Red Hot Chili Peppers “Fight Like a Brave” 1987. Today, April 13th, would have been original RHCP guitarist Hillel Slovak’s 60th birthday (b. 1962, d. 1988). “Fight Like a Brave” was the only single from RHCP’s 1987 LP The Uplift Mofo Party Plan and is about Anthony Kiedis’ heroin addiction and struggles to get clean. Like most Red Hot tracks, it is funky as hell with a ton of killer metal guitar swagger and riffs. The track wasn’t a hit but the album did squeak onto the charts, making it to #148. The Uplift Mofo Party Plan was Slovak’s last record; he died shortly after the album tour after trying and failing to kick his own addiction heroin. According to wiki, Slovak said about the LP, “This is the most beautiful thing we’ve ever done…I’m so extremely proud of everybody’s work—it is at times genius.”

Our copy of “Fight Like a Brave” is the 12″ single promo version so it has the same track on both sides. The commercial 12″ has a few remixes including “Not Our Mix,” “Boner Beats Mix” and “Mofo Mix” as well as a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire.” Here’s a pretty hilarious video of them sort-of lip-synching “Fight Like a Brave” on Belgian TV: they don’t even bother to pretend to play, they just cause chaos and trash the stage.