I'm just gonna hit as hard as Flea does.

He was like, "This is what you do in the Chili Peppers," you know?

I thought that was what I would be bringing to the band.

Just trying to play as many notes as I could.

Playing fast and doing all the popular techniques.

And it just… It just didn't work.

I felt like I was the worst guy in the band,

and I didn't feel like I was contributing that much.

It took him a little bit to find his way, just to be himself.

I'd always be asking questions to Flea and Anthony.

Did Hillel like this? Did he like that?

Like, what his taste in various things were.

That stuff was important to me

because he had the key to know how to play

in a way that made Flea and Anthony sound the best they could be.

And I had to learn how to have chemistry with those guys.

That magic that was there when I used to go see them live,

I had the responsibility of trying to recreate that.

And I made this mental decision, "Just play like Hillel."

Not just partially, but completely.

And all of a sudden, I started sounding original.

I have no explanation for it other than, you know,

he was a cosmic guy, and I was a student of his.

And the funny thing about it is, like,

I've heard people say that Blood Sugar was where I started to sound like myself,

instead of sounding like Hillel.

It was the opposite.

By Blood Sugar time, I was 100% about just playing like Hillel.

And it was "Behind the Sun" that showed me the band wasn't just a punk-funk band.

That there's room for that melodic side of myself.

John brought me this hyper-melodic, complicated series

of chord changes.

I was like, "Whoa! I'll-- I'll do my best,

but that's, like, a little above my pay grade there."

I drive on her streets 'Cause she's my companion

I walk through her hills 'Cause she knows who I am

She sees my good…

"Behind the Sun" was the thing that was pointing

towards there being able to be a song like that.

I really had let go, by that point, of all my previous ideas

about how to show off to people.

And I really let Hillel be the central part of my style.

I don't ever want to feel Like I did that day

Take me to the place I love…

- The Red Hot… - The Red Hot…

- The Red Hot… - The Red Hot…

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Red Hot…

…Chili Peppers!

They have never been afraid to test musical limits,

never afraid to be outrageous.

And their latest release, Blood Sugar Sex Magik…

…has sold over two million copies.

It just felt like the Chili Peppers had entered a whole new incarnation.

They realized, "Hey, we do have a voice in this."

"We have the potential to touch more people."

And it really set the tone for what they became.

Anthony found his voice.

I told him, "Y'all gonna be big. And when you get big, remember the funk."

"Give It Away" sounded like their appreciation of us.

One, two, three, four!

What I got You gotta give it to your mama…

Matter of fact, we actually did that song with them at the Grammys.

We had like 20 people on the stage.

Looking forward to seeing anybody in particular play?

Chili Peppers more than anybody.

They're one of the most nominated groups.

Give it away, give it away Give it away now

And the Best Hard Rock Performance is Red Hot Chili Peppers.

"Give It Away!"

During the writing of that album,

I nearly went every day to his gravestone.

To sit with him, talk to him.

To the point where people were thinking I was weird. Like, "What are you doing?"

I don't know, it just felt right.

I did have different things to-- to write about.

The kind of survival messages and feelings of loss.

Hillel was gone,

but you make something beautiful in proportion to the hole you wanna fill.

And it awakened in me a desire to really live with everything I had.

His death festered in me for a long time.

And then a couple years ago,

Hillel's younger brother, James, reached out to me and said,

"My mom's only got a… a few days, you know, left."

"I think you should come and-- and say goodbye to her."

I was like, "But I thought she hated me."

And he's like, "No, she's loved you this whole time."

So I went to see Hillel's mom on her deathbed

and had a…

a nice…

goodbye moment with her.

Hillel was a poet, he was an artist.

He believed in me.

Because of our family, our friendship, our love,

Hillel's genius musical consciousness

continued in the innate energy of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

For the last couple of months, all I wanted to do

was just play songs from the Hillel period.

That's just… It's the center of the whole thing to me.

My guitar style comes from playing with Flea,

and the way I learned to play with Flea was really trying to get in Hillel's head,

even though…

I never knew him.

And he's not forgotten.

Yeah, Flea and I don't forget him.

The last time I went to Hillel's grave,

there was a girl there. Some girl I didn't know.

And, um, she was just at his gravestone,

and just loved him and wanted to honor him.

And I was really surprised.

I was like, "Man, he died, you know,

whatever it is, 30-something years ago,

and, um, you're here."

Like, "You didn't know him, you didn't…"

You know, she was like, "No, he really touched me."

I want to say this whole set is dedicated to Hillel Slovak.

And everything we ever do from now on is dedicated to Hillel Slovak.

Are you ready to funk?

- Do it. - One, two, three, four!

I used to shout across the room to you

And you'd come dancin' like a fool

Aw, shuffle step, you funky mother

Here, come to me, all warm as covers

Rest with me, my lovely brother

Hey, for you see, there is no other

Memory so sad and sweet

I'll see you soon, save me a seat

Oh, well, I'm crying

Oh, now, my lovely man

Oh, yes, I'm crying

Oh, now, and no one can

Will ever fill the

The hole you left, my man