As the 80s came to a close, no-one was pinpointing the Red Hot Chili Peppers as one of the next decade’s biggest bands. The group that frontman Anthony Kiedis described to Classic Rock’s Mick Wall as “the psychedelic sex-funk band from heaven” were considered to be a bit of a joke, but after the death of guitarist Hillel Slovak from a heroin overdose in 1988, no-one was laughing anymore. Drummer Jack Irons was amongst those who thought the band had run its course, so devastated by Slovak’s death that he checked himself into a hospital for psychiatric care.
Somehow, out of the tragedy they didn’t just find a way forward, they made the steps that would make them one of the biggest and most enduring groups of their generation. “Like me, Hillel had the disease of drug addiction,” Kiedis told Mick Wall in 1990. “He didn’t die of an overdose, he died from a disease. But in a strange way we found strength from that. It forced me to make a choice: I could either join Hillel, or I could try and finish my life.”
