Name: Anthony Kiedis on Under the Bridge, Rick Rubin, and Addiction
Uploaded: 2022-10-19T17:10:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Anthony Kiedis on Under the Bridge, Rick Rubin, and Addiction' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-19. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Anthony Kiedis on Under the Bridge, Rick Rubin, and Addiction' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-19. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience the hardest of the hard the gangsters of LA I'll be
riding down the Sunset Boulevard and I'll hear under the bridge coming out of
a lowrider and it is the toughest scariest most you know looked out
looking dudes just melting with under the bridge mmm I'm like okay that was
that was a day well spent in a writing that song do you always close with that
song do you guys mix up we mix it up and but yeah it's a meaningful tune it has
stood the test of time when you guys close with it the other night I was like
yeah you kind of have to I owe a lot of that to Rick Rubin that song he's
amazing
isn't he he's all right what a trip he's all right he's such an unusual for a
beginner he's pretty good so we were writing a blood sugar sex magic yeah and
I was at the time we would just spend our days together he was a lot less busy
he
wasn't a dad and we would just hang all day what are you working on show me the
songs you're writing because he's producing our record and I showed him all
boy you know sexy songs heavy funky songs it's like okay that's good we can
work on
that he's like anything else in the book just a poem that really isn't a song I
mean it has a melody but I don't think it's for us well let me hear it I was
like it's kind of embarrassing it's a little sentimental love to hear it is
Rick
no is like there's no rules you want the thing that's not expected so I sang
him
under the bridge and he was like that's your best song I was like it's just a
poem bring it into the boys show him the song so without Rick's push you know
for
the counterintuitive sensitive guy song we might have never had a chance to
write
that there's some people in the world that are magic yeah I love Rick and he is
magic he's a magic person yeah he has like when you're talking to him like he
has a sense of ignoring the bullshit and just tuning into the magic it's a very
and you could tell when you talk to him it's not it's not nonsense it's like a
science almost it's like an understanding of what it is and he just follows
that
that frequency just not he chases it down yeah he's tuned into that yeah he's
very good at that he's another person if you look at his origins it's no
accident
that he ended up being the person that he is single child out in the suburbs of
New York City I think
Long Beach Long Island and he had an aunt very cerebral boy already just like
very smart kid but living a boring
culture free life of the island and he had an aunt who lived in Manhattan who
loved her nephew and every weekend or every other weekend whatever he would go
spend with her and she was cultured she was like we're going to the opera we're
going to the symphony we're going to the museum we're going to go see all this
different stuff and Rick was amazed by the music and the art and the culture
that she was sharing with him that he wasn't getting
in his home life and he just started tapping into the magic
and dedicating himself in a way that led to him starting his record company
when he was in the
NYU dorms but it wasn't an accident like he got fed the raw materials as a kid
and it opened up his dream
and I think probably also being a single kid you're not influenced by your
siblings either
so you have a chance to sort of be who you actually are
less influence
he would get on a bus and go
200 miles to see James Brown when James Brown was still on tour
by himself
and he would get there five hours early
they were like you got to wait in the parking lot because doors don't open for
five hours
as a kid by himself
Wow
to go see James Brown
I was like yeah you're qualified
just out of appreciation not even thinking there was a career involved in that
that's what's so crazy about his story
yeah
there was no career to be that guy
nope
no he invented a career
yeah
there was there is no
there was no light there was no future in hip-hop
no people look down upon it they thought it wasn't even music
yes
call us back when you have some music
they would say
isn't that hilarious
yeah
he was telling me the whole story of the connection between
Aerosmith and Run DMC
about people like what the are you doing
you're like ruining Aerosmith
and then the hip-hop people like what the are you doing
you're putting hip-hop together with rock
what the is that
and then meanwhile it's like oh my god you just united two worlds
yeah
he united two worlds and opened up a whole new realm of possibility for music
and he just did it by following magic
yeah
yeah
so I met him in maybe 1985
and we were flailing
I was lost in a
retardancy of drug addiction
just
how did that start
huh
how'd that start
I'll tell you but first I gotta show the little rick tidbit
so I was basically a junkie but still showing up to work from time to time
which was the basement of the EMI
studios on Sunset Boulevard
they gave us a little basement to rehearse in
they had signed us
but we were going nowhere very slowly
couldn't get out of our own way
and but we were still making a buzz
there was still something exciting about us that caught people's attention and
it caught Rick Rubin's attention
and he was with the Beastie Boys and they were exploding with success and and
greatness writing incredible music
and so Rick brought the Beastie Boys to our dingy little recording or rehearsal
spot
and he sat there and we rehearsed while they watched
they're in these little dirty couches watching us and we went through our
songs and Rick said we're gonna go now
and I was like okay do we do we talk again what's going on
we'll get back to you didn't see him for years
