Vulture Allegedly Found the Bridge That Red Hot Chili Peppers Based ‘Under the Bridge’ on, but Anthony Kiedis Has Never Confirmed the Location

Vulture claims to have found the bridge that Red Hot Chili Peppers based their 1992 song “Under the Bridge” on. However, frontman Anthony Kiedis has never confirmed the exact location. Many songwriters base their music on particular locations. Still, Kiedis might not connect an actual bridge with “Under the Bridge.”

Red Hot Chili Peppers based ‘Under the Bridge’ on a dark time in Anthony Kiedis’ life; he never revealed where the actual bridge is located

Red Hot Chili Peppers experienced a turning point in their careers when they released “Under the Bridge.” The 1992 song appeared on Blood Sugar Sex Magik and soon became the band’s first mainstream hit. It went platinum and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song brought good things to the underground funk-rock band. However, it was born from Kieidis’ dark moments. In his memoir Scar Tissue, the frontman writes that the song is about a particular day he hit rock bottom “downtown with f***ing gangsters shooting speedballs under a bridge.”

So, it’s understandable that Kiedis doesn’t want anyone knowing where said bridge is located if there is a bridge. According to Kiedis, the song isn’t about the bridge; it’s about his feelings at the time. Anyone who wanted to travel like a modern-day pilgrim to the actual bridge was deluding themselves.

In 1992 Kiedis told Rolling Stone that the bridge was in downtown Los Angeles. However, he said, “It’s unimportant. I don’t want people looking for it.”

In 2012, Vulture wrote that perhaps Kiedis was “uneager to have a new pop-music landmark emerge from one of his life’s lowest moments.” That didn’t stop them from wanting to find out where the actual bridge is located. The publication contacted the band to inquire about the bridge, but they again declined to reveal its location.

Despite their wishes to keep it secret, Vulture found the exact bridge that Red Hot Chili Peppers based “Under the Bridge” on.

Vulture allegedly found the bridge that Red Hot Chili Peppers based ‘Under the Bridge’ on

The publication looked at Kiedis’ memoir for clues.

In Scar Tissue, Kiedis writes that he and his friend Kim Jones “owed too much money to the drug dealers around Hollywood, so we started walking from her house, which was not far from downtown LA, to known drug neighborhoods, mainly Sixth and Union.”

So, Vulture’s Mark Haskell Smith found an old Thomas Brothers Guide and “looked for obvious routes from downtown to Sixth and Union. I called the California Department of Transportation and learned that any span ‘over twenty feet long’ is considered a bridge and there are thousands of these structures in Los Angeles County.”

Then, Smith narrowed his search by looking at BridgeHunter.com, a database for all bridges in the U.S. There are over 200 in the greater LA area. However, only three could potentially be the one Kiedis sings about in “Under the Bridge,” and each is problematic. First, they’re not close to Sixth and Union.   

The First Street bridge and the bridge at Temple and Figueroa are open to the street. Then, Smith asked a “writer friend, a former junkie,” about where they usually got their drugs in the area. He said, “I bought in some vacant lot off of Seventh and, maybe, Hoover. The details are a bit fuzzy, as those weren’t my regular spots to score.”

Smith discovered that MacArthur Park was between Sixth and Union and Seventh and Hoover. Kiedis said that he was “under the bridge” in 1988. By then, the park had become notorious for its drug deals. In April 1989, the LA Times published an article called “Drug Users Overrun MacArthur Park.”

Still, Smith wasn’t convinced he’d found the bridge Red Hot Chili Peppers based “Under the Bridge” on.

Smith went to the bridge at MacArthur Park

After staring at his map for hours, Smith became convinced Kiedis made the bridge up. He wrote, “I mean, why not? Does it matter if it’s a real bridge? Maybe it’s a metaphor. Or maybe he was afraid to admit he hit his low point in MacArthur Park because people would forever associate his existential crisis and subsequent sobriety with an oft-mocked song about a soggy cake.”

However, he wanted to be certain, so he visited MacArthur Park. Smith walked toward the park’s lake and discovered a small pedestrian tunnel underneath Wilshire Boulevard. Smith wrote, “Instead of looking like some dark and forbidding portal to hell, it was painted with graffiti in the form of a friendly octopus… It might be clean and safe and have a happy octopus, but not that long ago it was the stomping ground of gangbangers and dope slingers.”

Smith claims this is the bridge that Red Hot Chili Peppers based “Under the Bridge” on. “It links Sixth and Union — the intersection Kiedis claims he was walking toward — with the drug dealers at Seventh and Hoover,” Smith concluded. “And, unlike the other bridges, it provides a discreet location for private time with personal demons.”

However, Kiedis still hasn’t revealed the bridge’s location, if it ever existed in the first place. Maybe he wants it to be an age-old mystery.

How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.