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The Red Hot Chili Peppers (and the USA) have an Anthony Kiedis Problem ... ALEX CHARALAMBIDES
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WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM
A U G U S T 20 - 26, 2020
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rologue: December 2019, seminal SoCal funk-punk darlings turned Grammywinning, 80 million recordselling rock megastars the Red Hot Chili Peppers announced the return of guitarist John Frusciante for a third stint with the band, preparing for a 2020 world tour, including a March 31 headlining date for the annual Boston Calling Music Festival. The show was canceled in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the band’s tumultuous 35-year career, the RHCP’s only constants have been acclaimed bassist Flea and rapper-turnedsinger Anthony Kiedis, best friends since high school who founded the band along with guitarist Hilel Slovak, who died from a heroin overdose in 1988, almost ending the band and cornering front man Anthony into his first attempt at sobriety. Guitar prodigy, high school dropout and number one Chili Peppers fan John Frusciante was selected to replace Slovak. He was 18 years old. Frusciante returning to the Chili Peppers again almost got past me. The 1998 Alex would have pumped a tennis fist up in the air at such news, but like a lot of fans, I’d lost my enthusiasm since he left the band for a second time in 2009. For context, Frusciante’s entrance into the band scored them their first gold record for 1989’s “Mother’s Milk” and their first platinum breakout album, 1991’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” launching the band into the
mainstream and signaling the ’90s decade-long “alternative rock” era, with the lead single “Give it Away” released on Sept. 4, 1991, six days before Nirvana’s radio release of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Frusciante has been
voted one of the top 20 all-time rock guitarists by Rolling Stone Magazine. By comparison, the band’s 2011 record with guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, “I’m With You,” sold only 2.2 million copies, and 2016’s “The
Getaway” sold a paltry 1.3 million. But this isn’t really about the band’s waning sales or popularity. Not really. This is about mentorship and influence, about seeing a parallel to yourself in a rock star, and what happens when the toxicities of that rocker’s reality are laid bare. 1. Dear Anthony Kiedis, I’ve been thinking about second acts, about the decisions I’ve made and the forces that informed them. I’ve been thinking a lot about this country to which my family emigrated to as refugees. I’ve been thinking about influence and the fact that I didn’t have many chosen mentors growing up. My family was busy assimilating and working. My teachers were quick-study Pez dispensers for grades. Even my oldest brother, John, my protector and hero at the time, joined the Air Force when I was 12, guaranteeing that I would have no cool record collection to inherit. I was desperate for a voice to confirm that I wasn’t crazy for suspecting that reality, as presented to me through the framework of the United States of America, was some sort of beautiful lie. Like many firstgeneration Americans, almost every part of my childhood and adolescence was structured for me. No
WARNER BROTHERS RECORDS
sleepovers at my American friends’ houses, a private all-boys high school. Most social interactions revolved around the church. My folks didn’t listen to music, read books for fun or go to movies or museums much. They were working extra hours, then extra hours on top of that, committing themselves to political organizing. The ironic dualities were astounding to me, even as a child. The person I spent the most time with was my grandmother, my YiaYia, who spoke zero English, my tri-lingually challenged mind mostly comprehending that she only wanted for me to be “good,” (then eat something) so I did and have been making that my primary occupation in life, through all the jobs, all the projects, I’ve been trying my damnedest to be good. By 1990, the one area of my life that wasn’t strictly enforced was what I rocked on my headphones as I studied. One day, my 16-yearold sheltered self discovered an opportunity to grab a treasure trove of cassette tapes in one shot from the Columbia House Music Club, all for a penny! I finally had the freedom to take exciting chances and listen to stuff I might not have been able to afford otherwise. There were the standard rock tapes, but I was also enamored with rap and R&B, and then … there was this irresistibly manic sound blend coming from Southern California … The Red Hot Chili Peppers unwittingly became the music I chose to mentor me. Because that’s what we’re talking about, right? Mentorship. Role models. Heroes. That’s what I was looking for, someone to tell me that thinking differently was not just OK, but necessary, righteous and joyful. At some point, I looked at the world and told myself “there’s something’s not quite right here. There’s gotta be something else.” It was more a suspicion than anything else. At the start of my poetry career, one of my favorite pieces to perform was about my search for a mentor: “I must be truly demented, I actually sent away in the mail for a ready made mentor,” never realizing I had subconsciously alluded to that record club purchase from years back. So, Anthony, your band became my mentor. Whether you wanted it to or not. I was a teenager.
