Hillel Slovak
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| Hillel Slovak | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Slim Slim Bob Billy Huckleberry |
| Born | April 13, 1962 Haifa, Israel |
| Died | June 25, 1988 (aged 26) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Genre(s) | Alternative rock, Funk rock, Funk metal |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, Songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Guitar |
| Years active | 1980 - 1988 |
| Label(s) | MCA, EMI |
| Associated acts | Red Hot Chili Peppers What Is This? |
| Website | redhotchilipeppers.com |
| Notable instrument(s) | |
| Fender Stratocaster Fender Telecaster Gibson Les Paul |
|
Hillel Slovak (Hebrew: הלל סלובק) (April 13, 1962 – c.June 25, 1988) was an Israeli American guitarist. He was best known as being the original guitarist for the band Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early years
Hillel was born in Haifa, Israel and his family moved to America when Hillel was four. His parents were Holocaust survivors of Polish-Jewish (mother) and Yugoslavian-Jewish (father) descent. Hillel and his family moved to Queens, New York, and then to California in 1967. Hillel attended Bancroft Jr. High School in Hollywood where he met future bandmates Jack Irons and Michael "Flea" Balzary. The three would graduate to Fairfax High School. While at Fairfax, Hillel learned how to play guitar and he, Jack, and Flea met future bandmate Anthony Kiedis. Hillel formed a band with Jack Irons on drums and two other high school friends, Alain Johannes and Todd Strasman. They called their band Chain Reaction and changed the name to Anthym after their first gig. Hillel became dissatisfied with Todd's bass playing and eventually taught Flea to play bass. Flea quickly surpassed Todd 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. What Is This? continued on and performed many shows along the California coast.
[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. Since Slovak considered the Chili Peppers to merely be a side project and not a serious commitment, he left them to concentrate on What Is This?.
During the recording of the second What Is This? album, Hillel became frustrated with the band. He contacted Flea about rejoining the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This came at an opportune time, as Kiedis and Flea were both dissatisfied with Hillel's replacement Jack Sherman. After the culmination of the promotional tour for their first album, Sherman was fired and Hillel rejoined the band.
Hillel returned to the Chili Peppers for their second and third albums, Freaky Styley and The Uplift Mofo Party Plan. 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. During the European tour supporting The Uplift Mofo Party Plan album, suspicions of his drug problems began to haunt the band. Hillel was temporarily fired for his drug use. Unfortunately, these suspicions came to public light when Hillel relapsed, resulting in erratic behavior and botched performances. Slovak was found dead of a Speedball overdose on June 27, 1988, shortly after the band returned from the Europe tour. He was twenty-six years old. Hillel is interred at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California.
His last recording, a cover version of the Jimi Hendrix song "Fire", would later appear in Mother's Milk.
[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) were written as tributes to Hillel, as is "Dosed" from By The Way, and many others.
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 heroin, others see it as a more straightforward reference to never being able to go back to the past represented by the image.[citation needed]
Hillel's brother James recently started a site for sales of Behind the Sun, a book featuring writings from Hillel's diaries, Hillel's paintings, and hand written notes from Kiedis and Flea.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers also hosted a user-made music video contest for the song "Charlie" (from Stadium Arcadium) in which the winning entry includes a dedication at the end, partially to Slovak.
[edit] Discography
With What Is This?
- Squeezed – (1984)
- What Is This? – (1985)
- 3 Out of 5 Live – (1985)
With Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Freaky Styley – (1985)
- The Uplift Mofo Party Plan – (1987)
- The Abbey Road E.P. – (1988)
- Mother's Milk – (1989)
- Performs on only one track, "Fire"
- What Hits!? – (1992)
- Out in L.A. – (1994)
- Under the Covers: Essential Red Hot Chili Peppers – (1998)
- The Best of the Red Hot Chili Peppers – (1998)
[edit] References
- Kiedis, Anthony; Sloman, Larry (October 6, 2004). Scar Tissue. Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-0101-0.
