Scar Tissue

"Scar Tissue" is an unfiltered glimpse into the life of Anthony Kiedis, the charismatic lead singer and lyricist of the iconic band, Red Hot Chili Peppers. In this New York Times bestseller, Kiedis bares his soul, taking readers on a roller-coaster ride through the tumultuous world of rock 'n' roll.The book opens with the birth of the band in the gritty, neon-lit landscape of Los Angeles in 1983. Four self-proclaimed "knuckleheads" burst onto the scene with a unique blend of cosmic hardcore mayhem funk, setting the stage for a musical journey like no other. Fast forward over two decades, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have defied all odds to become one of the world's most successful and enduring bands.But "Scar Tissue" is not your typical rock star memoir. It's a searingly honest and unapologetic account of Kiedis' life—one marked by both incredible highs and crushing lows. Kiedis doesn't hold back as he shares his love affair with everything, including the darkness, death, and disease that have touched his life. Even his harrowing descent into drug addiction becomes a poignant element of his artistic journey.What sets this memoir apart is Kiedis' ability to intertwine personal experiences with the evolution of the band. He pays tribute to the powerful and inspiring women who've influenced his life while recounting the electrifying energy of Woodstock and the humbling presence of the Dalai Lama. It's a story of dedication and debauchery, intrigue and integrity, recklessness and redemption."Scar Tissue" is more than a rock 'n' roll memoir; it's a testament to the indomitable spirit of an artist who has faced the darkest corners of fame and addiction and emerged with his creativity and integrity intact. Kiedis' writing is raw, visceral, and, at times, heart-wrenching. It's a book that resonates with anyone who has wrestled with their demons, chased their dreams, and found their way back from the brink.Whether you're a die-hard fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers or simply someone intrigued by the inner workings of the music industry, "Scar Tissue" offers a gripping, no-holds-barred account of a life lived to the fullest—a life that could only have been lived in the world of rock 'n' roll. Dive in, and prepare to be moved, inspired, and forever changed by Anthony Kiedis' remarkable journey.

In my opinion, this was a very good read. Most books about musicians can be a little confusing, because of the use of another author. In “Scar Tissue”, you can tell that Anthony really put his time into it. It has great stories and memories of his times meeting friends, with his dad, forming a band, and traveling the world, with the mission of entertaining people.In the post by J. P. Stockton, he says that “We’re lucky Kiedis turned out the way he did in the end”, and i agree. Most of the book is about his battle with drug usage, and near death experiences for him, and some of the most important people to him. Thats a big part of the lasting effect the book puts on you, and how we are lucky that Anthony won his battle and can make the music that gives so many people the enjoyment of listening to it.In the book, it goes from Anthonys movement to quiet, comfortable Michigan with his Mom, to big, loud, influential L.A. and his Dad. Thats a huge huge huge part of the book, and even though its just described with a few sentences, this almost transcontinental move proves to change Anthonys life forever. The question is-for better, or for worse? This new L.A. lifestyle introduces Anthony to drugs, partying, misbehavior, and other acts of recklessness. But from Anthonys point of view, I think he does an excellent job at showing both the negative and positive sides. Thats why the book is so great. It has a first person view of both sides of the story. There is also a great equilibrium between the two, as the flow of the story and the style of writing make it so it happens without you even knowing it. Not only are we lucky Anthony turned out the way he did because of the music he makes, but because of this great story about his life that gets shared with everybody.Anthonys life is actually amazing. For a person to have that many great moments and memories, then be able to obtain all the information and turn it into a great book is incredible. You have to love Anthony, and as you read, you can feel the emotions he's feeling, like you're in his shoes while reading it. If you're as big of a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan as I am, you will notice that the book provides a lot of clarity into some of the songs written and performed by the group. Its all the little insight from him that makes you feel like if you see him in public, you could just walk up to him and act like you’ve known him and grew up with him and experienced all of the times in Scar Tissue right beside him. Of Course he has no idea who you are, and he is a human being bombarded by paparazzi and fans every second, so maybe just a wave and smile would suffice. But he is such an interesting guy filled with stories to tell for hours and hours. This book does a great job on telling the life story of a crazy, remarkable human being.A great quote from this book is “Every artist is at war with the world” (Kiedis 71). This quote can definitely be proved true, especially for musicians. In the book, Anthony constantly is taking Flea, Chad, John, and some former members, including Dave, Jack, Hillel, Dwayne, Arik, Jack S., and Jesse along for the ride of a lifetime. They had to go up on stage every single time and play like they've never played before to give their fans the best time ever. But there were also all the people thinking otherwise. The struggle of being a musician during Anthonys time was one like no other, as many, many people say that The Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of the most influential bands of all time, as they introduced this new, punk, hip hop, rock, funk combination for the world to hear. They overcame the shunning words from music producers and record labels and any citizens against their music, and stayed strong for the whole ride. This book has a great impact on anybody who reads it, and i highly recommend it to anybody considering.

