Playboy.com: So what motivated you to write Scar Tissue?

Anthony Kiedis: I was prompted by a friend. I was entertaining him with stories from the '80s and he said, "You have to write this in a book." I didn't think I was old enough to write my memoirs, but he coerced me to lose a ton of money in the stock market and as a way of making up for that he found me a great book deal. He introduced me to this crazy book agent, then put all the wheels in motion. In my mind I thought I could do this in a few weeks, but it turned into a year-long labor of love/get me out of this.

PB: What was the most difficult part of the book to write?

AK: Just committing to it for so long. And then dealing with the book publisher, dealing with the lawyers, who called me up and said, "We can't use half this book unless you get permission from all these people." And I said, "Why? It's just my opinion of what happened." But they said I could be sued for slander, libel, blah blah blah. So I was on the phone with lawyers for hours every day, going over stuff that happened 25 years ago. They were telling me what I could say, suggesting ways to rephrase things. It seems like you should be able to say whatever you want in a book.

PB: Did you get permission from your parents? From Flea?

AK: No, oddly enough, they only wanted permission from ex-girlfriends and celebrities. Any public figure that I had an opinion on. I jokingly referred to Posh Spice as a shopaholic from my one encounter with her. The English lawyers called to say I couldn't call Posh a shopaholic, that it was inflammatory. My assistant got a random call from a writer from Rolling Stone who wrote a book with Dave Navarro. He said, "I hear Anthony says some negative things about Dave." It's not true, but that's how rumors get going.

PB: What if Navarro says something nasty about you in his book?

AK: I could care less. Anyone can say anything about me. And they have, for years. Maybe there was a time when I found it upsetting, but at this point it's water off a duck's back. It's funny to see how twisted people's concepts are.

PB: What about your bandmates -- will they be surprised or upset by anything you wrote?

AK: Upset, for sure. Surprised, no. The band dynamic creates an inherent egocentric tension because there's this competitive brotherly love thing that's constantly going on. It's not possible to write a book like this without somebody in my band saying, "Why did you say that about me?" Or, "How come you didn't say this about me?" Or, "What about all that other stuff you didn't talk about?" I'm sure that Flea, because we're so close and because our memories vary so wildly on events, will have a word or two with me, if he decides to read it.