Red Hot Chilli Peppers frontman nearly lost his life because of a few inches -

Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis and Michael Balzary, aka Flea, were inseparable ever since they met, however, it looks like the band was almost never actually a thing as Kiedis almost lost his life in 1977 when the two ‘dived’ off an apartment block.

The music stars were part of the iconic rock band, which was formed in 1982, alongside drummer Chad Smith, and guitarist John Frusciante. Together, the band created smash hits including Californication, Under the Bridge, and Can’t Stop, but it could’ve looked very different.

Anthony Kiedis almost lost his life aged 15

In 1977, when he was just 7 years old, the RHCP frontman and his soon-to-be bandmate Flea, decided to treat a multi-story apartment building as a ‘diving board’ into the pool below, leading to horrific injuries for Kiedis.

Speaking about the incident in his memoir, Scar Tissue, the 61-year-old penned: “On those long walks, we’d pass all of these one-, two-, three-, and sometimes four- and five-story apartment buildings that were built around a central pool.

One day an amazing idea was triggered. I looked at the building and said, ‘That’s a diving board, my friend.’”

Flea went first and landed safely, however, unfortunately, the same could not be said for Kiedis.

“I jumped, and as I was in the air, I realized that I had put too much into the leap and I was going to overshoot the pool, but there was nothing I could do about it,” he recalled.

“The concrete was coming up at me, and I landed smack on my heels and missed the pool by about ten inches.”

Although a huge accident, the star kept his consciousness, although the pain was described as “nothing else he’s ever felt.”

“‘You broke your back, and it doesn’t look so good’,” the doctor said. His vertebrae were ‘flattened like pancakes’ although was told “a month in traction would help stretch them back.”

A huge injury, that can damage mobility for life, Kiedis was fit and healthy again in a matter of weeks, although some may not have even survived that nasty fall.

The rockstar says he ‘doesn’t consider himself a musician’

Although part of one of the most iconic rock bands in history, the star revealed on his bandmate Flea’s podcast, This Little Light, that he doesn’t actually consider himself a ‘musician.’

Flea admitted that the conversation left the celebrity friends “in tears,” and speaking to the Los Angeles Times about one of his favorite episodes, the 61-year-old said:

“A really good one was with Anthony. We were both kind of in tears because I’d never talked to him about stuff like that.

Anthony doesn’t really consider himself a musician or that he’s had any music education whatsoever. He used to say we should change the band’s name to Idiot and the Three Geniuses.”