As Anthony Kiedis takes to the spotlight this evening, we thought we’d bring the topic of his tattoos to the table. Even if you’re in the golden circle tonight, you’re still not going to be close enough to see the detail that makes up his numerous pieces of body art. Here’s a helpful guide, so you don’t have to squint your eyes in the crowd. Know exactly what’s permanently drawn on the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ lead singer’s bod, and enjoy more detailed fantasies.

Kiedis has 10 tattoos of which the majority are in black ink bar, two on the inner side of his arm which are in colour. His tattoos reflect aspects of his life, like his North American heritage. His first tattoo was of Chief Sitting Bull, done on his upper right arm while Chief Joseph followed on his left. His back tattoo stretches across his entire back, and was completed in the 1980s.

Henk Schiffmacher, famous for his work on rock ‘n roll icons, began work on his Inca/Aztec tattoo in February 1988 and it was completed over an 18 month period while Kiedis was on tour in Amsterdam.

 On our visits to Amsterdam, I had befriended an amazing tattoo artist named Hank Schiffmacher. Hank, also known as Henky Penky, was an icon of his country-an underground philosopher, artist, Hell’s Angel associate, booze hound, drug hound, girl hound, an absolute rapscallion of Dutch proportions. Over the years, Hank had injected much ink into my skin, and in the process, we’d become close.

On that first trip to Holland (around the Pink Pop Festival dates in Finland), however, Kiedis was preparing to endure the fist pricks of the enormous cubic Indian totem image that would eventually engulf his back. Schiffmacher told him it would be the work of many visits, each one time-consuming (up to six hours at a time) and also very painful. Kiedis replied, jokingly, that given his own schedule, it would also take several years.

Red Hot Chili Peppers By The Way: The Biography by Dave Thompson; page 120-1

The 1990s saw a bold band added underneath each Indian chief, and he got inked with a tiger in 2001:

A tiger, added in 2001, was to help him get over the pain of creaking up with his girlfriend, and represents both his Chinese birth sign and the Thai tradition of tigers bringing longevity and protection to the wearer- and he enjoys adding the detail that he is Tony the Tiger, the cartoon cat from the Kellogg’s Frosties add.

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His latest addition is a koi carp that was added around 2006, “a symbol of overcoming adversity,” he says, “of swimming up current, so to speak.” His smallest tattoo, located on his right wrist, is the most noteworthy to RHCP fans as it depicts the band’s asterisk logo.

And those are his visible tats. The rest, we wonder…

[Source: Anthony Kiedis.net]