Founding Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose at his apartment in Los Angeles on June 25, 1988. Slovak had suffered from a severe heroin addiction for years leading up to his death and he was discovered by police two days after dying. During the late 1980s, Slovak and singer Anthony Kiedis began abusing the drug and, while speaking with Spin in 1993, Kiedis says most people believed he would be the one to overdose. “They were all afraid I was going to die because I would just take too much too often for too long a period of time. Hillel was much more subtle and much more cunning in his disguise,” he recalled.The group’s original drummer Jack Irons left following Slovak’s death and Kiedis was inspired to get clean.