The Red Hot Chili Peppers: The Early Years

It’s hard to believe that the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been around for almost 45 years. That makes me feel very, very old. I mean, seriously, this band that started out as this weird, funky, punky, half-naked chaos machine on the Sunset Strip is now one of the biggest bands in the history of rock and roll.

We’re talking over 120 million records sold, Grammys, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame…they’re legends. Absolute legends.

But they didn’t start that way.

They started as this bizarre, high-energy, completely unhinged band out of Los Angeles in the early ‘80s (Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Hillel Slovak, and Jack Irons) playing this insane mix of funk, punk, rap, hard rock, and whatever else they could throw into the blender.

They didn’t sound like anybody else. They didn’t look like anybody else. And when you saw them live back then, it was like a riot was about to break out at any second.

I saw them in the mid-to-late ‘80s, and I’m telling you, it was one of the most intense live experiences you could have. The energy, the insanity, the stage diving, the crowd just going completely nuts, it was something else.

That band in those early days was raw, unpredictable, and exciting in a way that they never quite recaptured once they became global superstars.

And now, all these years later, there’s a new documentary on Netflix called The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel, which just premiered and is streaming right now.

It’s directed by Ben Feldman, and it focuses on those early years (the late ‘70s, early ‘80s L.A. scene) and especially on Hillel Slovak, the band’s original guitarist, who was absolutely essential to their sound and their identity.

The documentary dives into that friendship between Kiedis, Flea, and Slovak (the whole “found family” aspect of the band) and how Hillel’s vision really shaped what the Chili Peppers became.

It’s got archival footage, journal entries, interviews with Flea and Kiedis, and people close to the band. It’s gritty, it’s emotional, and it really captures that early scene.

Now, interestingly (and this is very Chili Peppers) the band has kind of distanced themselves from the finished product. They’ve said publicly that they didn’t have creative control over it and that it’s really more about honoring Hillel than being an official band documentary.

Which, honestly, makes sense. This is a band that has always been complicated, messy, and very protective of their story. And their story is messy.

You’re talking about a band that went through constant lineup changes early on: Hillel Slovak and Jack Irons not even playing on the first album in 1984, then coming back, then leaving again.

You’ve got drug addiction running through the entire early history (heroin, cocaine) serious, serious problems that affected the music, the relationships, everything.

You’ve got the George Clinton-produced Freaky Styley in 1985, which is still one of the funkiest, weirdest records ever made. You’ve got The Uplift Mofo Party Plan in 1987, which is the only album with the original lineup all together and is just this wild, chaotic explosion of energy.

And then, of course, tragedy.

Hillel Slovak dies of a heroin overdose in 1988. Jack Irons leaves the band because he can’t deal with it. Kiedis is deep in addiction. The whole thing could have ended right there. But it doesn’t.

They bring in John Frusciante and Chad Smith, they make Mother’s Milk in 1989 (which I still think is their best album) and then in 1991, Blood Sugar Sex Magik comes out and suddenly they’re one of the biggest bands in the world.

And that’s where I kind of check out a little bit.

Look, I like Blood Sugar Sex Magik. It’s a good record. It’s fun. It’s got great songs. I saw them on that tour, saw them at Lollapalooza, and they were terrific. But to me, that album is the beginning of the Chili Peppers becoming a commercial machine.

The production is slicker, the edges are smoothed out, and it feels like the first time they were consciously trying to be huge. And they succeeded. But I’ve always preferred the earlier stuff.

The rough, crazy, funky, punky, ridiculous, rebellious stuff from 1984 to 1989, that’s my Chili Peppers. The self-titled debut, Freaky Styley, The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, and especially Mother’s Milk, which I think is their masterpiece. That album takes everything they were doing (the funk, the punk, the aggression, the humor) and just nails it.

After that? For me, they get less interesting. One Hot Minute, Californication, By the Way, all the later stuff…there are moments, sure, but it feels like a band that got rich, got famous, and lost a little bit of that edge. That danger. That unpredictability.

And again, this is a band that went through everything: drug addiction, recovery, lineup changes, personal demons, controversy. On a human level, it’s incredibly impressive that guys like Kiedis and Flea survived all of that and got their lives together. That’s not easy, and I respect the hell out of that.

But musically? Give me the early stuff. Give me the chaos. Give me the funk. Give me the weirdness.

So with this new documentary shining a spotlight on those early years (and doing a pretty good job of capturing what made that era so special) I thought it would be a perfect time to go back and celebrate that period.

These are my favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers songs from their early career, mostly from 1984 to 1991, before they became global superstars, when they were still this insane, innovative, unpredictable band tearing up clubs and blowing people’s minds.

So check out the documentary, dive into that early history, and here (ranked randomly) are my ten favorite early Red Hot Chili Peppers songs.

THE 10 BEST CHILI PEPPERS SONGS: THE EARLY YEARS (in no particular order):

1) TASTE THE PAIN

2) KNOCK ME DOWN

3) FIGHT LIKE A BRAVE

4) POLICE HELICOPTER

5) BEHIND THE SUN

6) HIGHER GROUND

7) JUNGLE MAN

8) GET UP AND JUMP

9) CATHOLIC GIRLS RULE

10) UNDER THE BRIDGE

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