‘The Rise of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers: Our Brother Hillel’ Review: A Band Is Born in Friendship and Chaos (Netflix)

A journey through 1970s and ’80s California, following the misadventures of two (eventually three) teenage friends determined to try everything, this documentary is especially perceptive in capturing what most rockumentaries tend to overlook: the years before anyone involved even considered forming a band, let alone achieving success. In fact, Michael Balzary—later known as Flea—didn’t even like rock music. And Anthony Kiedis had no idea how to play an instrument—and arguably still doesn’t. What they were really committed to was the adventure of friendship: messing around, pushing limits, embracing a kind of chaotic fun typical of kids who feel slightly out of place at home, at school, and in life. It was only when they met Hillel Slovak—a gifted guitarist, as well as a poet and painter—that music entered their lives for good.

The irony, of course, is that Slovak—the sensitive Israeli-born teenager who joined their escapades and forever altered their trajectory—did not live to see the project they shared reach mass success. When he died of an overdose in 1988, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were still a cult band: they had several albums out and had toured the world, but the mainstream breakthrough sparked by songs like Give It Away or Under the Bridge was still ahead. And it’s precisely that long trek through a kind of figurative desert that this film celebrates, weaving together Hillel’s life with the band’s evolution, while charting the difficult passage from the exuberant chaos of adolescence to the more painful, tragic disorder of adulthood.

The documentary is largely concerned with that prehistory. In fact, the Red Hot Chili Peppers don’t fully take shape until midway through the film. Before that, the focus rests on friendship—on the bond between Flea, Anthony, and Hillel, who was already playing in a band called Anthym with friends, showcasing his remarkable guitar skills. Flea was the first to join, learning bass as he went. The group later shifted styles and names—becoming What Is This? and experimenting with funk—until a decisive turn came when Kiedis discovered rap and realized it was something he could actually do well. His arrival, bringing a wild, perfectly calibrated energy to match his friends (with the great Jack Irons on drums at the time), helped crystallize the sound that would define the Red Hot Chili Peppers from that point on. It was 1982.

From there on, the film follows albums, tours, and musical shifts in parallel—but its real focus lies on the band members’ addictions and the personal damage those excesses caused, particularly for Anthony and Hillel. Kiedis’s struggles were more visible, more openly chaotic, while the more withdrawn Slovak managed to conceal his instability more effectively. These emotional and personal fluctuations drive the remainder of the narrative, culminating in Slovak’s tragic death, his replacement by John Frusciante (curiously, the arrival of Chad Smith—who took over drums after Irons quit—is never mentioned), and the band’s eventual rise to fame in the early ’90s.

Intimate and deeply moving, with Flea especially emotional—and affecting—when speaking about his friendship with Hillel, the documentary is most nostalgic when revisiting the pre-fame years, when getting together was about nothing more than being together: hanging out, sharing time and playing music for the sheer pleasure of it. Those are the moments both Anthony and Flea remember most fondly, even knowing the hardships, suffering, and eventual tragedy that followed. Watching The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, one gets the sense that the best moments in a band’s life—perhaps in any band’s life—are those in which they feel free to do whatever they want, without pressure, contracts, obligations, or expectations. What comes after is something else entirely: the career of a professional musician. And that, perhaps, is a far less compelling story to tell.