KiedisAnthony - Red Hot Chili Peppers: Fandemonium: The Red Hot Chili Peppers

2014 Red Hot Chili Peppers

Photographs David Mushegain

Published by Running Press,

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Contents

Growing up I was never really a fan of anyone, as we normally think of being a fan. From the age of eight onward, my father, Blackie, turned me on to all kinds of great music: Blondie, Benny Goodman, Roxy Music, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash. I loved all that music but I didnt consider myself a fan of those people. I was always one step removed from that Im a fan, I have to go to this show mentality. It wasnt because I was rebelling against my dad; I loved the art he was showing me, but my personality at that time was to be more of an observer than a rabid participant.

I felt the music, I loved it, and I would dance and sing along with it and get excited. The only way to create a vibe for going out to a club is to listen to music that you like. When youre getting dressed, when youre doing your hair, you just need to have the jam going. But I wasnt a fan per se. Perhaps it was because I always had a grandiose idea that my destiny was to be an artist myself so I couldnt go around idolizing another artist too much. My father had planted the seed when I moved from Michigan. Heres the plan, you are going to move to L.A. and youll be a movie star. And Im like, Okay. Thats what I told my friends before I moved back to California when I was eleven.

They were like, Why are you moving to California?

Well, because I have to go and be a movie star.

Oh, okay. Well keep an eye out for you.

So I started getting into acting and I got this audition for a huge part in a big Hollywood movie, American Hot Wax. Ironically enough, I was going up for the part of an obsessed fanthe president of the Buddy Holly fan clubso I had to study what it was like to be the fan of one of the first rockers ever. My dad helped me a lot. Heres a Buddy Holly cassette tape, learn the music. And heres the story of Buddy Holly, learn everything about this guy. Just think about him a lot and remember that you really love this guy and you want to turn other people on to him and his music. Youre the guy whos going to spearhead the Buddy Holly movement, he told me.

I got so into Buddy Holly that out of the one thousand people that auditioned for that part, it came down to two peopleme and this famous child actor named Moosie Drier. Moosie had been doing movies since he was three years old, so they went with the veteran, which broke my heart. I went on a bender of drugs and alcohol but, in retrospect, the Universe was looking out for me. If I had gotten that part, my whole life might have been different and I might never have become a musician. But that was the first time that I really got the sensation of what it was like to be fanatical about a musicianto study what they wear, emulate their haircut and their glasses and their dance moves.

The dictionary definition of fan is an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc. a baseball fan; a great fan of Charlie Chaplin. Its an Americanism, originating around 1885, and its short for fanatic. By that definition I certainly am a fan, of musicians and songwriters and singers, famous or not famous.

Im a fan of nature. I admire nature every day. Every time I look at a tree, Im in awe; Im a fan of that tree. What a perfect thing. Its bigger downstairs than it is upstairs; we dont even see half the tree. Its cleaning the air. It makes everything look better even if its in the middle of a badly architected city with horrible buildings, you see a row of ten trees and you have to say, Whoa, look at the shape of those leaves. Look how they blow in the wind. Im such a massive, enthusiastic fan of nature that every day I look at the mountains in our neighborhood and point them out to my son. Look at that mountain. Look how that cloud is sitting on top of it. Then at night, we just stare at the stars in the sky shining over the ocean. So Im a big fan of creation. I absolutely love life and the will to live, the life force finding ways to exist and create.

Look what this framed beauty had to say, somewhere in Australia.

Im a big fan of underdogs, of people and animals that have a hard time and have managed to persevere. And Im a huge fan of kindness. Of all the weird shit that we all experience, when I actually see true kindness being exhibited, it makes me well up with emotion; its just the craziest thing. Pure kindness, with no ulterior motive, that just knocks me out.

And I freak out when I hear artists like Eric Dolphy or Miles Davis or John Coltrane, guys who are on an alien level of intelligence, dedication, and magic. They blow me away. I would love to meet these people, but Im not the guy who follows them around on tour.

When I was growing up, it was natural to become a fan of the people you saw on TV. I came out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, back in the era of three television channels. It was a very middle-American ritual to go to school, come home, have a snack, and go out and playbike riding or tree climbing or skipping rocks, whateveruntil you couldnt play anymore. Then you came home and had dinner and sat down in front of the television. You watched a Disney show, or the current hits, whether they were The Wild Wild West or Get Smart or Bewitched. I fell in love with all the cute girls on the screen and wanted to be like the dudes, especially David Carradine in Kung Fu. And when my dad dropped me off at a karate movie downtown, I came home and took it to another level and started practicing some slick Bruce Lee moves.

I guess my first fan experience came when I was about five years old. We were living in California and my mother was the secretary of an entertainment lawyer. At that time,