News

Anthony Kiedis Developing HBO Show

Anthony Kiedis has agreed to help executive produce an hour-long HBO show based on his childhood, which was spent on the Sunset Strip with his father Spider, a former drug dealer who may or may not have counted The Who and Led Zeppelin among his clients.

"He introduced me to the arts, to a more culturally magnificent life," Kiedis told Daily Variety. "But some of it was this heavy, adult matter that I wasn't quite capable of digesting. ...It was a very rich but kind of challenging period of my life. I was thrust into this adult mentality by age 11."

Marc Abrams and Michael Benson of Catapult 360 contacted the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman after reading his autobiography, Scar Tissue. (While the show isn't based on the book, it will likely share the same title.) "To be able to look at a very famous figure and get an origin story," Abrams said, "To see the pieces of the puzzle that put him on the path to fame—it became very clear that this was a special project."

Kiedis plans on being heavily involved with Scar Tissue, including some possible cameos and narrating. As he sees it, "I love mulling over all this raw material... [My father] sees it as our last great hurrah. For us to be reconnecting to construct these memories—the women and the rock bands and the doormen of these clubs—is exciting."

—The ARTISTdirect Staff
11.12.08