Anthony Kiedis

Anthony Kiedis
Background information
Birth name	Anthony Kiedis
Also known as	Cole Dammett, AK, Antoine (Antwan) the Swan, Tony Flow, Tony
Born	November 1 1962 (1962--) (age 45) Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.
Genre(s)	Alternative rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, Songwriter
Instrument(s)	Vocals
Years active	1981 - Present
Label(s)	Warner Bros. Records, EMI
Associated acts	Red Hot Chili Peppers
Website	redhotchilipeppers.com

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 in Grand Rapids, Michigan on November 1, 1962 to John Kiedis and Margaret "Peggy" Idema. His parents divorced in 1965 when he was three. He has two sisters, Julie and Jenny, and a brother, James. 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 father who was a drug addict. His father was the person who introduced him to drugs; Anthony would later go on battle drug abuse in his lifetime.

Anthony first experimented with music when he sang backing vocals for the Martial Arts related band the Kosh Fu Masters (from Scunthorpe), though due to complications with the bands record label, he could never fully join. ^{[citation needed]}

Kiedis spent much of his youth listening to Sly & the Family Stone, Led Zeppelin, What Is This? (which Hillel was in before their band), 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 discusses his assumed role of a "protector" in school, defending other kids who were outcast or bullied. When he found Flea playfully putting one of his friends in a headlock, Kiedis told Flea to back off. However, when the incident was cleared up, Kiedis and Flea became friends and have stayed so ever since.^[1]

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 abuse of illegal drugs. This cycle of addiction and recovery in the mid to late '80s would become a basis for a lot of his 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 Kiedis 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.^[1]

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.^[2]

Kiedis often battled 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 when he had a wisdom tooth removed. The dentist back in Los Angeles felt novacain, a non-narcotic, would do to pull the tooth. However, the tooth ended up having to be cut out, so Kiedis was put under using liquid Valium. This sent Anthony into a relapse.
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. He has since then cleaned up his act. "It’s not easy to be one of the fastest guitar players of all time, or one of the greatest writers."^[3]

Personal life

Anthony currently lives in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. He is also reported to be a follower of the Kabbalah religion but insists "I don't go for sects and denominations".^[4]

Anthony became a father for the first time when his girlfriend Heather Christie gave birth to their son, Everly Bear Kiedis on Tuesday, October 2, 2007 in Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.

Role in the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Kiedis supplies virtually all the Chili Peppers' 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."^[5] 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.^[1]

He began as vocalist for the band with 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. The 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 also 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 had helped him sing "well." In fact, it was not until 1999's Californication that he felt he could take full control of his voice to sing.^[1]

Lyrical themes and topics

Kiedis' lyrical themes have dealt with a variety of topics, which range from love and the meaning of friendship,^[6][7] teenage angst and good-time aggression,^[8] sexual fantasies and the link between sex and music, political and social commentary (Native American issues in particular),^[9] drugs,^[10][11] loneliness,^[12] globalisation and the negative-side of fame and Hollywood,^[13] poverty, alcohol, and dealing with loss.^[14].

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.

Selected 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)
• Live in Hyde Park (2004)
• Stadium Arcadium (2006)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Anthony Kiedis

• Official Red Hot Chili Peppers website

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