Anthony Kiedis

Anthony Kiedis

Anthony Kiedis (born November 1, 1962) is the lead singer and a co-founder of the alternative rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. He is also responsible for writing most of the band's vocal melodies and lyrics.

Biography

Early life

Anthony Kiedis was born at St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to John Kiedis and Margaret "Peggy" Idema (née Noble), who divorced in 1965 when he was three. He has two half-sisters, Julie and Jenny, and a half-brother, James. His great-grandfather, Antanas Kiedis, is Lithuanian and his paternal grandmother has some Mohican blood. (While actually only part Native American, Kiedis has exhibited strong interest in that heritage, showcasing it in the tribal tattoo on his upper back, and he has used it as lyrical inspiration in songs such as "True Men Don't Kill Coyotes", "American Ghost Dance", "Apache Rose Peacock", "Fight Like a Brave" and "Johnny, Kick a Hole in the Sky"). His godfather was Sonny Bono.

Kiedis lived with his mother in Grand Rapids until he was 11, then moved to Los Angeles with his father, a soon-to-be actor and drug dealer. Kiedis himself has admitted that his love for heroin was influenced by his drug addict father. His father was the person who introduced him to drugs; Anthony would later go on to use and abuse many drugs in his lifetime. According to his autobiography, Scar Tissue, Anthony lost his virginity at age 12 to his father's girlfriend who was 18.

Kiedis spent much of his youth listening to Sly & the Family Stone, Led Zeppelin and Stevie Wonder - artists who would influence the Red Hot Chili Peppers' sound. Around the age of 15, while a student at Fairfax High School, he met future bandmates Michael Balzary (Flea), Hillel Slovak, and Jack Irons. In Scar Tissue, Kiedis tells of how he took up the role of a "protector" in school, defending all the kids who were outcast or bullied. When Flea was playfully putting his friend in a headlock, he told Flea to back off. However, when the misunderstanding was revealed, the two teenagers became friends.

Formation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Main article: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Kiedis went on to study at UCLA, but dropped out after losing interest, partially due to his abusive relationship with drugs. This cycle of addiction and recovery in the mid to late '80s would become a basis for a lot of Anthony's early lyrics. After dropping out of UCLA, Kiedis had an offer to open for a friend's band, so he got together with friends Flea, Slovak, and Jack Irons. Initially, the group was named Tony Flow and the Miraculous Masters of Mayhem. Slovak and Irons were in the band What Is This? at this time. Eventually the group would change its name to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band's original line-up consisted of the four friends and led to the band's first studio album, for which Irons and Slovak rejoined the group. After The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hillel Slovak was reunited with Anthony and Flea. For their next album, Jack Irons rejoined the band but later left after Hillel's drug overdose. Since then, the band has experienced at least twelve different line-ups, releasing nine studio albums in the span of 24 years.

Personal troubles

In 1990, Kiedis was convicted of indecent exposure and sexual battery in a Virginia court. The case originated from a backstage incident at a 1989 concert at George Mason University.

Kiedis often struggled with drug addiction, including lengthy addictions to heroin, cocaine and alcohol. He tried to get clean after the heroin overdose death of Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Hillel Slovak on June 25, 1988, saying he would never shoot up again. He entered rehab and ended up staying clean for five years but relapsed in 1994 because he was having a tooth removed. He asked the dentist not to use a narcotic, but he had to. He went in and out of rehab over the next few years, but has reportedly avoided another relapse since December 24, 2000. "It’s easy to be a junkie," Kiedis said in the March, 2007, issue of Blender. "It’s not easy to be one of the fastest guitar players of all time, or one of the greatest writers."

Personal life

Kiedis currently lives in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. It is a Mediterranean style villa often noted for its authentic art collection and unique design. He is also reported to be a follower of the Kabbalah religion but insists "I don't go for sects and denominations.". Furthermore, he carries out Vipassana meditation regularly. In May 2007 Anthony was spotted in public with his 21 year old model girlfriend Heather "Nika" Christie who was visibly pregnant. This would be the first child for both Kiedis and Christie. Music writers say he resembles Iggy Pop in his younger days.

