CALENDART H U R S DAY , S E P T E M B E R 2 3 , 2 0 21 :: L AT I M E S . C O M /CA L E N DA R

E

When the Red Hot Chili Peppers moved into a

haunted Hollywood mansion in the spring of

1991 to make the album that would become

known as “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” the

band, and pop music, was at a crossroads.

A young singer named Mariah Carey was ruling the album

charts with her self-titled debut. Progressive metal band

Queensryche was competing in the top 10 with the soundtrack

for “New Jack City,” R.E.M.'s “Out of Time” and L.A. singing trio

Wilson Phillips’ breakthrough album.

Twelve miles away at Sound City Studios, Nirvana, newly

signed to Geffen Records, was tracking “Smells Like Teen Spir-

it” and the rest of the songs that became “Nevermind.”

Soundgarden, recently inked to A&M, was holed up in Holly-

wood and elsewhere recording “Badmotorfinger.” In Seattle,

Pearl Jam was working on its debut album, “Ten.”

The Red Hot Chili Peppers, formed in 1983 by Fairfax High

School classmates Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Hillel Slovak and

Jack Irons, had already released four albums by then. While

1989’s “Mothers Milk” had been a modest success, the band’s

music — punk-indebted Muscle Beach funk-rock — lagged be-

hind their well-cultivated image. Their shirtless dude de-

meanor was typified in the artwork for 1988’s “The Abbey

Road EP,” which saw the group riffing on the Beatles album

cover — crossing a street, naked but for socks covering their

privates.

A half-decade of nonstop touring and libertine excess had

already taken its toll: Slovak fatally

FLEA, left, Chad Smith, John Frusciante and Anthony Kiedis gathered in a Laurel Canyon house to record in 1991. Chris Cuffaro

THIS MAGIK

MOMENTChili Peppers relive the making of a breakthrough album

BY RANDALL ROBERTS AND MIKAEL WOOD

[See Peppers, E3]

Despite over-indexing inmovie ticket purchasing andrepresenting nearly a fifth ofthe U.S. population, Latinosremain underrepresented asemployees in nearly everymajor industry related tomedia and entertainment,according to preliminary re-sults of a federal study re-leased Tuesday.

U.S. Latinos appeared tobe overrepresented in onemedia sector alone, as serv-ice workers, the data found.Directors, editors and execu-tives with decision-makingpower were the least repre-sentative for Hispanicsworking in Hollywood, thenews media and publishing.The study, conducted by theU.S. Government Account-ability Office, is the first of itskind that focuses on the em-ployment of Latinos in me-dia.

Overall, Latinos in theUnited States made upabout 12% of the workforce inmedia- and entertainment-related jobs, compared withthe Hispanic populationoverall of about 18% in 2019,according to the GAO.

The study’s early findingswere well anticipated in His-panic watchdog and mediacircles. In recent years,Washington politicians andHollywood heavyweightshave adamantly pressed in-dustry leaders to fix the rep-resentation deficit for the na-tion’s fastest growing andnow largest minority sub-group.

On Tuesday, Rep.Joaquín Castro (D-San An-tonio), who’s taken on the is-sue as a political cause, an-nounced the figures during aspeech at the National PressClub in Washington, D.C.Castro and fellow membersof the Congressional His-panic Caucus had requested

Latinoslargelyabsentacrossmedia Federal study showsunderrepresentationin the entertainmentand news industries.

By Daniel Hernandez

[See Latinos, E6]

In her world,stuff talks back

Ruth Ozeki tacklesfraught adolescence,big ideas and oursuffering planet in hervivid new novel. E2

Comics ................... E4-5

What’s on TV .......... E6

Project Red.For months, that’s the

code name Britney Spearsfans have used to refer to asecretive documentary onthe pop star believed to be inthe works at Netflix. The ru-mor began after the per-former began making vagueInstagram references usingthe phrase, often postingred-themed images of col-ored clothing or flowers.Red, of course, happens tobe the color of the Netflixlogo — hence the fan con-spiracy theory.

