The Red Hot Chili Peppers started in Los Angeles, California. Anthony Kiedis moved from Michigan to L.A. to live w/his father @ age 11, a while after his parents divorced. Michael "Flea" Balzary & he met on the first day of school on the lawn of Fairfax High School. Flea had Anthony's best friend in a headlock & Anthony threatened to attack Flea, so Flea let go. They started talking, & became close friends. Hillel Slovak, a mutual friend of the two was very interested in music & he played guitar incessantly. Flea was a very talented trumpet player & loved jazz music @ the time. His stepfather hosted jazz jams @ their home & many of the schooled musicians envied Flea for his unique sound. Flea took up bass @ age 16 when Hillel taught him to play it. The two played around L.A. @ small clubs for a few years, & Flea was invited to join the hardcore L.A. punk band, Fear. But they weren't happy, so one night Jack Irons (who was the drummer for their first three albums & is now the drummer for Pearl Jam), Flea & Hillel were onstage together & Anthony decided to hop up to rap out a poem he'd written entitled "Out in L.A." The three improvised while he did this & the Red Hot Chili Peppers were born, because the club owner wanted them back. They immediately took off in the L.A. club scene, w/lines around the blocks in their first few weeks as a band.

Drummer Jack Irons & guitarist Hillel Slovak were, @ the same time, invited to join a band named What Is This?. They went with What Is This? while Anthony & Flea recorded the first Chili Peppers album. Not making any commercial impact, their self-titled debut was described as the only two Peppers to play on every album from beginning to end as "raw & unfocused."

Not easily discouraged, the Peppers went back to the studio to try again, this time enlisting the services of the legendary George Clinton to produce Freaky Styley. Hillel & Jack returned to the band for the making of their second album, & Freaky Styley was @ first listen an obviously better effort. Although failing to chart, it was a foretelling album as to how the band's sound would later develop. Their third album, Uplift Mofo Party Plan , was their first to break onto the Billboard charts, peaking @ 148. Although the mainstream was still into hair bands, college radio was ready for a change, & the Chili Peppers were being greeted w/open arms.

Building a loyal base, they began to tour the States & Europe. By this time, both Anthony & Hillel were heavy heroin abusers. Not realizing @ first that this was such a deadly drug, they didn't view it as a major threat until Hillel overdosed & the two decided to quit together. Anthony & Hillel were supportive of each other in the sense that they helped one another stay clean from drugs. But after an extensive European tour, the band went its seperate ways. Hillel didn't have the support from his bandmates that he needed, so he called his brother to tell him that he loved him. Hillel's brother, James, was the last person to ever talk to him, he overdosed on heroin that night. His bandmates did not accept the news, & Anthony left for Mexico to be by himself. Flea was heartbroken w/no one to turn to, because Jack announced he was leaving the band. After reflecting for a while on what had happened & what could, Anthony & Flea decided to go on w/Red Hot Chili Peppers.

They didn't have to look far for a new guitarist, one of their biggest fans was 18 year old guitar prodigy John Frusciante. More than eager to join the band, he was iniated as the new guitarist quickly, but the audition for a drummer was more grueling. They went through 30 drummers in one day & @ the last one Anthony, Flea & John were almost ready to give up when in walked Chad Smith. Towering over everyone else in the band, he sat down behind the drums & impressed the Chili Peppers greatly. He was hired & that formed what is known today as the "classic" line-up.

Still reeling from pain from the loss of their best friend, Anthony & Flea headed once again back into the studio w/new members John & Chad. Anthony wrote the album's signature song "Knock Me Down," about the loss of Hillel. It went into heavy rotation on MTV & became the band's first commercial success. Followed up by "Higher Ground," Mother's Milk , their 4th album, sold 500,000 copies, becoming their first gold album. After the tour, they retreated to a supposedly haunted house in the hills of northern California w/famed producer Rick Rubin. Rick encouraged the band to let its most funky, rocking, & wild emotions flow through their music. Things went well & Rick was one day leafing through Anthony's notebooks when he came across "Under the Bridge." It embarrassed Anthony because it was so personal, but Rick urged him to sing it to the rest of the band. Flea, John & Chad didn't laugh as he'd anticipated, instead they went directly to their instruments & began to play. Their biggest commercial hit to date was born.

Selling over 8 million copies in its first year of release & fueled by such hits as "Give It Away," "Under the Bridge," & "Breaking the Girl," BloodSugarSexMagik became a smash hit & the Red Hot Chili Peppers were declared the "it" band of the early 90s. The album has been named throughout various magazines & polls as being in the top twenty albums that changed your life. BloodSugarSexMagik also had its surprises in traditional Chili Pepper fashion, such as "Sir Psycho Sexy," one of the most blunt stories of a sexual episode probably ever put to music. But everyone wasn't happy about the Peppers' success. Guitarist John Frusciante was becoming increasingly disenchanted w/the crowds singing along, people following him everyone, & the lack of isolation. So, just before they were to headline Lollapalooza & Woodstock '94, he quit Red Hot Chili Peppers. John had decided that he wasn't fulfilling his dreams as a musician being in the Peppers, & he also believed that heroin would help him achieve the goals he had set for himself as a musician. John voluntarily became a junkie, losing almost everything he had, becoming one of the worst cases of drug addiction history has ever recorded. Scrambling to find a replacement, the Peppers hired Arik Marshall for Lollapalooza & went through a short string of other guitarists before finally deciding on Dave Navarro, formerly of Jane's Addiction. Their first show was Woodstock & they immediately went into the studio to record One Hot Minute after that.

One Hot Minute took over a year to record, but it was finally released in 1995. Not as funky as the previous albums, it seemed to lack the thickness that was laid down on the tracks w/Hillel & John. It is an excellent album, but the artists don't seem to "be on the same page," as Flea has put it. Stilling selling well over a million copies, it largely sold due to the success of BloodSugarSexMagik . So, the band took a break, Flea & Dave did a Jane's Addiction reunion tour. Rumors spread that the band had broken up, but in early 1998, the band happily announced that guitarist John Frusciante had returned. John says that he has battled against his own demons, & now he has won. Practicing 15 hours a day, like when he first picked up his guitar @ a very young age, he is now very health conscious.

Red Hot Chili Peppers have now released Californication & are getting the best reviews of their career. W/n 5 months of the album's release, it has already went double platinum in the States. Selling over 10 million copies worldwide, Californication tells the bittersweet tales of their adventures as a cohesive unit, one of the closest bands in the industry. I, personally, believe it is the album of the year & if you don't have it, you must go out & buy it. Listen for yourself if you don't believe me, you'll probably change your mind.