Red Hot Chili Peppers were touring their sophomore album ‘Freaky Styley’ when Anthony Kiedis and Hillel Slovak were struggling with substance abuse. Slovak was keeping his struggle under wraps before his bandmates started to realize his health was getting worse by the day.
By the time their tour for the third album, ‘The Uplift Mofo Party Plan’ was wrapped Slovak started to disassociate himself from the band. Although the guitarist was trying to get clean on his own he was soon found dead at his home after a heroin overdose.
Even though it has been many years since Hillel’s passing, in a 2005 interview with SPIN, Anthony opened up about his biggest regret about his late bandmate and friend. He expressed:
“There are times I listen to our early music, and I regret that [original guitarist] Hillel Slovak didn’t get to live longer to see where life would have take him, but I know that was just his course in life, to be a short-timer.”
Kiedis shared that in hindsight he recognizes that everything happened the way it was supposed to. The rocker added:
“I pretty much accept most of the things that have happened. Even the abominable things, even all the time I wasted and the years of nonproductivity. They all kind of added up to mean something.”
Although Anthony has come to terms with Slovak’s passing, when it happened back in 1988, the singer not only fled town but also couldn’t attend the guitarist’s funeral. Instead he went spent some time fishing in a Mexican village before a friend was able to convince him to check into rehab and get clean.
You can read Anthony Kiedis’ 2005 interview with SPIN here.