This week, the theorybecame an actuality: Netflixconfirmed “Britney vsSpears” will premiere Tues-day. And though Spears didnot, in fact, collaborate withfilmmaker Erin Lee Carr, themovie’s release date will co-incide with a pivotal mo-ment in her life. The nexthearing in her conservator-ship case is scheduled forWednesday — a court datethat could determinewhether the performer’s fa-ther, Jamie Spears, is re-moved as her legal guardian.

“Britney vs Spears” is notthe first nonfiction film to in-vestigate Spears’ circum-stances. In February, a NewYork Times-produced doc,“Framing Britney Spears,”premiered on FX and Hulu.

Taking a critical look atthe media’s treatment of

Secret’s out onthe ‘Spears’ film Director of Netflixdocumentary digs intoconservatorship ofthe global pop star.

[See Spears, E6]

By Amy Kaufman

Here’s what was lost bymoving the Ojai Music Festi-val from the second weekendin June to the third in Sep-tember: The damn Delta var-iant stole a potential pinkmoment that might have lenta uniquely Ojai ending to thefestival. The late-afternoonSunday finale, always themost attended concert of thefestival, ended just after 7,and the sun already had set.

But here’s what wasgained: everything else thathas made the Ojai festival be-loved for a full three-quarters

MUSIC REVIEW

Emerging talent enlivens Ojai

MUSIC DIRECTOR John Adams stands to acknowledge Attacca Quartet in Ojai.

Al Seib Los Angeles Times

The festival returns inexciting fashion withRhiannon Giddensand Gabriella Smith.

MARK SWED

MUSIC CRITIC

[See Ojai, E2]

LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2021 E3

overdosed on heroin in 1988.Crushed by the loss of hisfriend, Irons quit not long af-ter. Flea and Kiedis forgedahead, ultimately hiringdrummer Chad Smith and ayoung Red Hot Chili Pep-pers super fan, guitaristJohn Frusciante, to fill thoseroles.

“Mother’s Milk,” the firstalbum to feature Fruscianteand Smith, would be theband’s swan song for EMIRecords. As MTV added theband’s cover of Stevie Won-der’s “Higher Ground” intorotation, executives fromGeffen, Epic and WarnerBros. wooed them. Warner’slegendary chairman, Mo Os-tin, eventually won the bid-ding war.

The Chili Peppers alsocommitted to working withproducer Rick Rubin, whowas well on his way to be-coming the Zen-like king ofrock and rap through workwith Run-D.M.C., Slayer andthe Beastie Boys. Instead ofa typical recording studio,Rubin and the band opted torent a house in Laurel Can-yon. There, isolated for twomonths starting in April1991,the band, crew, and a seriesof invited and uninvitedguests helped create one ofthe quintessential L.A. rockalbums.

“Blood Sugar Sex Magik,”featuring “Under theBridge,” “Breaking the Girl”and “Give It Away,” was re-leased on Sept. 24, 1991, thesame day as Nirvana’s“Nevermind.” It would be-come the Chili Peppers’ criti-cal and commercial break-through, eventually sellingmore than 7 million copies.“Before ‘Blood Sugar,’ ” saysKiedis, “we were relativelyunknown.” After, he contin-ues, “I remember walkingdown my street in the Hillsand cars driving by and hear-ing our songs coming out ofthe radio.”

Thirty years later, theband and its team sat downto tell the unlikely story of itscreation.

Flea, bassist: LosingHillel was devastating, butwe knew that we wanted tokeep playing music. Whenwe found John and thenChad, we found this unit.John was only 18, and heloved the Chili Peppers.

John Frusciante, guitar-ist: It felt like we lived in amagic world where every-thing came out of us reallyfluidly. We felt connected allthe time.

