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Freaky and Stylish: When the Chili Peppers Met Dr. Funkenstein

Jeff Apter, 'Fornication' (Omnibus Press), 2004

By 1985 the Red Hot Chili Peppers were a band in trouble. Their self-titled debut album, released the year before, had been a disaster, and the occasional drug use of singer Anthony Kiedis and guitarist Hillel Slovak was fast becoming a full-time occupation. Then the Peppers met their hero George Clinton, aka Dr Funkenstein, the man behind such hugely influential acts as P-Funk and Parliament. To record their second album, the band's label and management decided to ship the funky four off to Clinton's farm in Detroit. As this extract from Jeff Apter's Fornication: The Red Hot Chili Peppers Story reveals, what they didn't realise was that the temptations there were just as seductive as they'd been back in Hollywood.

Total word count of piece: 3273


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