What You Need to Know About Hillel Slovak of the Red Hot Chili Peppers

A new Netflix documentary tells the story of how an Israeli-American musician forever shaped the iconic funk rock band, Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel” is not a comprehensive documentary about the band, but rather a powerful and intimate tearjerker that uncovers the indelible mark Hillel Slovak left on his bandmates.

Hillel Slovak, who was born in Israel, was one of the original members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He died by overdose in 1988 at age 26. The band’s greatest hits, like “Under the Bridge” and “Californication,” were mostly released after Slovak’s death. Yet Slovak was the one who urged bandmate Flea to learn the bass when they were teens in high school, and his riffing with frontman Anthony Kiedis helped the band develop its lyrical style.

Here’s everything to know about Hillel Slovak.

Who was Hillel Slovak?

Hillel Slovak was born at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Israel, in 1962, and spent his earliest years in the country. His parents met in Israel, after having escaped there after World War II. His father, Toby, was born in Yugoslavia; his mother, Esther, who mostly raised him and his brother James as a single parent after divorcing their father, was born in Warsaw. The family escaped Poland in 1939 and found refuge in Siberia, immigrating to Israel in 1957.

Esther’s brother and his family ended up in the U.S. and Esther and her husband soon followed suit, moving their family first to New York and then to California.

Slovak loved art in every shape and form, writing in his journal often and drawing, just like his mother, who was a visual artist. And he loved music a whole lot. Esther shared how much she loved hearing her son play guitar — he got his first from his uncle at his bar mitzvah — and how he would never cease to play and think about music, not even during Passover seder.

The shadow of the Holocaust loomed large. Hillel was second generation to the Holocaust, and was very close to his maternal grandmother, who along with her husband, lived with the repercussions and the trauma of the war every day. Hillel’s grandmother died a year after Hillel’s death to the day.

Hillel visited Israel twice after his family’s departure, as a teen and at age 21 with a girlfriend.

“Hillel was Jewish. He looked Jewish, and talked about Jewish stuff, and the food in that kitchen was Jewish. He made us egg salad sandwiches on rye bread that day, which was totally exotic food to me then,” Kiedis once recalled.

Slovak and Kiedis met at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, where Hillel co-founded the band Chain Reaction, later known as Anthym.

What was Hillel Slovak’s impact on the Red Hot Chili Peppers?

As the documentary shows, the band likely wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for Slovak.

In the film, Michael Balzary, who would later be known as Flea, recalls how one day, he and Slovak were sitting together in the car listening to “Riders in the Storm” as rain gently tapped the windows. Slovak asked him if he wanted to pick up the bass and replace the bass player in his band, Anthym.

“I couldn’t even believe it. I was like, wow, you want me? No one wanted me. I was a weirdo… I wasn’t cool… And I don’t think that the other guys even wanted me. But [Hillel] believed in me. He saw me. And in that moment, but obviously still, it really touched my heart,” Flea says in the documentary, moved to tears.

Two weeks later, he shared, “I was up on stage with Hillel. I never played bass before. [I was playing] totally by the numbers, but it changed my life forever. In real time, I could feel the world opening. It was incredible, and Hillel gave me that gift.”

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were formed thanks to queer artist Gary Allen, who saw the potential in Kiedis as a frontman, and who loved Flea’s talent and the fact that Slovak was a “funk magnet. He pulled funk to him.”

The band took off almost immediately, but Slovak and drummer Jack Irons at first stayed loyal to their original band,  Anthym, which had by then changed its name to What Is This, when the Red Hot Chili Peppers were signed to a record deal. He later left them and officially rejoined the Chili Peppers. He co-wrote five of the songs from their self-titled debut album and recorded their second and third albums with them.

What happened to the band after Hillel Slovak’s death?

While Flea and Kiedis would do drugs recreationally for most of their friendship, Slovak’s eventual use of heroin took a serious toll. In June of 1988, Slovak’s lifeless body was found in his West Hollywood apartment, having died from an overdose.

Slovak’s death changed the band forever, almost halting it in its tracks. Jack Irons, the band’s original drummer and a good friend of Slovak’s — and its only other Jewish member — left the band, eventually spending time in a psychiatric ward.

For Flea, it was a heartbreaking moment. He was about to welcome his first child, and Slovak had been so excited for him. “Hillel was so excited for my baby girl. We didn’t know it was going to be a girl, but he knew it was going to be a girl and we talked about it all the time, always thinking of names. He was like, this is going to be so beautiful,” Flea recalls in the documentary.

Kiedis, who was also battling his own heroin addiction at the time, was in denial about Slovak’s death for a long time. He did not go to Hillel’s funeral, having the feeling that Hillel’s mother blamed him for his death. The two reconciled before she passed away 2018.

James, Slovak’s youngest brother, recalled how the moment shattered his life forever. He watched his mother walking in circles for three days straight until she collapsed.

After Slovak’s death, the band recruited John Frusciante, then just 18, to stand in for him on guitar. Frusciante had been a fan of the band since he was 16, and mostly of Slovak’s. He remembered how it felt like his solos had no notes, and said that he really found his groove with the band when he tried to channel Slovak. While the two had never met, he called him his “cosmic teacher.”

In footage from the documentary of a concert after Slovak’s death, you hear Flea say, “this next set is dedicated to Hillel Slovak, and everything we do from now on is dedicated to Hillel Slovak.” And in a way, it was. Songs like “The Other Side,” “Knock Me Down” and “My Lovely Man” all have lyrics touching on the loss of their bandmate. When the band performed in Israel in 2001, Esther shared how excited she was for Hillel’s band to make it there, and how heartbroken she was that he wasn’t around to see it.

In 1999, James Slovak released “Behind the Sun,” a book of Slovak’s writing and drawings, to help keep his memory alive.

Slovak is buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California. On the grave, his name is inscribed in both Hebrew and English letters, along with an image of an electric guitar. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 along with the rest of the band.

In light of the documentary’s release, the band released the following statement: “About a year ago, we were asked to be interviewed for a documentary about Hillel Slovak. He was a founding member of the group, a great guitarist, and a friend. We agreed to be interviewed out of love and respect for Hillel and his memory. However, this documentary is now being advertised as a Red Hot Chili Peppers documentary, which it is not. We had nothing to do with it creatively. We have yet to make a Red Hot Chili Peppers documentary. The central subject of this current Netflix special is Hillel Slovak and we hope it sparks interest in him and his work.”