Anthony Kiedis, vocal-ist: John and Flea have thismagical relationship, espe-cially when they’re playingtheir guitars together. Theyjust fit.

By the time they’d fin-ished promoting “Mother’sMilk” in 1990, the band’scontract with EMI was up.“Mother’s Milk” had gonegold, radio was playing thePeppers’ cover of “HigherGround” and the recordindustry was awash incompact disc profits. Thetiming was perfect to be freeagents.

Flea: Our lawyer wassaying, “You’re in a positionto get a really good recorddeal right now.” It alwaysseemed like a thing thathappened to other people.We just put on our wackyclothes and made our crazymusic.

Steven Baker, formerWarner Bros. VP of productmanagement: When theband became available, Iwent with Mo and Lenny[Waronker, Warner Bros.president] to see them. Wetook a plane up to KaiserConvention Center in Oak-land. The band was amaz-ing. The audience was in-sane.

Flea: All of a sudden itwas actually happening. Wewere being offered moremoney than I’d ever imag-ined.

At first, the band commit-ted to Epic Records, whichoffered a larger advance.Ostin wasn’t finished,though.

Smith: He called eachone of us at home. Mo Ostin!Who calls the f— drummer?

Flea: I get this call fromMo, who is one of the mostrespected record companyguys in the world, telling me,“Hey, I understand you’regoing with another recordcompany, but I just want tosay that I really enjoyedmeeting you guys. You’regood kids, and I think you’regoing to have a great career.”It really touched my heart.

Smith: Warners had JimiHendrix, Prince, Madonna,Neil Young — a real artistslabel.

Flea: Mo was like, “How-ever you want to make this

record, take all the time,spend what you need, havethe freedom, be creative. Letyour freak flag fly.”

Freak flag hoisted, theband needed a producerand hired Rubin.

Lindy Goetz, formerRed Hot Chili Peppersmanager: If I remembercorrectly, we tried to getRick for the second album,but he didn’t want to do it.

Rick Rubin, producer: Iremember feeling that theoriginal members, beforeChad and John were in theband, didn’t trust eachother. It wasn’t anythingsaid. It was the energy in theroom and the way theylooked at each other. Theband I met for “Blood SugarSex Magik” was entirelydifferent. They were filledwith love and confidence.

Kiedis: I’m a person ofextremes, and for most ofthe ’80s — until maybe ’88 orso — I had gone down thisrabbit hole of narcoticsabuse. I was self-medicating,until I realized that the thingthat I was treating myself

with happened to be killingme.

The Peppers were mov-ing away from the party lifeand got to work.

Flea: Five days a week wewere in this rehearsal studiocalled the Alley in NorthHollywood, playing everyday, writing and jamminglike crazy.

Frusciante: I stoppedgoing out to clubs and tryingto be a man about town. Istarted painting and draw-ing and making weird four-track recordings.

Kiedis: Most of the lyricswere written either at myhouse — at the time, I livedin Beachwood Canyon — orat the rehearsal studio.

Flea: Every day I wouldcome home from the re-hearsal studio and go, “Thatwas a bitchin’ thing we cameup with.” It would just be abridge or an intro or a littlepart, but every day it felt likethat.

Frusciante: Rick wouldcome to rehearsal and justobserve. A lot of the time hewouldn’t even say anything;he’d just sit on the couch.We’d jam for an hour, andhe’d fall asleep.

Flea: Rick saw things in away that we never did.

Rubin: The band hadwritten their best songs todate. I knew we could recordthem honestly with the aimof capturing their energy. Nomore and no less.

Their disappointingstudio experiences ledRubin and the band to seeksomewhere in L.A. thatmight serve as a combina-tion boarding house andrecording studio. Theyfound it at 2451 Laurel Can-yon Blvd., in a home for-merly occupied by actorErrol Flynn.

Rubin: I thought theband might be inspired byrecording outside of thetraditional studio.

