Are you kidding me?? I would re-title this book PHONEY BALONEY TONY. Anthony is full of sh*t from beginning to end. Do I believe he lost his virginity at age TWELVE? Nope. We would have been spared reading all those depressing bull-crap chapters if he simple said "I relapsed back into heroin 100 times all the while treating my friends, family and women like dirt". I laughed out loud when I read the part about Tony going to meet the Dali Lama, he was told that the Dali was booked for 3 years so it would not be possible! Well... low and behold Tony finds himself in a place where off in the distance the Dali is walking with his body guards, the Dali see's Tony and make a beeline over to him, cups his hands and lavishes him with blessed gifts. The Dali insists that a picture be taken with them both on Tony's camera. Tony is then invited to a prayer meeting which is ONLY for those who have studied for 50 years, but of coarse Tony is invited and is seated in the front row, then leaves after the first lesson, WTF. What a big fat LIAR, gee, maybe if you posted that picture I would have bought this load of horse crap. I also got a kick out the time he was in his car infront of a seedy Motel trying to score heroin when he sees a family "down on their luck" pull into the Motel, they had a Red hot chili pepper bumper sticker and the young kids were all wearing RHCP t-shirts (this made Tony Baloney feel sad) WHATEVER, liar, liar pants on fire.
I was never a RHCP fan to begin with, I guess I am not into verbal diarrhea, I did find it interesting that Tony was constantly praised by his English teacher for being such a creative writer and was told he had very special talents, I guess his lyric's "hey-o, listen what I say-o" or rhyming Mississippi with Hippie is proof of his genius! LOL. I believe this is the first bio that I had could not bring myself to reading the last chapter (btw, I really wanted to like him) what an arrogant, bullshitting asshole this jerk is. I will be drop-kicking this pile of poo into the blue box!

So, I had this collecting dust on my shelf for quite some time. Having read the reviews I wasn't sure if it was going to be worth reading. But as a Peppers' fan since I was 12 and before it was cool, it kind of seemed like a must...and I actually like it and been binge reading half of it in a few days. I find his text to be sincere, honest and not pretentious and not arrogant. He is describing his life, not trying to make himself into more than he is, accepting his faults and his life as they were.

Self centred, narcissistic douchebag.

I've read a lot of rockstars/musicians autobiographies and they all have some redeeming qualities. This guy doesn't.

Not sure what I was expecting going into this memoir, but I wasn't quite prepared for the path the narrative took, which is actually surprisingly since I knew a little about Anthony Kiedis' drug struggles going into it.

I've been wanting to read this book since it came out, I loved the Chili Peppers during the late 90's early 2000's and remember going to one of their concerts as a teenager, which was my first ever concert without my parents present.

Anthony's story up until point of publishing (2004) was very much about sex, drugs and rock n roll - even as a pre-teen. I'm surprised that during this narrative he never once mentioned, or even seemed to realise, that all of his struggles had steamed from the abuse from his father. He was taken to party's and introduced to all of the above as an 11 year old. But throughout the progression of the narrative he still loved and occasionally doted on his father, he never once mentioned the obvious. I wonder whether he has now come to terms with it.

Something that did stick with me is that throughout all the struggles, addiction and loses they still managed to stay mainly together as a band (except for the lead guitarist who has changed several times) and support each other with a greater acceptance of who they all are as individuals. Chad, Flea and Anthony have been there for each other due to the love of music, no matter their particular personal beliefs, and I truly felt the respect for each other coming off these pages.

Time to go and see what I can find about the last 20 years to catch up on the story whilst listening to their Greatest Hits.

What an insane read. This one pulls you in right from the first chapter and takes you on a mad, train wreck of a ride through the world of drugs. Anthony's done it all! I still can't believe this was someone's life. What a read - the world of fame definitely shows it's ugly underside in this one!

basically, anthony kiedis has been one of my celeb crushes through the years. this book pretty much ended that. i felt a little dirty after some of the sections. THAT kind of dirty... like i needed to go scrub the images from my mind each time i put the book down!

the stories were intriguing, i had no idea of some of the horrible things this guy has done. (or if i did have an idea, i was always able to brush it off!) i'm really surprised at how far he's been able to go in life with all the craziness that is described in the book.