The first quarter of this book is a hair-raising adventure. Kiedis is a kid who is born and raised to party; his father is a drug dealing hippie who lives with a stable full of groupies and that sums up the kid’s life. He and his father both get into acting, then lose their gigs because they’re both undisciplined. He grows up manic, fearless, stupid, adventurous, and eccentric at the same time. It’s both frightening and hilarious to read about.Being an outsider is a common theme in this book. He goes from hippie kid in Michigan, transplanted to Los Angeles, to poor kid in a rich-kid school, to a long-haired Californian in a school full of Michigan farmboys. Fortunately for him, his father is good friends with Sonny Bono, so he makes good use of their guest room, refrigerator, and their address so he can go to a good high school. Eventually he wears out his welcome with Sonny, thanks to his rude-kid attitude, but I’ll not spoil the plot on what happens at the fur vest mansion. Then comes the school full of weirdo misfits, some of whom would eventually join Kiedis’ band.Scar Tissue reminds me of Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle where the crazy parents keep the family on the move through America’s poor towns. The only difference is that the poor town in Scar Tissue also has a thriving art and music scene, and he’s in no hurry to leave or see the world. As for his constant drug use, he has his father’s stash to keep him high 24 hours a day, so it’s not like he has to deal it to support his habit. Nor does he have to go into dangerous neighborhoods to buy the drugs, so there’s no danger to scare him straight. After high school he cheats his way into UCLA, snorts cocaine, steals his textbooks, steals his meals from the cafeteria, snorts some more cocaine, so it’s no surprise that he likes living in Los Angeles. Who wouldn’t? He’s a loser, don’t get me wrong, but what he has going for him is the constant freedom to keep losing.The tone of the story shifts, however, once he leaves UCLA. We get into the L.A. rock scene, and his life no longer consists of vegetating at his father’s house and getting high, interspersed with being a troublemaker at school. He now spends his time hanging out at the numerous run-down rock venues, interspersed with getting high and shoplifting for food. His father, scared straight by an LAPD raid, gets out of drug dealing and becomes a starving actor again. At the time of this story (circa 1983) the city was still on the downscale side and the cheap rents meant that anyone could open a music venue if you got the permits. The rock fans had less money to spend, so if you couple all that together, you can see how there were plenty of clubs to perform at. You didn’t have all the upscale restaurants driving rents up.Each part of the book can really stand on its own; the dysfunctional family, the crazy childhood, the starving actor, the starving rock musician. Unlike most rock star autobiographies, this one has been print since it came out, so there’s got to be a reason people love this book. I suspect it’s just as much about the wildness of Los Angeles as it is about music. Like that famous line from the song Californication, the city is “the end of the world and all of Western civilization,” or as Kenneth Anger put it, “a dusty tin lizzy trail on the edge of Manifest Destiny.”If you travel from the place where the USA began, Los Angeles is the last stop on the route.

An amazing first person account of an amazing life. Once I started reading I could not stop and finished within a few days. I feel more alive after reading this and am glad that Anthony was willing to share his journey with the world, through all its ups and downs. I can hear the songs in my head whenever I read the lyrics. Fantastic book!

Reading Scar Tissue is like strapping yourself into a wild rollercoaster, except the rollercoaster is Kiedis’ life and you’re hurtling through sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll at breakneck speed. From the highs of international fame with the Red Hot Chili Peppers to the lows of addiction and rehab, Kiedis doesn’t hold back.His writing style is raw and unfiltered, much like his lyrics, making you feel like you’re sitting in a dimly lit room with him, listening to his life stories. Despite the often dark and chaotic content, there’s an underlying current of redemption and self-awareness that makes this memoir not just a cautionary tale but an inspiring one.Prepare yourself for an intense read that will make you appreciate the resilience of the human spirit. Just maybe avoid reading it in public places—you’ll probably be making a lot of "Did he really do that?" faces.

Louis FischettiMr. HalawAcademic English IVIndependent ReadingScar TissueAs a huge fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and them being my favorite band, i thought this would be a great book to read. Once i began reading the book i couldn't put it down. Every other page something more exciting and enjoyable was happening. It's interesting to know how the band got started and what the band went through as a group and as individuals. Anthony explains his childhood and his days of becoming a man as he fights his drug addictions, sexual obsessions, and pursues his dream to be a rockstar.In this memoir, it's cool how they explain events that happened early in their lives and how it's reflected upon their music and their lifestyle. Meanings of lyrics are explained and and secrets and unknown events are revealed. Alot of things that happened early in the red hot chili peppers journey connects to who they are today. All of this is explained in the novel and it makes you say... "oh! so that's why they do that", or "so that's where that came from".Anthony uses things such as pictures and lyrics from songs to enhance the reading and the readers views on the events that he is explaining. As a reader it's very easy to develop an image of what's going on as your reading the memior. Sometimes i almost feel as if i'm there watching whats going on. Overall i thought the book was very satisfying. At times the story gets a little repetitive and meaningless events get dragged out but the compelling events and detailed scenarios make up for it. In my opinion, the definition of a good book is one that the reader cant put it down, and Scar Tissue is definately one of those books.

