A quartet with varying personnel, anchored by lead singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea (born Michael Balzary), the Red Hot Chili Peppers play a hybrid rock, incorporating punk, funk, rap, and metal. Though the mixture was ahead of its time when the group was first organized in the early '80s in Los Angeles, the music industry has since caught up to it, which earns the group the right to call itself the forerunner of an approach now adopted by such acts as Living Colour and Faith No More, and also means the Peppers themselves have finally hit the big time. In 1988, guitarist Hillel Slovak died of an overdose and the band reorganized, with John Frusciante on guitar and Chad Smith on drums. This lineup scored a commercial breakthrough with Mother's Milk, which went gold after its release in 1989. They ascended to real star status with the release of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, which sold two million copies and included the Top Ten hit "Under the Bridge." In mid-1992, Frusciante left the group and was replaced by Arik Marshall.

Marshall was replaced by Jesse Tobias in 1993. Tobias' tenure with the group was extremely brief; after a couple of months, he was replaced by ex-Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro.

Navarro's first album with the much-delayed One Hot Minute, which appeared in the fall of 1995, a full four years after Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Although it went platinum and spent nearly a year on the charts, One Hot Minute was ultimately a disappointment, failing to live up to the expectations set by Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The Chili Peppers supported the album with a year-long, trouble-plagued tour. Once the tour concluded in 1996, the band members took a break. During that break, Flea joined Navarro in a Jane's Addiction reunion in the fall of 1997. Jane's reunited as a touring unit, and after the brief but exhausting tour, Navarro decided he no longer had the stomach for long tours. At first he vetoed the thought of a Chili Peppers tour, then he vetoed the Peppers altogether, leaving the band on April 3, 1998 to pursue his solo project, Spread.