years and years and years went by
eventually I got clean and he came back and said let's make a record
but I said what happened that day
you came and we played and you disappeared and I never talked to you again he's
like
I thought somebody was going to get murdered in that rehearsal space
I thought somebody was going to die I had to leave
that's how dark we had become that's how dark I had become is he was afraid
someone was going to die
and it was time to leave
murdered that's what he said he's like you guys were terrifying you were scary
it felt like somebody was going to die we had to go
when you look back on those times do you understand how he thought that
not exactly but everybody has their own perception and and there was darkness
in the room
when you're following that lifestyle there's definitely a instead of a magical
energy there's a very
discernible dark energy yeah but I didn't realize it was that dangerous
he was scared how did you get on the road the drug road
well I think the road was already in me from birth
a combination of predisposed to addiction physically and then emotionally
I developed the tendencies that I needed to squash some of the noise
spiritually a little depleted
so I started smoking weed and loved it it was a very fun
and at the time subversive thing to be a part of like today it's pretty damn
common
but then it was very outlawed as a as a young teenage boy and years went by and
there was no problem
and then I started introducing narcotics at a pretty young age and really had
nothing to say
about anymore I was like the caboose of a train just going wherever the hell
that train said to go
it was interesting and it was exciting but it was also painful as hell it was
just like in the end this is a life of suffering
you know my my destiny was meant to survive that and um
you know it isn't really events or advice or anything that gives you the window
to step out of that but it's it's a little gift from the cosmos
that just makes you look at yourself and say I'm gonna give you a chance I'm
gonna give you an opportunity
to put in the work to get better if if you so choose if not
carry on
what was the narcotic of choice
of choice I would have to say
the combination of heroin and cocaine was
at that moment
at that point in time do you remember what you started with
of those two yeah I probably did
the cocaine shortly before the heroin but right around the same time very young
age
and did you do it because it was
the thing that people around you did
was it just exciting was it rebellious like what was it was it a part of rock
and roll
it had nothing to do with rock and roll or trying to impress or
put on a pretense it was happening around me in my world it was exciting and
dangerous
like everyone's afraid of that you know I think I'll do that thing that
just the word scares people but it was also a
a way of checking out like in the same way that you know one person will sit
down in a bar and have
some beers and just not stop
yeah that allergic reaction to the sensation of finding your medicine right I
had that reaction
like I felt whole by putting these things in me until I had to pay the toll
you know it's like you steal from Peter you got to pay Paul the next day and it's
a terrible paycheck to write
I can only imagine yeah yeah it was it was finding the thing that that I
thought was going to make me
well but really it was just killing me and how long were you on that road for
well I think I was 27 the first time that I was able to put in the work and get
sober
and then I went to my young 30s and kind of forgot where I came from and forgot
the the process of
maintaining it's like you get physically fit it's not going to be for life you
got to
yeah show up yeah or anything else you know your craft your craft yeah you put
it down it fades
so I had put down the craft of sobriety and it opened an opportunity and I
ended up going back
out there for a bunch of years like five years which was even worse because now
I knew that there was
a solution and I was just ignoring it so there was nothing fun about it and
then
the window came back and I had another chance to uh commit to sobriety and I
did and that was 21 years
ago how'd you get sober the first time um so in a way my my best friend died
which did not
instigate sobriety did he die from drugs he did um but it definitely destroyed
me emotionally
but I continued to use after he died and then I got to the point where I could
not turn off the noise
with drugs and alcohol literally flooding my body with the substance and still
wide awake so I was not
getting the desired effect I was like this is terrible like I'm putting all
this poison in me and I'm still
here and uh I called up a friend and rehabs were not a thing at that time I
called up a sober friend and
I was like what are those rehab things I gotta find one he's like the only one
I know of is very
expensive 10 grand which in the 80s for a struggling musician was I was like I
have 10 grand that's
exactly how much money I have and I spent it I gave my last 10 grand my only 10
grand ever
to a rehab and I went and I checked in and uh there was 30 dope fiends in the
room of all walks of life
but all with a common sickness and the counselor said I'm looking at 30 of you
and
stats wise one of you is going to get sober out of here wow and I was like get
out the way because
I'm taking that spot I was such a little competitive yeah it's an egomaniac you're
just like right
I am taking that right please you know the rest of you can go back to where you
came from only one
out of 30. that's what he said to us and there was like a guy from the SWAT
team there was professional
athlete there was just every variety of person in there I was like I'll take it
but then I realized there's a process to it and there's a being of service
aspect to it and there's a
becoming humble aspect to it all and that was the beginning of me
taking many years to go from being a complete idiot to only a partial idiot
Thank you.