Red Hot Chili Peppers

About the Band

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1983. Their music incorporates elements of alternative rock, funk, punk rock and psychedelic rock. With over 100 million records sold worldwide, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of the best-selling bands of all time. They are the most successful band in the history of alternative rock, with the records for most number-one singles, most cumulative weeks at number one and most top-ten songs on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. They have won six Grammy Awards, and in 2012 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

They were formed in Los Angeles by Kiedis, Flea, guitarist Hillel Slovak and drummer Jack Irons. Due to commitments to other bands, Slovak and Irons did not play on the band's 1984 self-titled debut album, which instead featured guitarist Jack Sherman and drummer Cliff Martinez. Slovak rejoined for their second album, Freaky Styley (1985), and Irons for their third, The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987). Slovak died of a drug overdose on June 25, 1988; Irons, devastated, left the band.

The musical style of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has been characterized as funk rock, alternative rock, funk metal and rap rock, with influences from hard, psychedelic and punk rock. Regarding their genre, Flea stated in a 2006 Guitar World interview, "For all the styles that have come and gone through-out our career, we never really aligned ourselves with any of them; we were never part of any movement. At one time, people put us together in a category with Fishbone and Faith No More, but we were always different from those bands, and they were always different from us." The band's influences include Parliament-Funkadelic, Defunkt, Jimi Hendrix, the Misfits, Black Sabbath, Metallica, James Brown, Gang of Four, Bob Marley, Big Boys, Bad Brains, Sly and the Family Stone, Ohio Players, Queen, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Presley, Deep Purple, the Beach Boys, Black Flag, Ornette Coleman, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Fugazi, Fishbone, Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday, Santana, Elvis Costello, the Stooges,[211] the Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Devo, and Miles Davis.