A lot of bands have an original member who left, or passed away, early in their history, and has become part of their legend. Syd Barrett, with Pink Floyd. Cliff Burton, with Metallica. Andrew Wood, of the various Seattle grunge bands.
For the Red Hot Chili Peppers, that was Hillel Slovak, the original guitarist, who started the band in the early 1980s along with Anthony Kiedis and Flea, both of whom have remained with the group for their entire history.
Slovak, born in Israel in 1962, had a tumultuous tenure in the group, which included multiple departures and returns, before he died of a heroin overdose in July 1988, with the band first achieving major success not long after that. There’s a chance, though, that a lot of fans of the group didn’t know his story until now.
Now, we have a new Netflix documentary called The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel. Directed by Ben Feldman, and now on Netflix after it premiered at South by Southwest earlier this month, the film paints a picture of the L.A. rock scene in the 1980s, with plenty of archival footage.
A Different Perspective
This is a history, I gather, that most RHCP fans aren’t especially familiar with, especially if they’re below a certain age. You can hear the beginnings of the sound that the band would eventually make, some of the most familiar in rock. However, this doesn’t feel like most music documentaries, as it’s not overly sanitized, nor does it seem like Part 1 of a multipart Chili Peppers’ career retrospective.
The band, in fact, has even distanced themselves a bit, presumably out of disagreement with the title, and while declaring that they “had nothing to do with it, creatively”:
Our Brother, Hillel, also has plenty of interviews with Kiedis and Flea, both of whom speak movingly about their late friend, who was the subject of several different Chili Peppers songs over the years.
It’s especially heartbreaking coming from Kiedis, who shared a heroin addiction with Slovak, and tried to get clean with him. That Slovak died, while Kiedis — despite addiction that continued for a long time after that — lived, attained great success, and has survived into his 60s while still an active rock star. This is clearly a subject of some survivor’s guilt on the part of the band’s frontman.
What’s especially wild is just how long the Red Hot Chili Peppers have lasted. I first got into their music around the time of the Blood Sugar Sex Magik album, which came out in 1992 and spawned their first huge hit, “Under the Bridge.”
I remember friends of mine declaring that the band’s earlier work had been the great stuff, and that by ’92, they’d “gone too mainstream,” and had “sold out.” Then again, this was the ‘90s — when every musician who earned any success at all was accused of selling out constantly — and the people making these declarations were 14 years old.
At any rate, that was 34 years ago, and Slovak has now been gone 38 years. The Chili Peppers remain a popular act, one that’s had numerous distinct eras, and have also had various other lineups, including numerous departures and returns by guitarist John Frusciante.
Don’t think of this as an “official” Red Hot Chili Peppers doc; and that’s one of the better things about it.