I wasn't a big Red Hot Chili Peppers fan in their day - for one thing, I always thought of them as more a tribe of half-naked Hollywood junkies than a viable musical act, and this book seems to back up my opinion. However, this book isn't really about the RHCP but more about the life and times of recovering addict Anthony Kiedis. It was recommended to me by several people, one of whom was involved in the LA music scene around the same time and praised the book for its honesty.On the one hand, I applaud Mr. Kiedis's skills as a writer, as well as his ability to craft a reasonably decent adult life following a pretty dysfunctional childhood with seemingly no animosity towards either of his parents. And the book is clearly honest about the realities of junkie-dom in a way that "A Million Little Pieces" was not. You never get the feeling the author is gilding the lily or exaggerating; he doesn't have to. As the son of a Hollywood drug dealer turned actor, who had his first sexual experience with his father's teenage girlfriend (with father's own blessing, no less) at age 11, and who went on to have sex with multiple girls, act in films, hang out with Sonny Bono and share a bed (platonically, but erotically) with Cher all before his midteens, and wind up fronting one of the world's biggest rock bands...nobody writing fiction could possibly top that. Juxtaposed with exciting world tours and girlfriends and groupies galore are the more sordid tales of ripoffs, dope sickness, failed withdrawal attempts and the like, that have peppered every true-life junkie tale since "Confessions of an Opium Eater". Somehow, Anthony manages to stay positive through all of his ups and downs, including the death of his friend/ bandmate, rehab, a relapse back into addiction supposedly caused by a dentist's malpractice, and rehab again. He generally comes off as a good-hearted likeable guy who doesn't seem to have let fame go to his head and realizes that addiction is a spiritual disease as well as physical.On the other hand, unless this fellow's emotions are completely dead, I would have expected some recognition that his upbringing wasn't the greatest. It's awesome that he has a good relationship with his family, and I'm not looking for "Mommie Dearest" confrontation levels here, but Kiedis seems to completely gloss over the point that a father providing his preteen son with ready access to drugs (and sex) and involving the kid in his own drug trafficking activities is, to put it mildly, NOT a good idea. Instead, Kiedis just seems bemused by the whole thing, even admiring of Dear Old Dad. A number of other books in the true-life addicts genre, including Danny Sugerman's "Wonderland Avenue" and Papa John Phillips' autobiography, are much more direct about coming out and saying that young teens running loose on the Sunset Strip popping pills was a lot of fun, but in the end, bad with a capital B. Kiedis can't seem to get himself to admit that.A goodly part of the book also details Kiedis's relationships with a long series of women and his erotic encounters with many more in a curiously detached manner. It's understandable that he'd have lots of women given that he's a handsome rock star living in Hollywood, and some of his detachment can probably be written off to the toll that addiction and recovery takes on one's emotions. But reading about a grown man seeing a woman for two minutes at an elevator, deciding on the spot that she could be his future wife (until she gets on the elevator and disappears forever), and then breaking up with his long-suffering committed girlfriend who has, by his own admission, done nothing wrong - he's just not in love with her any more for no good reason - sounds like Anthony's maturity meter got stuck at about age 14 rather than him being "honest". He seems more drawn to women who fight with him rather than women who are nice to him, yet we never get any real insight into why. By the end of the book, our hero is middle-aged and still doesn't appear even close to settling down with anyone (plus, since writing the book, he has reportedly fathered a child by another girlfriend and then split from her). Perhaps the kind of self-realization needed to explain this pattern is still down the road in Anthony's recovery journey, or perhaps it was just too intimate for the book, but it's hard to see Anthony as a fully evolved recovering adult when his closest and healthiest relationship appears to be with his dog.Overall, this is a reasonably interesting tell-all in the "junkie survivor" genre and makes Anthony Kiedis seem like the slightly sad sweetie he looked like in the "Under the Bridge" video. I wouldn't call it super honest though - go read "Wonderland Avenue" if you're looking for that. And if you're looking for a book about the band, that's yet to be written. I don't think the story of the Chili Peppers could be adequately told by one person given the number of musicians with strong personalities (Flea, John Frusciante, etc.) involved over the years. It would be great if the band decided to do something along the lines of Motley Crue's "The Dirt" with each band member chiming in.