Role in the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Kiedis has always been the band's frontman. Although Flea is the only one to have remained in the band from the start, Kiedis has remained in the band for most of the time in the Chili's rocky history, and was only kicked out of the band for a month due to rehabilitation problems. Kiedis does not write any music for the band, but does supply nearly all the lyrics. From 1989's Mother's Milk to 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik album and since 1999's Californication album, John Frusciante and Flea have written all of the music for RHCP with Kiedis supplying lyrics and melodies, often derived from the guitar or bass melodies. Kiedis devises the lyrics and melodies amidst instrumental jams by his bandmates; Kiedis said in 2006, "Somehow I find songs . . . in the bigness of what they're doing." His lyrical style has varied over the years. From their early roots as a band, Kiedis wrote many lyrics involving sex, drugs, and life in Los Angeles. As his musical tastes expanded and his outlook on life changed, he started to write songs about spirituality, struggles in life and loss of friends, incorporating a larger sense of social realism and thoughtfulness in his lyrics.

He started being the vocalist of the band by rapping, which he could do at extreme speeds, keeping a consistent rhythm. Starting from as early as Mother's Milk in 1989, Kiedis would write songs for the band with more melody rather than the basic rhythm and beat style of funk and hip-hop, their first song doing this was "Knock Me Down". The melody was actually shaped and reformed by guitarist John Frusciante. Upon joining the band, he sang lead vocals on the song along with Kiedis. 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik still saw Kiedis rapping, but he started singing his first melodic ballads in songs like "Under the Bridge", "Breaking the Girl" and "I Could Have Lied". Over the years, Kiedis would favor singing rather than rapping. Kiedis had many vocal coaches, but none of them would help him sing "better". In fact, it was not until 1999's Californication that he could take full control of his voice to sing.

Kiedis admitted in his autobiography (when speaking of a photo shoot when band members swapped instruments) that he actually cannot play any instrument.

Lyrical themes and topics

Through the years, Kiedis' lyrics have dealt with a variety of topics, which altered as the years progressed. Themes included within his expansive repertoire are love and the meaning of friendship, teenage angst and good-time aggression, sexual fantasies and the link between sex and music, political and social commentary (Native American issues in particular), romance, forskins and fetid cum cheese, drugs, loneliness, globalisation and the negative-side of fame and Hollywood, poverty, alcohol, and dealing with loss. Many of Kiedis' fans celebrate the philosophical elements of his lyrics in online forums and sites like The Teaches of Kiedis.

Discography

Red Hot Chili Peppers

• The Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984)
• Freaky Styley (1985)
• The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987)
• The Abbey Road E.P. (1988)
• Mother's Milk (1989)
• Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)
• What Hits!? (1992)
• Out in L.A. (1994)
• One Hot Minute (1995)
• Californication (1999)
• By The Way (2002)
• Greatest Hits (2003)
• Stadium Arcadium (2006)

Guest Appearance

• Tricky - Blowback (Vocals On the Track "Girls")

Filmography

• Lil' Bush (2007) .... As Himself
• The Chase (1994) .... Will
• Point Break (1991) .... Surf Gang
• Less Than Zero (1987) (as Cole Dammett) .... Musician #3
• Tough Guys (1986) (as The Red Hot Chili Peppers) .... Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Jokes My Folks Never Told Me (1978) (as Cole Dammett)
• ABC Afterschool Specials .... Jimmy Plummer (1 episode, 1978)
• F.I.S.T (1978) (as Cole Dammett) .... Kevin Kovak

Other projects

Using the stage name Cole Dammett (adapted from his father's stage name, Blackie Dammett), Kiedis landed a number of small roles in television and film as a teenager in the late 1970s. His early credits include F.I.S.T. and the 1978 after school special It's a Mile from Here to Glory. Resuming his acting work in the 1990s, Kiedis appeared in the 1991 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze vehicle Point Break playing Tone, a surfer. The Chase, a 1994 movie starring Charlie Sheen as an estranged man trying to escape the cops with a young woman he kidnapped, had Flea and Kiedis playing metalheads who chase Sheen's character in a 4x4 truck and end up crashing.

In 2004, Kiedis published a memoir titled Scar Tissue, which peaked at number 17 on the New York Times Bestseller List. It is a detailed insight to Kiedis's life from a rebellious child to a rock star.

On June 13th, Kiedis and fellow band mate Flea will cameo on the show, Lil' Bush.

External links

• Official Red Hot Chili Peppers website