Brendan O’Brien, engi-neer: We originally found areally cool place up on Mul-holland, but there were toomany neighbors. We wouldhave to stop at 8 or 9 o’clockevery night. That wouldn’twork.

Flea: I remember, philo-sophically, it being reallyexciting, the idea of notbeing in a recording studioand having to deal with theirrules if I wanted to walkdown naked in the morningsmoking a joint and playinga funky bass line.

Gavin Bowden, directorof the 1991 promotionalfilm"Funky Monks” (andFlea’s brother-in-law): Thiswasn’t Downton Abbey. Itwas just a big house built inthe early 20s, maybe a bitbefore that.

Flea: It was the nicesthouse I’d ever stepped footin in my life — well, exceptwhen we went to DavidGeffen’s or Mo Ostin’s.

Goetz: We wound upbringing all the equipmentin — the board, the mics,whatever it took. Brought ina cook, a masseuse and soon.

Smith: We had thiskooky ex-Playboy modelchef that cooked for us. We’dhave these dinners at night,and some of Rick’s friendswould come by — alwayslaughter and fun all around.

Flea: Just play music.That had always been thedream. And this was themost music-playing situa-tion. Untethered to respon-sibility of the real world. Itwas more than I ever couldhave imagined and probablythe peak of that feeling I’veever had in my life.

Kiedis: We very rarelyleft.

Smith: We all picked outrooms to live in. I picked outone where the bathroomwas always really cold. Like,weirdly cold.

Frusciante: The otherrooms were bigger, but Iliked the maid’s quarters.

Flea: I had this littleroom up towards the verytop of the house. There wasa mattress on the floor, alittle bedside table, and thatwas it. I was in my templespace.

Rubin: It was our ownworld. We worked, ate, hikedand played a lot of pingpong.

Goetz: It was very mag-ical, and apparently theythought it was haunted.

Bowden: The securityguard thought he had ex-perienced some sort ofsupernatural experience.

Flea: I was always imag-ining that I was hearingthings at night when I wasgoing to sleep. I rememberJohn saying that he haddistinctly heard this woman.There was a story goingaround that there was afemale ghost.

Smith: Two guys whowere like the Siskel andEbert of the spiritual worldcame to see if the house washaunted. One guy had like acoat hanger and [makeswooing ghost sound]. I’mthinking this is some hokeyf— bull—.

Flea: We did the Ouijaboard, and the thing wasmoving around like crazy.

Smith: These Siskel andEbert guys came into myroom and they went into thebathroom and both of themwere like, “Something reallybad has happened in here.”And even though I thoughtthey were hokey, that was allI needed to hear. I was like,“I’m out of here.” From thenon, I slept at home. Theother guys were like, “Chad

is scared of the ghosts.”Partly it was that, but more Ineeded a break. No offenseto the other guys. I’ll spendall day recording, but I don’tneed to be hanging out allnight.

The quartet set a strictschedule for recording.Rubin spent his days honingthe songs with the bandmembers, who were eager toabsorb the feedback. Stylisti-cally, they were ready totemper the rap-funk, slap-bass sound that had earnedthem their first fans.

Frusciante: I was simpli-fying what I was doing, andthen Flea got excited aboutthat and started simplifyingwhat he was doing.

Flea: It had to do withthe kind of stuff that Johnwas writing and having acomplete belief in him andwanting to serve what hewas doing. That didn’t al-ways require a wild bassline.

Rubin: The band startedwith a format defining theChili Pepper sound. Thatserved them well. By the

time of “Blood Sugar,” theywere ready to expand thepalate.

They were also youngmen enjoying the experi-ences that come with popu-larity — among them, agroupie who would pleasurethe three Peppers living inthe mansion, as Kiedischronicled in his 2004 mem-oir “Scar Tissue.”

