![]() ![]() The arrival of muscular drummer Chad Smith and wunderkind guitarist John Frusciante helped thrust 1989’s hard-rockin’ Mothers Milk toward gold-record status and, as the alternative revolution raged, RHCP emerged as kings of the mosh pit with 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Majik. The band’s berserker bass-slappin’ energy, absurdist humor, and strategic placement of tube socks made them college radio’s resident court jesters throughout the ‘80s, but Slovak’s death from a heroin overdose in 1988-and Irons’ subsequent depression-induced exit-forever altered the band’s DNA. That dichotomy was baked into their sound from the moment frontman Anthony Kiedis, bassist Michael “Flea” Balzary, guitarist Hillel Slovak, and drummer Jack Irons formed RHCP in 1983, fusing Black Flag’s furious punk and Parliament’s horny funk. “We represent the Hollywood kids/Hollywood is where we live,” the Red Hot Chili Peppers chanted on their 1987 manifesto “Organic Anti-Beat Box Band,” and decades later, these alt-rock icons still embody all that is sunny and seedy about L.A.
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