Scar Tissue

About the book

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.

Reviews

Kiedis recounts his pharmacological odyssey with wide-eyed relish and a refreshing lack of rehab remorse SUNDAY TIMES

Quotes

Kiedis recounts his pharmacological odyssey with wide-eyed relish and a refreshing lack of rehab remorse * SUNDAY TIMES * Everyone who reads this genuinely outrageous book will have their own favourite scene * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY * An entertaining account of being the most priapic, junkie member of California's most priapic, junkie rock band * GUARDIAN * The year's most astonishing rock autobiography * OBSERVER *

Anthony Kiedis Biography

Anthony Kiedis ( KEE-dis; born November 1, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter. He is a founding member and lead vocalist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis and his fellow band members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Kiedis spent his youth in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with his mother, and then moved shortly before his twelfth birthday to live with his father in Hollywood. While attending Fairfax High School, Kiedis befriended students Flea and Hillel Slovak, who were members of a band called Anthym. After high school, Kiedis began taking classes at UCLA but dropped out in his sophomore year. When Kiedis received an offer to be the opening act for a local band, he enlisted Flea, Slovak, and drummer Jack Irons. After a show under the name Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem, the band progressed and the line-up eventually became the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has recorded thirteen studio albums with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis's lyrical style has evolved throughout his career; early recordings discussed topics such as sex and life in Los Angeles, while more recent songs focus on more reflective themes including love, addiction, and loss. He struggled with addiction until 2000, and maintains that he has been clean since then.

Early life

Kiedis was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Margaret "Peggy" Nobel and struggling actor John Michael Kiedis, known professionally as Blackie Dammett. His paternal grandfather's family emigrated from Lithuania in the early 1900s. In 2004 he wrote that his paternal grandmother, Molly Vandenveen's heritage "was a pastiche of English, Irish, French, and Dutch (and, as we've recently discovered, some Mohican blood)". In 1966, when Kiedis was three years old, his parents divorced, and he was raised by his mother in Grand Rapids. His mother later remarried and had two more children. Each summer, Kiedis would visit his father in Hollywood for two weeks, a time during which the two would bond. He idolized his father and recalled: "Those trips to California were the happiest, most carefree, the-world-is-a-beautiful-oyster times I'd ever experienced." In 1974, when Kiedis was 12, he moved to Hollywood to live with his father full-time.Kiedis's father sold drugs, which had an impact on Kiedis, as the two would often use marijuana and cocaine together. Kiedis accidentally tried heroin for the first time at age 14, mistaking it for cocaine. Through his father, Kiedis, who worked under the stage name of Cole Dammett, landed his first acting role appearing as Sylvester Stallone's character's son in the 1978 film, F.I.S.T. He landed two more acting jobs, in an ABC Afterschool Special and an appearance in the film Jokes My Folks Never Told Me.Kiedis attended Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, where he struggled to find friends as he had recently transferred to a new school district. However, he soon met his future bandmate Flea, and after a brief confr ... Read full biography