Kiedis: Sex was an on-going learning experience. Iwasn’t necessarily com-pletely healthy with mysexual behavior. I was neverabusive or terribly selfish,but I didn’t understandclearly the responsibility ofbeing extra thoughtfulabout the sex life. I waslearning on the job. I still am.

Flea: I was single, and Iwas trying to get laid, and Iwas trying to make a goodrecord.

Kiedis: The Red HotChili Peppers were alwaysproud of love and humansexuality, and we wanted tocelebrate that from the verybeginning without being inany way analytical or tryingto be correct or incorrect. Wejust wanted to show thatthere’s a beautiful relation-ship to human sexual energyand music and dancing andhaving fun and feeling freeand being a kid.

The lyrics to “I CouldHave Lied” were inspired byKiedis’ crush on singerSinead O’Connor, whose1990 album “I Do Not WantWhat I Haven’t Got” hadpropelled her to interna-tional fame.

Kiedis : I knew that shewould hear it because I lefther a cassette of that songon her doorstep. That rela-tionship was in its infancy —it was more of a friendship —and I think in my mind I waslike, “Oh, this is about to gethot and heavy.” In her mind,obviously, it was not. Sheended up leaving town with-out so much as a goodbye.

I love playing that songnow. It makes me feel hurt ina good way.

A standout during thesessions was “Breaking theGirl,” a song about a break-

up that resulted in one of thealbum’s most memorablemoments.

Flea: John had beenstudying some Duke Elling-ton chords, and he was like,“The first four or five chordsof this Ellington song goreally well together.” I thinkthe first four chords endedup being either the verse orchorus of “Breaking theGirl.”

Frusciante: “Breakingthe Girl” was one of the firstsongs that I wrote before weeven started rehearsing forthe record, and everybodywas very excited right off thebat.

Kiedis: I was in a rela-tionship that had gone sour.Horribly, horribly sour. Forwhatever reason, maybebecause of my own inherentmental illness, I’ve oftenbeen attracted to womenwho also have a very strongand beautiful mental dys-function. [“Breaking theGirl”] was a moment where Irealized I’m jumping intothese relationships andtaking everything I want,but the end result is there’s

going to be pain — in thatcase, more for her than forme.

Though it marked astylistic shift, the enthusi-asm for “Under the Bridge,”a contemplative song aboutloneliness in Los Angeles,was immediate.

Kiedis: Rick was over atmy house in BeachwoodCanyon and he’s like, “Tellme some of the ideas youhave,” and I showed himsome half-written stuff andsome completely writtenstuff. And he’s like, “Cool,cool. Anything else? What’sthis on the back of this verylast page?” And I was like,“Ah, that’s nothing. I wasfeeling a little out of sorts inearly sobriety,” and he’s like,“Well, how does this go?” I’msure I sang it completely outof tune. And he was like, “Ilove that. Let’s go to work onthis.”

Rubin: I came across thepoem in one of Anthony’snotebooks and asked what itwas. He said it wasn’t for theChili Peppers. I asked why,and he said that’s not whatthey do. That started theconversation about remov-ing any limitations andbecoming more experimen-tal with what the band wascapable of.

Kiedis: It’s a very quiet,intimate song. And oddlyenough, as poorly as Imust’ve sang it on that day,Chad and Flea were like,“Oh, hell yes. We love this.This is our new song.”

Baker: Records like“Under the Bridge” and“Give It Away” had theirown life. It wasn’t just pan-dering to what people wereused to hearing. Not onlywere they successful onMTV, but they showed a sideof the band that it hadn’texhibited previous to thosevideos.

Released the same day asA Tribe Called Quest’s"TheLow End Theory” and Nir-vana’s “Nevermind,” “BloodSugar Sex Magik” debutedat No. 14 on the Billboardalbum chart. The albumhovered in the top 50 for sixmonths and peaked at No. 3on May 16, 1992. Dutch tattoo

artist Hendrikus “Henk”Schiffmacher watched inwonder from his shop inAmsterdam. His handplayed a major role in thecover of “Blood Sugar SexMagik”: He drew the swirl-ing tongues exiting eachmember’s mouth.

