Red Hot Chili Peppers
April 7, 1989 at Fillmore Auditorium
Photography by Pamela Gentile

Before they became major label machines with a safe, marketable sound, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were an innovative band of brash and funky punk rock. Back in ’89, when this photo was captured by Pamela Gentile at the Fillmore Auditorium, the Chili Peppers were barreling down and defying conventions with their volatile music and shocking live performance, during which they took to playing naked but for a lone, strategically placed tube sock. The year after losing original guitarist Hillel Slovak to a drug overdose, the band released Mother’s Milk, which propelled them out of the underground and into the mainstream. This shot, which captures a new lineup with guitarist John Frusciante, recalls the Chili Peppers’ bygone days of pushing buttons and boundaries both in the studio and before live audiences.

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