Red Hot Chili Peppers

Early this year, Red Hot Chili Peppers announced that they were taking some time off from the band. And who could blame them? For the best part of three decades they had been entertaining the world with their brand of Californian funk-rock. Along the way, there have been deaths, drug overdoses and bitter fallings out. So, for Anthony Kiedis (vocals), Flea (bass), John Frusciante (guitars) and Chad Smith (drums), it was time to take a well earned break

If you're missing the band, fear not. A new book of intimate photographs has now been published, and is a must for all true Chili's fans. Me And My Friends: Red Hot Chili Peppers brings together a collection of their photographs from the past 20 years, each taken by British photographer, and close confident, Tony Wooliscroft.

The book is a unique insight to the Chili's lives - the concerts, the costumes (or, sometimes, lack of), the (mis-)adventures - with some rare and unseen photos of the band. Not only does it feature Anthony, Flea, Chad and John, but also those musicians who have played their own part in contributing to the Chili Peppers story, such as Arik Marshall and former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro.

Wooliscroft has been following the band for two decades, ever since he was introduced to them by Rob Heaton, the drummer from New Model Army, and a copy of The Uplift Mofo Party Plan. "Rob's wife ... raved about them, saying how good they were live. The first RHCP hooks had landed in my skin". Ever since he listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the first time, he's pretty much seen it all with the band- from typhoons in Japan, to capturing Kiedis walking off the edge of a sky-scraper hotel roof in Venezuela, and witnessed John Frusciante's remarkable private comeback show in Washington. He's captured it all on camera for "Me And My Friends: Red Hot Chili Peppers". As Chad Smith says, in his Foreword, "We love Tony and his work so much that he is the only guy we give complete access to for an entire show.".

So what does the future hold for the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Ask each member individually, and you'll probably get four different answers. Chad Smith is optimistic about the future, and is eager to begin work on a new album, to follow-up the Grammy Award-winning Stadium Arcadium: "Some of our best stuff is yet to come. For some reason we have a special thing, the four of us".

Flea, meanwhile, is keen to extend the "hiatus" for a longer period: "We had our noses to the grindstones so hard for so long. We needed to get away from it and get a fresh perspective on things."

Whatever the future holds for the band, it is fair to say that, for the past three decades, the Chili's have been one of rock's true survivors of the past three decades. "Me And My Friends: Red Hot Chili Peppers" captures the good times and the bad, the highs and the lows and, most of all, the incredible live performances they have had on their incredible journey.

Visit www.redhotchilipeppers-book.com for more information about "Me And My Friends: Red Hot Chili Peppers".