Schiffmacher: We kneweach other from the verybeginning of the Chili Pep-pers. Somebody said thatyou have to see this bandfrom the U.S. called the RedHot Chili Peppers. I didn’texpect that to be a group ofchildren, you know?

Flea: We really loved ManRay. So we asked [director]Gus Van Sant to take pic-tures and to get them solar-ized. The rest of the albumdesign was really Anthonyand Henk.

Schiffmacher: I went tothe States later. TowerRecords was still there, thisbeautiful store on Sunset.The store had a huge bill-board of the album outside.Oh, my God, I got a bonerfrom that thing.

After the album’s release,the band hit the road for anextensive fall tour, includ-ing shows with openerSmashing Pumpkins. Itclosed the year with a stringof West Coast dates with apair of supporting acts whowere just starting to break:Pearl Jam and Nirvana.

Kiedis: I got a pre-releasecassette of “Nevermind,”and I remember driving allover the city listening to thatrecord as loud as I could andtelling anyone who’d lis-ten,"You gotta hear thisband.”

Flea: Between the timewe asked Nirvana to play theshows and when the showscame around, their lives hadcompletely changed. Theydidn’t want to do [the tour].I remember feeling badabout that. I think they wereoverwhelmed.

They weren’t the onlyones. Frusciante wasn’tcoping well with the job ofbeing a working member ofthe Chili Peppers.

Frusciante: I had a verystrong feeling that I shouldquit the band before I evenmoved out of the house. Iknew that if I tried to go intothat world of touring again, Iwas going to lose all thatcreative space that I builtwhile we were writing andrecording. Yet I lacked thecourage to give this thing up.

Smith: It was in Japanthat John quit [May 7, 1992].Literally like hours before ashow he called our managerand was like, “I can’t do thisanymore. I’ve got to go homeright now.”

Goetz: The tour managercalled me at the hotel andsaid, “You’ve got to get here.John won’t go on.” I droveover there and said, “You’vegot to go on. We’re here.” Sohe went on. When the showwas over, we put him on theplane back home.

Kiedis: That’s an abso-lutely reasonable responseto becoming famous. Noteveryone has to go, “Woo-hoo, I’m famous now. I cando whatever I want.” Somepeople are going to go, “Oh,no. This hurts. It doesn’t feelgood. It’s awkward, it’s un-comfortable and yucky.”

Frusciante nearly diedfrom his addictions, and ashe struggled, the band re-placed him with formerJane’s Addiction guitaristDave Navarro. Infected withabscesses and rotting teeth,Frusciante hit rock bottom.Meanwhile, the Red HotChili Peppers were on theverge of implosion. Navarrowasn’t a good fit.

As a last-ditch effort,they offered Frusciante, whohad sought treatment, hisold job back. He acceptedand the result was 1999’s“Californication.” Thoughhe left the Peppers in 2009 towork on his electronic mu-sic, in 2019 the band an-nounced that, once again,Frusciante was back — andinvolved in the making of itsforthcoming Rubin-pro-duced album. It will be theband’s 12th full-length.

Frusciante: When Ijoined the band for “Cali-fornication,” those guyswere the only people in theworld who believed in me. Ihad very few friends, andmost of them just felt sorryfor me. They didn’t thinkthat I could ever amount toanything. Flea and Anthonyknew what I had inside me,as they did when I firstjoined the band.

Flea: Being in a band canbe really hard. Those re-lationships, those dynamics,are hard. We all have egos.We’re all fragile. But wecreated a magic world forourselves.

Hanging with the Chili Peppers[Peppers, from E1]

ANTHONY KIEDIS, left, and Flea of the Chili Peppers perform with Post Malone at the 2019 Grammys.

Kevin Mazur Getty Images