Before Freaky Styley, Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Stadium Arcadium, there was an unorthodox childhood, and Red Hot Chili Peppers fans can read all about it in Flea’s new memoir.

Acid for the Children will be available November 5 after it was originally slated to be published last year. The accomplished bassist says he poured his heart into the 400 pages and hopes it can bring people together.

The book “takes readers on a deeply personal and revealing tour of (Flea’s) formative years, spanning from Australia to the New York City suburbs to, finally, Los Angeles,” according to the official synopsis.

Like bandmate Anthony Kiedis, Flea did not experience a typical upbringing, but he has said his book, unlike Kiedis’, is not your typical rock star biography. In fact, it ends where the Red Hot Chili Peppers begins.

“It’s easy to tell funny stories about the ridiculous, crazy things you did as a kid,” he told Entertainment Weekly last year. “But to get underneath the things that happened, to really look at back at my childhood with distance in between, and have that retrospective introspection… I just thought that would be a great spiritual exercise.”

The synopsis continues: “Through hilarious anecdotes, poetical meditations, and occasional flights of fantasy, Flea deftly chronicles the experiences that forged him as an artist, a musician, and a young man. His dreamy, jazz-inflected prose makes the Los Angeles of the 1970s and 80s come to gritty, glorious life, including the potential for fun, danger, mayhem, or inspiration that lurked around every corner. It is here that young Flea, looking to escape a turbulent home, found family in a community of musicians, artists, and junkies who also lived on the fringe.”

Acid for the Children features a forward by Patti Smith. You can pre-order it here.