AI Revives Hillel Slovak's Voice in New Red Hot Chili Peppers Documentary
A new Netflix documentary, 'The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel,' uses AI to voice the journals of the band's late guitarist, Hillel Slovak, sparking discussion about AI's role in biographical storytelling.
Filmmaker Ben Feldman employed AI to give voice to Hillel Slovak’s journal entries in The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel. The documentary explores the early days of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the profound influence of their founding guitarist.
Feldman doesn't shy away from the use of artificial intelligence, including a notice early in the film that the audio was digitally reconstructed. He obtained the blessing of Slovak’s family to use AI and have “Hillel’s voice reading his own journals,” believing it was “a critical way to make his [words] feel alive.”
The film features in-depth interviews with Anthony Kiedis and Michael “Flea” Balzary, supplemented by Slovak’s journal entries. It recounts how the trio became best friends while attending high school in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The documentary tracks the band’s early days, navigating the rock and punk scenes before their rise to icon status. Slovak played on the band’s first three studio albums before his tragic death at age 26 from an accidental heroin overdose in 1988.
The band clarified that this Netflix documentary is not an official Red Hot Chili Peppers project. In a statement, they mentioned they had “nothing to do with it creatively” and agreed to be interviewed “out of love and respect for Hillel and his memory.”
The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel premiered at SXSW in Austin on March 13 and began streaming on Netflix on March 20.
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