Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation
tI picked this up because it was always a book that I would read a page or two out of while in a bookstore, so I finally decided to read “Scar Tissue” by Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was stunned by the depth in this book. It’s an easy read, but it talks about drug addiction, music, love and spirituality on a profound level. It made me really appreciate the Chili Peppers and even make sense of some of their lyrics. There’s a lot more than meets the eye with this band, in a great way.
tThe story is an autobiography about the rather wild life of Anthony Kiedis. He first smoked pot and made love at age 12, got into heroin, cocaine and pretty much every other wild drug by age 18. Drugs also consumed some of the people he was closest to, including the original guitarist of the Chili Peppers Hillel Slovak. Through all the struggles, there is an element of hope. His drug addictions were part of his attempt to reach a higher dimension, one that he finds through spirituality and love now as opposed to shooting up in motels. I think their warm ups reflect this overall maturing and beautifying trend. In their early days they used to get in a circle and slap each other in the faces before playing, now they get in their circle, hold hands, meditate and then throw a joke or two in there.
tI think the book gives you additional perspective into drug use, and really makes you empathize with someone who lived through that hell. You see the person behind the nightmare, and smile that he not only makes great music but has also overcome this problem. So, I think this book not only helps you appreciate their sweet music, but also appreciate the individual behind the nightmare. Cheers.

Quotes:
Adolescence is such a fun time in your life, because you think you know it all, and you haven’t gotten to the point where you realize you know almost nothing. 70
I didn’t see it as a road to death and insanity, I just saw it as a beautiful, beautiful feeling. 84
The initial high is the feeling that you’re doomed to be chasing for the rest of your life, because the next time you do it, it’s good but not quite like that. 141
High as kits together, back into the mix of a totally dysfunctional but passionate relationship. 198
When you’re kicking [quitting heroin:], your eyelashes hurt, your neck hurts, your head hurts, your back hurts, it all hurts. Parts of your body that you didn’t know could experience pain, experience it. 197
You’re not creating the ripple of love; you’re creating the vacuum of shit. I want to describe both sides of how I felt, but it’s important to know that in the end all the romantic glorification of dope fiendery amounts to nothing but a hole of shit. It has to appear enticing, because that’s why God or the universe, creative intelligence or whatever you want to call it, put that energy here. It’s a learning tool, and you can either kill yourself with it or you can turn yourself into a free person with it. I don’t think drug addiction is inherently useless, but it’s a rough row to hoe. 207
I certainly didn’t want to end up like Blackie [his dad:], the girl-of-the-day thing, because as exciting and temporarily fulfilling as this constant influx of interesting and beautiful girls can be, at the end of the day, that shit is lonely and you’re left with nothing. 271
When you’re at odds with yourself, it’s hard to create. 326
I didn’t have to go to India for spiritual enlightenment. The blue collar spirituality of everyday life was right in front of me, it was in every nook and cranny if I wanted to seek it, but I had chosen to ignore it. 379
We were picking people up and taking them to meetings and bringing new guys into that particular circle so they could see sobriety wasn’t about giving up the party, it was just creating a new, saner party. 458

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!

Not badly written and has its moments. The fact that Kiedis is a self-indulgent, egoistical betrayer wrecks it though. His friends and family stand by him more times than you can count, and he basically spits in their faces again and again, while maintaining that he has extremely powerful spiritual gifts and he's Dalai Lama's favourite junkie and...oh, you get the picture...

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.

Anthony Kiedis was the lead singer of the influential American rock band, the Red-Hot Chilli Peppers, which was formed in 1983. He was the front man for one of the world’s most successful and popular rock bands of all time, but his life was riddled and marred by toxic relationships and probably the most intense drug abuse that the world has ever seen.

Anthony’s father was a hippy, drug dealer who ran night clubs around Hollywood. As a result, from a young age, Anthony was exposed with an alluring and crazy lifestyle early on, filled with girls and drugs. Constantly in his house, there were groups of his dad’s girlfriends partying in the house and doing drugs, so it was no surprise that he got involved in various vices early on.

At only age 4, Kiedis’s father blew smoke from a joint into his face, while they were walking down the street. That was his first experience with drugs. At age 12, Anthony asked his dad if he could have sex with one of his dad’s girlfriends, and his dad complied. That was his first sexual experience. At age 14, Anthony snorted a line of white powder on a table in his living room, which he presumed was cocaine. It turned out to be heroin and he nearly died as a result of overdose. That was his first experience with hard drugs.

From these 3 above experiences, these set off a hedonistic life; a life geared towards pursuing pleasure, fun and crazed experiences. During the teenage years in high school he would get up to as much mischief as possible, playing pranks, going on drug and alcohol fuelled adventures and pursuing sex with girls.

During the latter years of his high school, he started to get into hard drugs seriously- cocaine and heroin. He had no qualms about shooting them up, as he had seen so many people in his house do it before. The rush, excitement and adventures that cocaine brought him, led to a life of dependency on the drug and pursuing it no matter the obstacle. Once when he was gearing to shooting up, he realised he had no water, so he used to water out of a gutter to fill up his syringe. Heroin, on the other hand, he used for the horrific comedowns that accompanied the shooting up of coke. Heroin for him was pure bliss, euphoria and comfort, but again, it led to another dependency and doing whatever he could to get another fix.

