Anthony Kiedis

Larry Sloman

The frank, shocking and inspiring autobiography of Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Scar Tissue

"For a musician who has spent the better half of his life either intoxicated or on a drug high, Kiedis, the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, has produced a surprisingly detailed account of his life. Raised in the 1960s and '70s by a drug dealer father who first introduced his preteen son to drugs by mashing them into bananas, the high school delinquent and UCLA dropout seemed destined for a life of rabble-rousing until his high school band-cofounded by close friends Michael "Flea" Balzary and Hillel Slovak-took off and became one of the most popular groups of the 1990s. Though he peppers his book with little known facts (for instance, the author narrowly missed being named Clark Gable Kiedis), the punk-funk rocker dedicates too few pages to his introspective music-writing process and too many to his incessant drug use and revolving door of girlfriends (which included actress Ione Skye, singer Sine ad O'Connor and director Sofia Coppola). But while Kiedis fails to scratch beneath the surface of his fast-lane life, his frankness is moving, especially toward the end of the book, when his mea culpa turns into a full-blown account of recovery and redemption. (Kiedis has been sober for almost four years.)" - product description.

Scar tissue

While I don’t condone a lot of Anthony’s actions (i.e. consistently dating underage girls) I love rhcp and thoroughly enjoyed the progression of the band as seen through his eyes - from inception to Californication. As a fan learning the backstory of many of my favorite songs makes me fall in love with them again. Also really enjoyed the candid discussion of addiction from the POV of someone both being affected by others and being in active addiction himself, as well as how he battles to overcome it daily. 

Jas 🐸

Ricky Burgess

How did this ever become so popular? The lack of self awareness is insane. It's as if it's written by a 13 year old. Am now questioning anyone who recommended this!!! 😂

Mykyta Barabanov

Sucker for musical bio picks. What i like about the piece is that it doesn't always try to hide Anthonys obsession with drugs and womanizing personality traits, neither does he seem to shy away from them. 

A man made for doing drugs seems to have done a lot of damage to his personal development as a musician and a person since the early age (in a conventional way at least), yet gained as much inexperience and audacity to share the stage with the great of Flea and John Frusciante - maybe even being around to stitch the two together to produce one of the most memorable pop-rock moments on the cross of the centuries. 

However, poorly it does provide a brief overview into a psyche of a somewhat functioning drug-addict (we are talking about speedballing throughout 90s and still looking legit on stage). Some might call a man a pretentious con artist and wouldn't be far from my feelings, yet an Artist at large. 

Fun read, but don't expect to much details into how the songs were written (Keidis couldn't find his way on an instrument at the time of writing the bio), it falls a bit short on depth and outlook on the music industry (much more at a drug-infused party scene), yet made fund by the authors, sometimes surprising with peculiar adjectives, and grounded into reality romanticism of the prose.

Josh Clement

"she was the most beautiful woman i'd ever seen..." "It was more drugs than i'd ever consumed..!" "she was the most beautiful..." 
repetitive. probably still worth reading though.

Melissa Schwartz

I have read this book twice now and still have only good things to say. Anthony's story is a great example of learning from your experiences and finding good in bad situations. Even though I can't personally relate to all of his specific experiences, I still really connected to them. This is one of my favorite books and I'm so glad to have learned more about Anthony Kiedis and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Mattea 

I love the Chili Peppers so I went in reading it already supporting Anthony and just wanting to learn further about a band that I've been growing with throughout my life.

Ben Burns

really great for fans of the Chili Peppers, even though the history-of-various-songs stuff gives way to the tale of addiction and wild romance most of the time. really cool to see where this band is coming from.

James Madson

I really like The Red Hot Chili Peppers. This could have been cut in half, in my opinion, but was interesting the entire read.

Mahasin S Ameen

I actually listed to this as an audiobook. It was read by Rider Strong.

People SHAWN HUNTER read a book and he did a fantastic job.

Ruth Whelan 

In SCAR TISSUE Anthony Kiedis, charismatic and highly articulate frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recounts his remarkable life story, and the history of the band itself. Raised in the Midwest, he moved to LA aged eleven to live with his father Blackie, purveyor of pills, pot, and cocaine to the Hollywood elite. After a brief child-acting career, Kiedis dropped out of U.C.L.A. and plunged headfirst into the demimonde of the L.A. underground music scene. He formed the band with three schoolfriends - and found his life's purpose. Crisscrossing the country, the Chili Peppers were musical innovators and influenced a whole generation of musicians. But there's a price to pay for both success and excess and in SCAR TISSUE, Kiedis writes candidly of the overdose death of his soul mate and band mate, Hillel Slovak, and his own ongoing struggle with an addiction to drugs. SCAR TISSUE far transcends the typical rock biography, because Anthony Kiedis is anything but a typical rock star. It is instead a compelling story of dedication and debauchery, of intrigue and integrity, of recklessness and redemption.

Scar Tissue

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