Acid for the Children

A Memoir

By: Flea

Narrated by: Flea

Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

With "virtuosic vulnerability" (The Atlantic), the iconic bassist and Red Hot Chili peppers cofounder pens a love letter to a youth spent wild in Los Angeles in his raw and riveting coming-of-age memoir.

In Acid for the Children, Flea takes listeners on a deeply personal and revealing tour of his formative years, spanning from Australia to the New York City suburbs to, finally, Los Angeles. Through hilarious anecdotes, poetical meditations, and occasional flights of fantasy, Flea deftly chronicles the experiences that forged him as an artist, a musician, and a young man. His dreamy, jazz-inflected prose makes the Los Angeles of the 1970s and '80s come to gritty, glorious life, including the potential for fun, danger, mayhem, or inspiration that lurked around every corner. It is here that young Flea, looking to escape a turbulent home, found family in a community of musicians, artists, and junkies who also lived on the fringe. He spent most of his time partying and committing petty crimes. But it was in music where he found a higher meaning, a place to channel his frustration, loneliness, and love. This left him open to the life-changing moment when he and his best friends, soul brothers, and partners-in-mischief came up with the idea to start their own band, which became the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Acid for the Children is the debut of a stunning new literary voice, whose prose is as witty, entertaining, and wildly unpredictable as the author himself. It's a tenderly evocative coming-of-age story and a raucous love letter to the power of music and creativity from one of the most renowned musicians of our time.

New York Times best seller

A number one LA Times best seller

A USA Today best seller

One of NPR's "Favorite Books of 2019"

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Flea (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Acid for the Children is not an as-told-to, nor is it written "with" someone. These are Flea's words-excitable, jazzy, regretful, disarming, popping and writhing away in his biological bass zone. Insecurities to the fore: He worries that he may be producing "a thorny jumble of trash." But he's actually a lovely writer, with a particular gift for the free-floating and reverberant. He writes in Beat Generation bursts and epiphanies, lifting toward the kind of virtuosic vulnerability and self-exposure associated with the great jazz players....Flea-elegant nutcase, funk-at-high-pressure bassist, wildly cultured and culturedly wild man-has written a fine memoir. You'll put down Acid for the Children with your human sympathies expanded; you'll feel less alone."—The Atlantic

". . . a vital, only-in-L.A. account of a wide-open time filtered through an engaging, humbled voice reshaped by his recovery and reconnecting to his spirit through art and music."—LA Times

"[Acid For The Children is] written with the same lyrical, holy goof-ball energy its author brings to all his public activities, and its earnest, eccentric prose reflects Flea's evolution from Hollywood-scene knucklehead to reflective, spiritually clued-in adult."—The New York Times

a wild crazy beautiful read

I was bummed when the book ended. I wanted to hear more. I was touched by Flea's insightful reflections on his life and there's a certain nostalgia that takes you back to those moments in your own life too.

A pleasant surprise!

I got this book because I’m a huge RHCP fan and assumed it was a rockstar book but turns out it’s a sweet story of a boy who grew up with nothing and became everything. Flea is quite a good writer and his narration is superb!

Cool short stories!!

It's a great read for starting and stopping a lot, you can usually just listen for another 1-2 minutes and the chapter is over.....On to the next!

Amazing!

I enjoyed this book so much! What a great story of his life. Flea is such a great narrator. Hope he narrates more books!

So many feelings...

This book opened up an emotional door for me-that I didn't know had been locked up tight. The author, in his younger years, describes his joys and his fears and everything in between so poetically. I felt like it was a story describing my own feelings at that age. And I never knew those feelings needed words. Now I realize I needed affirmation that I felt that way. I feel like a different person in the best way. Back in my day, it was said that "that's the way it was." True. It was. I do get to have feelings about it. ~Big sigh of relief.

absolutely amazing

the flow from brutal to sensitive, then back again, and sometimes happening together touched my heart.

👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

Flea, oh Flea, oh Flea. I’m 37 and BSSM was the first cassette I owned. I had to put my thumb over the parental advisory sticker when my dear gramma purchased it for me.

So much of this book resonates, and I appreciate the anti-rock star, rock star approach. I highly recommend to anyone who needs a reminder that success is not fame and fortune but the connections we make along the way— or better, the flaming wax dripping from the ceiling. ❤️🙏🏻🌀

Masterpiece

Beautiful, sensorial, heartfelt, fascinating, genuine and a valuable piece of American and Musical history. Flea wrote a great piece of literature in this memoir that feels honest and has a good balance between fascinating stories and simple yet beautiful language to feed your soul through your senses. He also did a perfect job reading it. The audiobook is very well recorded, although a little more accurate de-essing could have balanced some slightly annoying artifacts from data compression that are fairly common in audiobooks. I recommend this book 100% even if you're not a RHCP fan. It will take you on a journey like a very good novel would, but knowing that all of this is based on an actual human being's experiences, it makes it even more fascinating.

an unexpected gem.

this is a surprisingly great listen. I thought it would be good, but flea's way of writing was utterly enthralling. I'm glad now to know some of the depths hidden in this beautifully bizzare bassist.

Awesome and interesting

One of the best autobiographical pieces I’ve ever read/listened to. The thoughtfulness and honesty is heartwarming and intellectually stimulating.