go figure.

anyhow, i still love the chili peppers. ;-)

_Scar Tissue_ amazed me on every level. It is difficult to know even where to begin.
I found it completely engaging on a historical/cultural level. His book expresses the zeitgeist of 80's Hollywood. He moves there at age 10 or 11 and thanks to his drug-dealer gadfly dad is fully engaged in the scene. He's meeting the Who, Zeppelin, hanging out at the Whisky, going to Hollywood parties, sharing a bed with Cher all before high school. Reading it, I got a visceral first-hand account of the emergence of punk, explosion of drugs, skating, the whole 80's thing. The first half reads like a who's who of people making the scene in LA at that time. LA people will get a kick out of recognizing all of his haunts, (Canter's Musso and Franks, etc.)
The book also gives an engaging history of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Anthony, Flea, and Hillel (Slim) all were chums at Fairfax High School. The formation of the band, its iterations, the origins of their sound and their songs are all explained well in Kiedis' inimitable voice.
Another way this book fascinated me was the facility with which he made it plain what it was like to be a rock star while at the same time really still feeling like an ordinary person. Here are guys with a lot of talent, but even more problems and foibles than the average person suddenly catapulted to stardom and the insanity that brings. (What is it like to invite a girl to a party and then have to deal with Jack Nicholson AND Joaquin Phoenix hitting on her?)
On its most visceral level, Scar Tissue is, as its title implies, the story of lifelong addiction. The book includes a photo of him getting high for the first time at age eleven, (the photo and the drugs supplied by dad.) What follows is over two decades of drug-mania and sexual debauchery. Seriously, Caligula would blush. It is painful to read of the levels he would sink to, the efforts made to get clean, rehab facilities he would escape from, and his inevitable descent into addiction again. The book concludes on a hopeful note with four years of sobriety under his belt and his commitment to continue to work the 12 steps.
The spiritual vividness with which his life story was told struck me deeply. Passages where he writes of his healing only coming as he has prayed, served, and shown love to others would be at home in the Christian bookstore. He writes of his interactions with the spiritual world with chilling familiarity. At the moment of his friend Hillel's death, he writes of experience a spiritual attack by the same "dark spirits" that drove his friend to the grave.

It is difficult for me to imagine anyone not being captivated by the book, although there is admittedly much to appall.

While it was an easy read, it really wasn't very well written or structured. The more interesting incidents are not really covered in much detail, their meaning is never explained or delved into but anything involving drugs gets the full treatment to the detriment of all else.

Anthony Kiedis comes across as a self-centered idiot whose drug-abuse from such an early age has almost certainly damaged his brain in some way. As a child he was a disrespectful bully and petty criminal, as an adult he was a drug-addicted jerk and by the way he had so much sex! When he isn't repeatedly regailing us with tails of his drug abuse he occasionally sees fit to throw in a little comment about how he was better than whoever he was hanging out with at the time in some way. In addition to this his sexual conquests read with all the excitement, detail and believability of an eleven year old trying to convince his friends he had a threesome last night. It really does all come across as quite pathetic and laughable for the biography of a man well into his 40s.

Also, he is ignorant enough to believe the word "FUCK" is an acronym stemming from For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge when anyone with even the most basic knowledge of etymology knows this is pure bullshit.

I feel sorry for anyone who looks up to this pathetic failure of a man almost as much as I feel sorry for anyone who thinks this book is good. While he's probably lived a more interesting life than most, and his music would have you believe he is probably a talented and fascinating man capable of some real insight into the nature of music, addiction, celebrity, the creative process, or any number of other topics. Unfortunately none of this is the case.

So we have here Mr.Kedis's Biography,featuring his
most famous exploits with the peppers told
in an almost exaggerated way, I found it was'nt that
bad..but I must state I'm being bias here,as a huge
R.H.C.P fan I must say Anthony embodies the soul of
the band and so what if he comes off as an arrogant,
full of himself rock"n"roll star, his biography
seems sincere enough though at some parts you'll go
"nah,for real?"It is beyond a doubt that the man has
lived life to the fullest and is still kicking ass
and making great music after all these years.

