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Anthony Kiedis Biography & Facts

Anthony Kiedis ( KEE-dis; born November 1, 1962) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, best known as 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 took 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 lineup 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, loss, and life in Los Angeles. 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 confrontation, the two became best friends and bonded while sitting next to each other in driver's ed class. Kiedis recalled, "We were drawn to each other by the forces of mischief and love and we became virtually inseparable. We were both social outcasts. We found each other and it turned out to be the longest-lasting friendship of my life." Kiedis became a significant influence on Flea, exposing him to rock music, particularly punk rock. At age 15, while Kiedis and Flea were jumping from a building into a swimming pool, Kiedis missed the pool and broke his back, but recovered. At age 15, Kiedis met future bandmate Hillel Slovak after seeing him perform with his band Anthym. After the show, Slovak invited Kiedis to his house for a snack. Kiedis later described the experience: "Within a few minutes of hanging out with Hillel, I sensed that he was absolutely different from most of the people I'd spent time with ... He understood a lot about music, he was a great visual artist, and he had a sense of self and a calm about him that were just riveting." Slovak, Kiedis, and Flea often used LSD, heroin, cocaine, and speed recreationally. Kiedis excelled in school, often receiving straight-A grades. In June 1980, Kiedis graduated with honors from high school. That August, he enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles to study writing. After Kiedis began working with Flea and drummer Jack Irons, he was described as a "manic master of ceremonies" before he even began singing for the group. Irons and Slovak had begun playing together in high school while performing in a band called Chain Reaction. The group included then bassist Tom Strasman and Chilean-born vocalist and guitarist Alain Johannes. With Strasman set on becoming a lawyer, he quit the band to keep his grades up and focus on college. At this point, Flea was brought into the mix. Shortly after hanging out with the band, and attending a few shows, Kiedis was offered a position in the band by Flea. He began as a hype man, going out in front of the band blurting out jokes to the audience and getting them pumped up. Red Hot Chili Peppers 1983–1984: Formation and first album Kiedis, Slovak, and Flea began to create their own music after finding inspiration in a punk-funk fusion band called Defunkt. Kiedis rejected the violence and misogyny associated with the Los Angeles punk rock scene at the time, and wished to create a more peaceful environment that would encourage women to come to concerts. The three reunited with Irons, who had recently left his previous band Anthym, to form a new band called Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem. The band had only one song, titled "Out in L.A.", and was formed for the purpose of playing the song once. The song was based on a guitar riff that Slovak wrote while "jamming" with Irons, and was not meant to become a real song until Kiedis decided to rap over the music. Mike Chester, a friend of Kiedis', invited the band to open for his act Mike and Neighbor's Voices at The Rhythm Lounge, as he felt that Kiedis had potential as a frontman. Slovak and Flea were initially skeptical, and felt that Kiedis did not have enough vocal experience, but the two eventually agreed to perform. Kiedis later described the performance: "All the anticipation of the moment hit me, and I instinctively knew that the miracle of manipulating energy and tapping into an infinite source of power and harnessing it in a small space with your friends was what I had been put on this earth to do." Following the group's first show at The Rhythm Lounge, the owner of the bar asked them to return, but with only two songs instead of one. After several more shows, and the addition of several songs to their repertoire, the band's name was changed to The Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band's concert repertoire grew to ten songs as a result of months of playing at local nightclubs and bars. At a performance at a strip club in Hollywood c.... Discover the Anthony Kiedis popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Anthony Kiedis books.