Hillel Slovak (Hebrew: הלל סלובק; April 13, 1962 – June 25, 1988) was an Israeli-American musician, best known as the founding guitarist of the Los Angeles rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom he recorded two albums.

His guitar work was rooted in funk and hard rock, and he often experimented with other genres, including reggae and speed metal.

Slovak met future bandmates Anthony Kiedis, Flea, and Jack Irons while attending Fairfax High School in Los Angeles.

Slovak, Flea, Kiedis, and Irons founded Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1983, gaining popularity in Los Angeles through their energetic stage presence and spirited performances.

Slovak rejoined the Chili Peppers in 1985 and recorded the albums Freaky Styley (1985) and The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987) with them.

Several Red Hot Chili Peppers songs have been written as tributes to Slovak, including "Knock Me Down", "Otherside" "My Lovely Man", and "Feasting on the Flowers".

Slovak was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on April 14, 2012, with his brother accepting the award on his behalf.

They initially settled in the Queens borough of New York City before relocating to the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles two years later.

[7] Slovak received his first guitar at age 13 as a bar mitzvah present, and regularly played the instrument into the late hours of the night.

[8] During this time, he was highly influenced by hard rock music such as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Kiss.

[9] Kiedis later described the experience in his autobiography Scar Tissue: "Within a few minutes of hanging out with Hillel, I sensed that he was absolutely different from most of the people I'd spent time with ...

[10] The original bassist for Anthem, which renamed to Anthym, was deemed unsatisfactory, so Slovak began teaching Flea to play bass.

[12] Slovak, Kiedis, and Flea began to create their own music after finding inspiration in a punk-funk fusion band called Defunkt.

[13] The three formed a band with former Anthym-drummer Jack Irons called Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem.

Slovak, Kiedis, and Flea moved into a small house in a high-crime area in Hollywood where they collaborated musically and continued their drug addictions.

He and Kiedis hired drummer Cliff Martinez and guitarist Jack Sherman to fill Irons' and Slovak's places, respectively.

album, Slovak became frustrated with the band and contacted Flea about rejoining the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

When Slovak was under the influence, he would often wear brightly colored clothing and dance in a "shuffling" fashion, which became the inspiration for the song "Skinny Sweaty Man" from the band's next album.

[26] After Kiedis completed a stint in rehab, he rejoined the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Los Angeles to record their third album The Uplift Mofo Party Plan.

On The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, Slovak experimented with different musical styles, playing the sitar on the song "Behind the Sun".

Upon returning home, Slovak isolated himself from the rest of his bandmates, and struggled to resist drug abuse without the support of his friends, and Kiedis in particular.

"[7] Kiedis observed that his playing evolved during his time away from the group in What Is This?, with Slovak adopting a more fluid style featuring "sultry" elements as opposed to his original hard rock techniques.

[49] On Uplift, Slovak experimented with genres outside of traditional funk music including reggae and speed metal.

[51] Slovak also used a talk box on songs such as "Green Heaven" and "Funky Crime", in which the sounds of his amplified guitar would be played through a tube into his mouth and then back into a microphone, creating psychedelic, voice-like effects.

[53] Slovak's work was one of the major contributing factors to Red Hot Chili Peppers' early sound.

[54] Flea, who originally listened exclusively to jazz, added that Slovak introduced him to a new genre of music, saying that "it was Hillel who first got me into hard rockin'".

The songs "Knock Me Down" (from Mother's Milk), "My Lovely Man" (from Blood Sugar Sex Magik), "This is the Place" (from By the Way), and "Feasting on the Flowers" (from The Getaway) were written about or as tributes to Slovak.