Interview: Red Hot Chili Peppers on the 20th Anniversary of 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik'

At the dawn of the Nineties, four young men entered the decaying, allegedly haunted Harry Houdini mansion off the hilly curves of L.A.’s Laurel Canyon Boulevard. They reemerged into the smoggy Hollywood sunlight some months later with one of the seminal albums of the Alternative Nineties in the can. Those four young men were collectively known as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the album they made in the famed magician’s house, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

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Alan di Perna

In a career that spans five decades, Alan di Perna has written for pretty much every magazine in the world with the word “guitar” in its title, as well as other prestigious outlets such as Rolling Stone, Billboard, Creem, Player, Classic Rock, Musician, Future Music, Keyboard, grammy.com and reverb.com. He is author of Guitar Masters: Intimate Portraits, Green Day: The Ultimate Unauthorized History and co-author of Play It Loud: An Epic History of the Sound Style and Revolution of the Electric Guitar. The latter became the inspiration for the Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exhibition “Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock and Roll.” As a professional guitarist/keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist, Alan has worked with recording artists Brianna Lea Pruett, Fawn Wood, Brenda McMorrow, Sat Kartar and Shox Lumania.