Hillel Slovak
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| Hillel Slovak | |
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| Born | April 23, 1962 Haifa, Israel |
| Died | June 25, 1988 Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Genre(s) | Alternative Rock Funk-Metal |
| Affiliation(s) | Red Hot Chili Peppers What Is This? Anthym |
| Years active | 1980 - 1988 |
Hillel Slovak (Hebrew: הלל סלובק) (April 13, 1962 – June 25, 1988) was the original guitarist for the band Red Hot Chili Peppers.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early Years
Hillel was born in Haifa, Israel. Both of Hillel's parents were Holocaust survivors. Hillel and his family moved to Queens, New York, and then to California in 1967. Hillel attended Fairfax High School. While at Fairfax, Hillel learned how to play guitar and met future bandmates Jack Irons, Anthony Kiedis, and Michael 'Flea' Balzary. Hillel formed a band with Jack Irons on drums and two other high school friends, Alain Johannes and Chris Hutchinson. They called their band Anthym. Hillel became dissatisfied with Chris's bass playing and eventually taught Flea to play bass. Flea quickly surpassed Chris in bass skills and took over bass duties in Anthym. After graduating from high school they changed the name of their band to What Is This? (which was a question often asked by people who heard the band play). Flea left Anthym around this time because he was offered a job playing bass in the prominent L.A. punk band Fear. The other members of What Is This? understood that it was a good oppurtunity for Flea and supported his decision. What Is This? continued on and performed many shows along the California coast. Anthony Kiedis would often be called on stage to energetically introduce the band.
[edit] Red Hot Chili Peppers
One night, a man named Gary Allen (who was apparently friends with Anthony Kiedis) suggested that Anthony, Hillel, and Flea form a "one-off" band and open for his own band. Hillel and Flea were skeptical, but Gary thought Anthony would make a good vocalist because of his rowdy style and partymaniac attitude, so the three of them decided to do it. For the gig, they enlisted Jack Irons as their drummer and wrote the song "Out in LA," a city which Anthony apparently knew well because he had been hitting the Hollywood club scene since he was 12 years old. They dubbed themselves "Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem". They were a hit with the club audience and the owner asked them to come back the next week. Their name changed to Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Anthony began writing more lyrics. The lyrics would eventually become songs such as "Green Heaven" and "True Men Don't Kill Coyotes". Over the course of the next six months, the Red Hot Chili Peppers played many shows in L.A. clubs and became something of an underground hit. They scored a record deal with EMI after just that short period of time and were set to record their first album. Flea left Fear, which was a very well-established L.A. punk band, to pursue the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Unfortunately, What Is This? had also gotten a record deal; Hillel and Jack chose their original band over the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Hillel returned to the Chili Peppers for their second and third albums, Freaky Styley and The Uplift Mofo Party Plan. His last recording was on the Jimi Hendrix cover "Fire," which would appear in Mother's Milk. The guitar player on the first Red Hot Chili Peppers album, Jack Sherman, was competent but Slovak's personal connection to the band gave him the upper hand. With Hillel back on board and contributing his guitar playing, and with Jack Irons rejoining for the third album, the Chili Peppers recorded The Uplift Mofo Party Plan. The songs "Skinny Sweaty Man" and "No Chump Love Sucker" from The Uplift Mofo Party Plan were written about Hillel. He was nicknamed "Slim Bob Billy", "Slim", or "Huckleberry", and throughout the albums Anthony calls him by these nicknames before he starts a guitar solo.
[edit] Death
Hillel and Anthony developed serious heroin habits early in their careers that ultimately led to Hillel's death. He was once fired from the Peppers for a short amount of time because of this addiction. During the European tour supporting the The Uplift Mofo Party Plan album, suspicions of his drug problems began to haunt the band. Unfortunately, these suspicions came to public light when Hillel relapsed, resulting in erratic behavior and botched performances. Slovak was found dead of a heroin overdose on 25 June 1988, shortly after the band returned from the Europe tour. He was 26 years old. Hillel is interred at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California.
[edit] Remembrance
Hillel's work was one of the major contributing factors to the Peppers' early sound. Hillel was also a huge influence on a young John Frusciante, who would later replace him as guitarist in the band. Frusciante based a lot of his playing style on Slovak's work. The songs "Knock Me Down" (from Mother's Milk) and "My Lovely Man" (from Blood Sugar Sex Magik) from subsequent Peppers albums were written in ode to Hillel.
Also, on the track "Otherside" Kiedis references Slovak. The song is about Anthony's addictions, and he sings "Heard your voice through a photograph, thought it up and brought up the past, once you know you can never go back". While some suggest this represents Slovak's death serving as a reminder to Kiedis to "never go back" to drugs, others see it as a more straightforward reference to never being able to go back to the past represented by the image.
[edit] References
- Kiedis, Anthony, Sloman, Larry (October 6, 2004). Scar Tissue. Hyperion. ISBN 1401301010.
