VH1: Blood Sugar Sex Magik was your breakthrough record, but why did it take you four albums to get there?

Anthony Kiedis: By the time we made Blood Sugar we were firing on all cylinders, and we'd figured out how to express ourselves clearly while taking more risks. We had tried some of those ideas early on, but they never got heard. We were known as punk funk maniacs with thumping bass lines, a screaming vocal guy and intense guitar riffs. But there always had been more to us than that. There's always been depth and sensitivity from day one.

VH1: You guys shared a house in the Hollywood Hills. How did that environment add to the album?

Kiedis: We lived in this house 24 hours a day. We went out in the yard and smelled the flowers and things like that, but it was only after about a month and a half that we started going out to malls and nightclubs. At first we were pissed off at Chad [Smith] because he wouldn't stay here with us. But in the end, we were glad he didn't, because he created a different dynamic. He was our one link to civilization. It worked out good like that.

VH1: How did the band work together on the songs?

Kiedis: We had this amazing rehearsal space called Alleyway. It was run by this biker/hippie couple and decorated with '70s artifacts. We would start playing and every time I heard something that I could relate to, I would say, "Let's play that again." John [Frusciante] is perfectly non-judgmental when it comes to creative ideas. He believes that anything that comes to you is meant to be. Our brains work differently, but if you put them together it's like the idiot and the savant. Every time we broke out a guitar or a notebook, we came up with a great song. Then the producer Rick Rubin started coming to rehearsal. He would lay down on the couch with his big-ass beard and appear to take a nap. But he absorbed every note and arrangement and lyrical concept like a sponge.

VH1: Did Rick Rubin encourage you to experiment?

Kiedis: Yeah, but it was happening unto ourselves as well. Flea - already the No. 1 bass-popper of his generation - began to express the other side of his playing. When we made Mother's Milk, a very heavy-handed producer tried to force John in certain directions, but now he was free to just let it all out. Rick let us reveal our music's other sides. He would visit me at home where I did my lyric writing, sit with me on this old '50s couch and say, "Let's see what you have." That's where I first sang, "Under the Bridge." It was almost completely written - the arrangement, the verse, the chorus - as this poem. I had a little melody for each part. Rick convinced me to take "Under the Bridge" into rehearsal. I was so nervous that my voice cracked when I tried to sing it. The band listened to every last word with a very intense look on their faces. I was about to say, "We don't have to do this," when they walked over to their instruments and started finding what they wanted to do with that song. It opened a new avenue for us. Suddenly, even more than before, everything was okay under the Red Hot Chili Peppers' umbrella.

VH1: Why were you nervous when you first sang the song?

Kiedis: No one wants to admit they need help from the rest of the world, but in that song, I admit that I'm weak and lonely, but at the same time, optimistic. It's inspired by drug addiction, friendship and loneliness in relationship to the city. When you're using drugs, life is pretty lonely. I got clean, but the loneliness didn't go away. I was driving in my car, feeling that loneliness, and started singing the song to myself. I liked what I was singing, so when I got home I taped part of it and started finishing this poem.

VH1: How did it feel to learn that other people felt the same way, and embraced the song?

Kiedis: I never thought "Under the Bridge" was going to be a single. I was at this party in this airplane hanger and went into the bathroom to take a piss. This tipsy guy with a suit and tie pulled up next to me at the other urinal and started singing "Under the Bridge" in that howling drunk guy style. I'm thought, "Wow! How is this possible?" Another time I was walking down the street where I lived. It's a peaceful place with a lot of wildflowers and deer and hawks. This car drives by with music playing way too loud … but it's this guy blasting "Under The Bridge." I realized that we weren't just communicating to a small circle of friends in Los Angeles and New York anymore. It might not swim with the current, but it's out there - putting something beautiful into a stream that gets a little stagnant at times.

VH1: How did "Give It Away" happen?

Kiedis: It was a hot summer day in the rehearsal studio. Flea started hitting that big heavy slide bass line. I had been thinking about this concept Nina Hagen planted in my mind. She was my girlfriend when I was 20 years old and believed that the more she gave, the more she received. When I got sober, I realized that sobriety revolved around giving something away in order to maintain it. So this idea of "give it away" was tornado-ing in my head for a while. When Flea started hitting that bass line, that tornado just came out of my mouth.

VH1: What does the phrase "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" mean?

Kiedis: I've always been for some mysterious reason excited about blood. It represents life. Sex is a powerful and creative energy. Music is pure magic. Something happens when you put a bunch of unexpected words together. It's four words, and there are four people in this band. It originally was just a song. But at the end of the recording experience, when we said, "Okay, what is this record really about?" that stepped to the front of the line and said, "I'm your title."

VH1: What was the "chop off" that the group had?

Kiedis: John and Flea decided not to shave during the recording. Flea bragged about his beard, saying, "I could get serious chops with this" - meaning sideburns. So we had a contest to see who could grow the most robust sideburns. I managed John. Chad managed Flea. At the end of the recording we went into the bathroom, shaved, and had the chop off. Producer Rick Rubin and George Drakoulias were the judges and our engineer Brendan O'Brien was the tiebreaker. Flea won. John and I cried, because it was a hard loss to accept. I thought the judges were way out of line with their decision. The officiating was tainted.

VH1: What did you notice that told you this album was going to be big?

Kiedis: I thought playing for a hundred people was the pinnacle of success. We thought we were going to change the world with our first album - Freaky Styley. I think all we changed was a suburb in Idaho. I never had the sense that it was going to be big. So it was pretty shocking the first time so-called commercial success started to happen.

VH1: How did the Chili Peppers change because of this album?

Kiedis: We fell apart for one thing. We completely dismembered and eventually we all were forced to find out why. Why did John quit? Why did I become an asshole and a paranoid reclusive? What happened?

VH1: So why did John quit?

Kiedis: He was so young. When the record became successful all this really weird stuff happened. People were throwing themselves at him. He probably thought about who he was a little more than he should have, too. He had his own journey of madness to go through and nothing was going to stop him from going through it.

VH1: What do you think about this time and this album?

Kiedis: I think of John's shaved head, Flea's broken foot, Chad scaring people away with the intensity of his drumming. I think of the bond we had writing, recording and playing. I think of our brotherhood. But the seeds for destruction were being planted at the same time as the seeds of this huge burst of creativity. Growing up together in the band with all of the crazy psychotic shit that happens along the way is not easy. Sometimes the ship goes down.