Anthony Kiedis

Although Kiedis had recently become clean, his withdrawal symptoms increased and affected his musical contributions to the group. After fifty days of sobriety, Kiedis decided to take drugs again as a one-time attempt to celebrate his new music, which led to his resumed addiction. The recording process for the album became difficult as Kiedis would often disappear to seek drugs. Producer Michael Beinhorn recalled that "There were points in pre-production where I really thought the record wasn't gonna get made." Kiedis felt "excruciating pain and guilt and shame" when he would miss a recording session so he would try to write lyrics while searching for drugs; although the band members were upset by his drug use and frequent disappearances, they were impressed with his musical output at the time.

After the international tour in support of Uplift, Slovak died of a heroin overdose. Following Slovak's death, Kiedis fled to a small fishing village in Mexico and did not attend his funeral, considering the situation to be surreal and dreamlike. Although he found the death to be a shock, he initially was not "scared straight" and continued to use heroin. However, a few weeks later, his friend convinced him to check into rehab and visit Slovak's grave, which inspired him to get clean. Irons was unable to cope with Slovak's death and subsequently quit the band, saying that he did not want to be part of something that resulted in the death of his friend. Read Less