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Joe Rogan · 2024-06-27

Joe Rogan Experience #1884 - Anthony Kiedis

Anthony Kiedis on aging in music, a wild-game diet, surfing, psychedelics, wildlife, and the Chili Peppers' origin and Rick Rubin.

Joe Rogan Experience #1884 - Anthony Kiedis
The guest

Anthony Kiedis: Lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, performing since age 21 in 1983.

What this episode covers

Approaching 60, Anthony Kiedis talks with Joe Rogan about staying physically vital, the upsides and costs of lifelong fame, and a 'don't be a bitch' gratitude philosophy. They go deep on a wild-game diet built around his genetics, plus extended riffs on whales, orcas, sharks, bears and hunting ethics. Kiedis recounts psychedelic sensory-deprivation-tank trips, his late-blooming love of surfing, and trips to Yosemite and Hawaiian observatories. The conversation closes with how the Chili Peppers formed almost by accident in 1983, his heroin and cocaine addiction, and how producer Rick Rubin's instincts shaped songs like Under the Bridge.

Recommended on this episode

BookRecommendedISBN verified

The Book of Five Rings

Miyamoto Musashi

“it sort of shaped My Philosophy in many ways”
“it's called The Book of five rings and it sort of shaped My Philosophy in many ways of on life”— Anthony Kiedis
MediaRecommended

Elvis (2022 film)

Baz Luhrmann

“it's really good”
“he's great in it he's great in it it's it's it's really good it's really I mean it leaves out a lot”— Joe Rogan

The guest's own work

MediaBy the guest

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Red Hot Chili Peppers

“so we were writing a blood sugar Sex Magic you know and I was at the time we would just spend our days together”— Anthony Kiedis
MediaBy the guest

Under the Bridge

Red Hot Chili Peppers

“so I sang him under the bridge and he was like that's your best song I was like ah it's just a poem”— Anthony Kiedis

Also referenced (named, not recommended)

MediaReferenced

The Sopranos

“well seeing him on The Sopranos with the wig on it was like wow he he was amazing”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced

Blackfish

“anybody who's seen black fish or anybody who knows what's going on in Marineland all the stuff that's going on in Canada”— Anthony Kiedis
MediaReferenced

MeatEater

“show that I'm actually going hunting for one of these things and the with the television show meat eater in December”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced

23andMe

23andMe

“she studies your genes 23andMe takes days to study your genes and plans out your food based on your genetics”— Anthony Kiedis
MediaReferenced

The Message

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

“I heard The Message by Grandmaster Flash in the Furious Five and I just wanted to roll down the street lighter than air”— Anthony Kiedis
MediaReferenced

Black Flag

“the high that I got from listening to Henry Rollins Black Flag drinking black coffee made me feel so alive”— Anthony Kiedis
ProductReferenced

Suzuki motorcycle

Suzuki

“sometime in the 80s Chad Smith showed up on a Suzuki and I was like let me try that Big Bike and I was hooked”— Anthony Kiedis
MediaReferenced

Jaws

Steven Spielberg

“I had seen Jaws show me a shark this big and I'm just running over the top of the water to escape”— Anthony Kiedis

Big reveals from this episode

  • Kiedis shares his life philosophy 'don't be a bitch' after a radiant young woman he met at a MetLife show died unexpectedly a week later.
  • A nutritionist who studies his genes prescribed a diet of wild game (alligator, elk, moose, kangaroo), which he says fixed his injuries and gave him peak clarity.
  • Rick Rubin reveals he walked out of an early rehearsal because he thought someone in the band was going to get murdered, the band had become that dark.
  • Rubin pushed Kiedis to turn a private, sentimental poem into Under the Bridge, calling it his best song.
  • Kiedis describes his descent into heroin and cocaine addiction starting at a young age, calling it 'a life of suffering.'
  • He recounts John Lilly's research where a woman jerked off a dolphin to enable interspecies communication experiments, which got the science shut down.
  • In 1983 Kiedis took LSD and entered a sensory deprivation tank, describing a fully conscious astral-plane experience '10 billion miles away in outer space.'

Worth remembering

  • Kiedis credits a French osteopath named Lucille with healing his frozen shoulder and knee where every doctor failed.
  • Rick Rubin introduced the band to Transcendental Meditation in the early '90s, bringing a TM instructor into his living room.
  • Kiedis has a tiger tattoo of samurai Miyamoto Musashi, author of The Book of Five Rings, who reportedly defeated 62 men in single combat.
  • They note stand-up comedy is an American art form born of the country's cultural melting pot, like jazz, blues and rock.
  • Texas barbecue brisket traces back to German immigrants who slow-smoked a cheap, tough cut of meat.
  • Wild boar can have three litters a year and breed from six months old, making them an unstoppable invasive species in Texas.
  • Humans kill an estimated 100 million sharks a year while sharks kill only single digits of humans.
  • The Chili Peppers played a free show at the Hupa tribe's school gym in Hoopa Valley, calling it their best show of the year.
  • Kiedis says the word 'humble' derives from being low or close to the ground.
  • Texas has more captive tigers (an estimated 3,000-5,000) than exist in the wild worldwide.