Red Hot Chili Peppers Mother’s Milk Anniversary: Their Best ’80s Effort

The Mother's Milk anniversary is the perfect time to revisit the strongest Red Hot Chili Peppers release of their early years.

The date was August 16, 1989. That's when the Cali funk-rockers turned tragedy into triumph and really put themselves on the map. Mother's Milk was their fourth studio album, but it many ways it felt like their first. A new beginning, of sorts.

You would’ve forgiven the band if they’d packed it in instead of packing into the studio. With the death of founding guitarist Hillel Slovak in June of 1988 and the departure of founding drummer Jack Irons soon after that, the Red Hot Chili Peppers had hit a low point.

Instead of calling it quits, the band hit the studio, with new recruits John Frusciante on guitar and Chad Smith on drums. From the jump, the process was rushed, with the new members trying to acclimate themselves to their roles in the band, all while while fine-tuning and recording new songs.

That led to the sessions for Mother’s Milk to be frenetic and fraught with friction. Frusicante, just 19 years old, clashed regularly with producer Michael Beinhorn, favoring funkier, slinkier guitar sounds over Beinhorn’s preference for heavy riffs.

The result, however, was so very together. If Blood Sugar Sex Magik was the Chili Peppers’ career-sparking grand slam, Mother’s Milk was the album that put the runners on base. Decades later, the album sounds fresher and more energetic than a lot of the band's later fare.

As you probably saw above, “Knock Me Down” charted new, introspective territory lyrically. Their covers of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” (also shared above) and Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” are, well, fire. Get that one, as well as more Tony Flow, below.

The first of November marks the date of birth of the Red Hot Chili Peppers front man. So Happy Anthony Kiedis Birthday, one and all!

I like putting together these little rockstar birthday playlists. I don't do it for everyone, mind you. Just the big names that mean something to me and likely mean something to you. In fact, I just last week shared a smattering of my favorite Scott Weiland jams on what would have been his birthday. Not just Stone Temple Pilots songs, either. You can take a look at my list right here.

But back to the man of the hour. Or, man of the day, I guess you'd say. Anthony Kiedis, aka Tony Flow, aka Antoine the Swan, aka Cole Dammett, aka The Rainy Lithuanian, was born on November 1st, 1962. In 1983, he joined guitarist Hillel Slovak, bassist Flea, and drummer Jack Irons to front the band Defunkt, which would eventually become RHCP. The rest, as they say, is history.

I can't pretend to be a huge Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, because I'm not. My love for the band comes from two sources. They were the favorite band of a childhood friend of mine, Andrew, who passed away when he was 16. And they've become a favorite band of my youngest kid. We actually got to see RHCP together at Fenway Park back in the summer of 2022. He even reviewed the show!

We constantly joke about how One Hot Minute is our shared fave album, as I prefer the band's material up to and including that one, and he prefers their material from that album on. All that to say, my six-pack will be focusing on the late '80s/early '90s part of the Chi-Pep's catalog. Enjoy. And Happy Birthday to Tony Flow.

When John Frusciante left RHCP the first time and was replaced by Dave Navarro, I was elated: I’m a huge Jane’s Addiction fan and was excited about the prospect of Navarro in the band. I dove into One Hot Minute the minute it was released, and less than a minute into the album’s opening track, there was Dave dropping a monster riff. I know their marriage was short-lived and the album isn’t looked upon as a catalogue highlight, but this song absolutely rips and Tony's vocal work is mesmerizing.

I like funky Chili Peppers. And I like happy Chili Peppers. This song scratches both of those itches.

Do you know how hard it was to track down an uncensored copy of Mother’s Milk on cassette back in ’89? Do you know how many times I went to the Strawberries on Rt. 1 in Saugus trying to find one? Do you?!

Coneheads Soundtrack, summer of ’93. All over the radio and MTV. This song takes me back there every time.

I like Anthony's lyrics and delivery on this one. And the use of the quiet-loud dynamic that was so prevalent in the '90s.

Best Chilis song from the best Chilis album. In my humble opinion.