"Scar Tissue" by Anthony Kiedis, is a raw and unfiltered dive into the tumultuous life of a rock star ad quickly became one of my favorite books. Kiedis doesn't hold back as he chronicles his journey, from his early days in Los Angeles to the dizzying heights of global stardom. The narrative is filled with tales of addiction, love, loss, and redemption, making it a roller-coaster of emotions for the reader.What stands out in "Scar Tissue" is Kiedis's candidness. He bares his soul, revealing his struggles with drug addiction and the impact it had on his personal and professional life. The book also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the dynamics of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, shedding light on the band's evolution and the relationships between its members. While some parts can be heavy due to the depth of Kiedis's experiences, his resilience and journey towards self-discovery make it an inspiring read. For fans of the band and those interested in the life of a rock musician this book is a compelling and eye-opening memoir.

Anthony Kiedis doesn't hold back in this autobiography, and it must have taken some balls to write it. Tell it like it is. Some of the drug induced incidents are quite vivid, you couldn't make this stuff up, and far from glorifying the life of a junkie, he does just the opposite without trying. There are several painful moments including the deaths of people close to him, usually caused by drugs. Failed relationships, missed opportunities, and accidents that happened when high... it is amazing this guy is still alive. This isn't sensational stuff though, and although many famous names crop up, virtually none are slagged off or dissed. The women in his life get the same Tell it like it is treatment, and again there's nothing spiteful or disrespectfully in there, just honest self analysis. Certainly Mr Kiedis comes out of this as an imperfect human being, much like the rest of us.It probably helps to be a Chili Peppers fan, though this book is thoughly recommended to those of us intested in rock music during that period. And long may he continue making great music.

I’m a big fan of RHCP and it was a wild adventure being transported to Anthony’s world. I loved this book and didn’t want to put it down. It took me on a ride for sure. I also love how much personality it oozes. Great, straight-forward writing.

英語も簡単で、とても面白かったです。薬物中毒と戦い、未だに現役で活躍するミュージシャンの、リアルな自伝でした

I've had Scar Tissue on my wishlist for what must be 5 years now, it always slipped me by when shopping on Amazon and I never really bothered to part with the small fee. In hindsight, I can't believe I neglected purchasing this excellent book for so long.I'm a self confessed lover of auto-biographies and this did not disappoint. As a music listener, I've always taken Red Hot Chili Peppers for granted - Californication was the only record I really ever listened to. Having read an article in Kerrang! Magazine (a UK music publication) about the history of RHCP, the untimely death of Hilel Slovak and the intial departure of John Frusciante, I figured I wanted to delve deeper into the history of the band and purchase this book.I really did not expect Kiedis' life to be so littered with landmines. From the age of 11, his father led him down the dark lane of recreational drug use, so it was really no surprise that this type of behaviour became native to him. From the off, you actually sympathised with his battle against addiction. To me, it sounded more like an affliction he was born with as opposed to something he delved into voluntarily. From an impressionable young age, he was thrust right into the battle. Living within the circle of fame and Los Angeles, you can almost count it as a given.Throughout the book, you find yourself wishing he'd strapped himself into the sobriety wagon. When he pries himself off drugs and subsequently relapses, in my head, I found myself yelling at him "DON'T GO DOWN THAT ROAD, YOU PRAT!!". The disappointment I felt wasn't that of a reader, it was more like the anger felt by a close companion of his. Further down the line, his constant effortless relapses begin to get annoying. At one point you're reading about visiting his family in Michigan and then suddenly he jumps right back into drug use. I don't know if I was more annoyed at the repetition or the fact that he could so easily jump right back in as if it didn't matter.Please don't think the whole book is about addiction. You still get to learn about the Red Hot Chili Peppers' formation, their swift rise to fame and the triumphs & tragedies along the way. The relationship between Kiedis and band members really radiates in the book. You felt a sense of personal loss when he lost his close personal friend Hilel Slovak.In retrospect, Scar Tissue is an extremely engaging book, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't read it again this year.Prior to reading this book I misunderstood Heroin addicts, but having explored the mind of drug addict who didn't really stand a chance in the first place, to a degree I can sympathise with their battle.Musically, I've found myself more attached to the Chili Peppers as well. He does explain the meaning behind some of his lyrics. Most notably, I can listen to "Under The Bridge" on a whole new level now.Music fan or not, this is something you really should read. REALLY. I can't exaggerate that point any more.

Scar Tissue is not only for die-hard Red Hot Chili Peppers fans, it is a very honest and gripping biography of Anthony in which you can also find his emotions properly reflected. This book never misses a beat and makes you feel frustrated, happy and shocked at the same time. Furthermore this book includes a lot of very private photographes throughout Anthony's life, which makes it a whole different experience while reading.I really loved the book and can't listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers without thinking about Scar Tissue and what the song lyrics meant to Anthony and the rest of the band.