Amongst all this drug usage and thrill seeking, Kiedis actually did well in high school. He was a smart kid with strong writing capabilities but what ultimately set him back was his trouble making. He had a poetic mind early on that was good at rhyming and forming sentences. He enrolled at the University of California for a couple of years, but he never really fit and dropped out.

During his uni days was the time when he started to really develop his musical talent and he joined a band. Music was a release and a spiritual experience for him, but with all his music playing, a constant stream of toxic relationships and drug binges accompanied them. The Red-Hot Chilli Peppers started as an underground and fairly edgy rock group, with most of the members number one priority focused on getting ‘loaded’, but really that made them who they were. They slowly built up into becoming a widely known international rock group; but throughout their careers, all of their old habits persisted.

This book is extraordinarily interesting with all its stories of the crazy stuff Kiedis and his band members did and the absolutely ridiculous drug benders he went on. Kiedis’s life story is basically one huge drug bender, with periods of sobriety, with some music playing and relationships playing a minor role.

Towards the backend of his career, he made many attempts at getting sober. These attempts constantly were futile. He got sober and then relapsed over 20 times, with the urges and drive to experience the ultimate pleasure constantly being too strong.

Reading some other review's of this book on good reads, I encountered many extremely negative reviews, on account of his bad behaviour during his life and all the pain he caused himself and others through his selfishness, addictions and recklessness. What this book really offers is perspective through the telling of one of the craziest, amazing, scary and adventurous life’s. This book will help you understand about the idea of addiction and what some people go through- certainly helping you empathise in the process. The book also provides a perspective of life in Hollywood, with all its ego, pop culture, drug taking and fame that is involved. While Hollywood is obviously the centre of a lot of the world’s most amazing cultural works, it can also be an absolutely toxic environment for some, due to its superficiality and bad values- themes which Kiedis explores in a lot of his songs, such as Californication. And obviously, this book also presents the background into the Chilli Peppers music making, something I found very interesting given a lifelong love of their music. You really get an understanding of the lyrics of their great songs and pain that was involved in writing them. This was music had had an extreme cultural influence over the world.

Kiedis has now been sober since 2000 and is constantly trying to help others become sober, while still fighting his own demons and temptations of drugs. He still tours with the Red-Hot Chilli Peppers to this date.

I give this book 5 stars. Kiedis writes fantastically and his story is absolutely amazing. He has certainly lived one of the craziest lives of anyone to live- full of the highs and immense lows. Fan of the Chilli Peppers or not, give this book a read.

Having recently read Slash's autobiography I felt I was lost in one of his drug induced flashbacks. Both rockers are Hollywood hills kids growing up w/dangerously permissive hippie/coked out parents. There teens and 20's become an escalating party of drugs and more drugs, and a little music. Kiedis's mystical prattle starts to fall flat over his 5th rehab, and his very existence seems to speak to the luck of the draw. A young man who cant dance and can't sing(by his own admission) happens to be friends w/some truly talented musicians. He writes some poetry that makes a handful of good songs, and for that finds himself in the lap of luxury - at least Slash could play a mean axe.

2 Stars for Scar Tissue (audiobook) by Anthony Kiedis read by Rider Strong.

I saw a interview with music producer Rick Rubin recently. In it he mentioned his time working with the Chili Peppers and he made it sounded really special time. Then I noticed that this autobiography was available and I thought it would be interesting to see what it was like working with Rick Rubin. Overall the stories were kind of disappointing. They didn’t seem have much depth to them. It just felt like Anthony Kiedis was looking for some sympathy or trying to spin things to look like he wasn’t such a narcissist. I can’t believe that he had someone else read his story. Maybe he could stay sober that long. What a disgrace.

Pretentious and narcissistic, Keidis is probably one of the most loathsome people I've read about. It just so happens that he is musically adept, otherwise he would be one of those annoying, droning, pseudo intellectual creeps you come across at house parties.

I had forgotten I had read this till someone just added it on their TBR list.
I honestly don't know how I had forgotten about this book when i absolutely LOVED every minute of it! I was already a HUGE fan of RHCP but now I love them! Especially Anthony, and to be able to listen to the words in their songs knowing what was happening to him while he wrote them just makes them more magical!

Some out-of-pocket comments (a product of its 2004 publication date) but generally a riveting story about sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. I’ve been a longtime fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers so learning about their origins and rocky rise to fame was fascinating. Kiedis is a great storyteller and Rider Strong’s narration was perfect.

I have tagged one star as I don't think I can tag zero stars.

lol. well, full disclosure. the chili peppers were my favorite band in 7th grade, no doubt influencing my musical selections for years to come. Recently, I had a bonding experience with a friend over our pubescent love of the band, and she sent me this book for my birthday. It took me about a year and a half to read, because i swore to myself that I'd only read it while i was taking a poop. This worked out very well, because the book is a series of crazy ass stories that never really go on for more than a page or two - just long enough for a movement. A couple hundred poops later, i'm finally done.