Anyone coming for an autobiography of the Red Hot Chili Peppers might be a little disappointed in this book. Kiedis focuses more on his personal journey through life, and especially on his formative adolescent years. The Chili Peppers are a part of his life, to be sure, but this story is truly Anthony's personal struggles to be a sober, straight-living man.

Anthony spends a significant amount of the book on his teenaged years. He was essentially his father's roommate (not his son, not his "charge) in Los Angeles from the age of 12. He experienced more drugs and debauchery before the age of 18 than most people could live through in their entire life. In describing his experiences, however, Kiedis used an inviting tone; he never bragged about his exploits or tried to paint himself in an excessively rosy light. He simply invited the reader along to explore his personal experiences and emotions.

Scar Tissue is truly a book about drug addiction, about the lifelong slippery slope of trying to obtain (and maintain) sobriety. It is amazing that Kiedis can keep his dozens of periods of abuse and relapse straight in his mind, much less transform them into a compelling narrative journey for the reader. Life on drugs was in no way glamorous--Kiedis spent many years at rock bottom, barely surviving, and scrounging for his existence. He also fooled many people about his drug use, and managed to escape any arrest or scrutiny for possession. Reading about how Kiedis has to consider and seize his sobriety each and every day (he's been clean since 24 December 2000) will surely inspire anyone who is struggling with their own personal demons.

Co-written by Larry "Ratso" Sloman, the same guy who did Howard Stern's Private Parts and Mike Tyson's Undisputed Truth, this book is a lot more candid than it probably should have been. As was the case with Motley Crue's legendary The Dirt, there's no way such a book could be released today. In particular, it's shocking the number of underage girls (some as young as 14) Kiedis freely admits to having banged. I guess they're all beyond the statute of limitations? The seemingly endless cycle of drug binges and recoveries gets tedious after a while. I can only imagine what it was like to live through.

I first read Scar Tissue about 15 years ago and I remembered liking it, so when I wanted to read about the music industry for book research, it was an easy decision to re-read it.

I liked it less this time around (and I'm knocking it down a star), perhaps because I'm older and cynical-er and I don't find tales of rockstar excess quite so glamorous anymore. It's also worth noting that the sheer number of underage girls that Kiedis had sex with gave me MAJOR ICK in this post-#MeToo world.

However, props to Kiedis for his searing honesty, which you don't get in every memoir. In particular, Scar Tissue cuts to the heart of addiction, without self-pity or self-flagellation.

Concurrently, I was also reading a different rockstar memoir, which was so turgid and filled with flavourless lists of events that it became unreadable. The fact that Scar Tissue is engaging is surely a testament to Kiedis's co-author Larry Sloman, who shaped a tumultuous life into an accessible story.

Original review - December 2008

Before picking up this book, my knowledge of Red Hot Chili Peppers was pretty minimal. I remember my sister playing Blood Sugar Sex Magik constantly when I was about 9, but since then, I completely lost track of the band. Regardless, Scar Tissue is a damn good read, if you’re interested in rock bands of any kind. I’ve found that fiction doesn’t lend itself too well to tales of rock star excess. That kind of hedonism can easily seem like pantomime – or simply dumb and contrived.

But, by virtue of being true (or, at least, whatever degree of truth we cynically expect from memoirs these days), Scar Tissue is something a reader can stay engaged with. I found it a particularly moving portrait of drug addiction. It takes Anthony yeeears – dozens of rehab stays, hundreds of promises to stay clean – before he finally kicks his drug habit.

The book also contains a fair share of car crash moments. I’m not particularly squeamish, but I recoiled in horror more than once at the things Anthony manages to do to his body over a 20 year period. Yikes. I’m also honestly not sure whether it’s titillating or uncomfortable to read Anthony’s fairly frank descriptions of his sex life, especially with some barely-legal girls. But… they’re there. With pictures!

Though his behaviour is frequently abhorrent, Anthony makes a sympathetic narrator. Apart from some New Age talk about spirituality, he's also refreshingly free from bullshit. The book is long, but extremely compelling. Though slightly harrowing in places, it's more often a fun read. Anthony lived in Hollywood through some exciting times and has some strange encounters with celebrities that are likely to delight even reluctant starfuckers.

I finished Scar Tissue a few days ago, but I keep wanting to pick it up and find there are still a few more chapters for me to read. That's the sign of a good book.