Hillel Slovak
Hillel Slovak (born April 13, 1962 in Haifa , Israel , † June 25, 1988 in Los Angeles ) was an American musician. He gained fame as a guitarist with the Red Hot Chili Peppers .
Life
Hillel Slovak's Jewish family moved to California in 1967 . There he attended Fairfax High School , where he met Anthony Kiedis and Michael Balzary (better known as "Flea"), whom he taught some basics of bass playing. With them and his long-time childhood friend Jack Irons , he founded the fun-funk project Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem , which later became the Red Hot Chili Peppers (RHCP).
Due to his preference for artists such as Jimi Hendrix , Kiss and Led Zeppelin, he began to develop his own unmistakable guitar playing early on . a. the then RHCP fan John Frusciante admired and was later able to play or imitate perfectly as a member of the RHCP. The then only 16-year-old Frusciante was not only enthusiastic about Slovak's guitar playing, but also made friends with him personally.
Slovak was in 1984 with Alain Johannes as guitarist and Jack Irons as drummer with the band What Is This? , whose name was Anthym until 1980 , tied to the MCA label . Since Anthony Kiedis had already signed with Flea at EMI , Slovak and Irons had to be replaced on the first RHCP album by Jack Sherman on guitar and Cliff Martinez on drums. But a year later Slovak decided to continue with the band he co-founded and switched back to the Peppers.
Over time he (just like Kiedis) developed a strong dependence on heroin , but in contrast to Kiedis, Slovak tried to keep it limited. He wanted to avoid that the other band members could accuse him of a dependency, although it became more and more clear during his performances that he had addiction problems. He often gambled away or slipped completely into his own dream world.
Because of personal ties within the band addiction was ignored by the rest of the band - probably because to Flea and Kiedis turn with Speedballs indulged the noise. After the third album The Uplift Mofo Party Plan , the band went on their first extensive European tour together with the funk metal band Fishbone . Flea and Kiedis attempted to tour drug-free for the first time, while Slovak continued to use drugs during the tour, so he often had difficulty concentrating on his guitar playing during live performances. In the meantime, the remaining band members were considering a temporary exclusion from Slovak, as his behavior had become less and less predictable. Finally Angelo Moore , lead singer of the band Fishbone, was able to convince the other members that it would be best for both Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers themselves to abandon this project.
After the band returned from Europe and got ready to record their fourth studio album, Slovak got heroin and cocaine again before the recordings really started. The day before, he had called his brother to tell him about his urge to continue using drugs. The usual dose that Slovak injected himself during this relapse was too much for his body, which had been weaned from heroin again. He died of an overdose.
Hillel Slovak was buried in the Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills (Los Angeles). His death almost meant the end of the band. Anthony Kiedis retired to a lonely beach hut in Mexico for some time to get over the death of one of his best friends. Slovak's longtime companion Jack Irons suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be treated psychiatric. It was also he who reproached the other band members for careless use of hard drugs and finally left the band. His successor on drums was first DH Peligro and then Chad Smith .
legacy
Hillel Slovak worked on the albums The Uplift Mofo Party Plan , Freaky Styley and the Abbey Road EP . The work on the fourth album Rockin Freakapotamus (later released as Mother's Milk ) could not be completed due to Slovak's death.
After Slovak's death, John Frusciante , who was only 18 years old at the time, took his place, who only waived the offer as guitarist for the LA combo Thelonious Monster at the last minute with the intervention of Anthony Kiedis .
The Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated the album Mother's Milk (explicitly the song Knock me down ) to Slovak and on the 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik u. a. the song My lovely Man where he is mentioned under different nicknames. In the title Right on Time on the album Californication , he is also mentioned at the end through backmasking ( We miss him ).
One of his occupations besides music was u. a. painting. He painted numerous pictures that were published by his younger brother in an anthology ( Behind the Sun: The Diary & Art of Hillel Slovak ). One of Slovak's works was shown in the booklet of the album Mother's Milk .
Web links
- Hillel Slovak in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Hillel Slovak | Biography & History. Retrieved January 22, 2019 (American English).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Slovak, Hillel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 13, 1962 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Haifa , Israel |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 25, 1988 |
| Place of death | Los Angeles , California , United States |