Flea (musician)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Flea | ||
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 Flea in 2006 promo shot
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| Background information | ||
| Birth name | Michael Peter Balzary | |
| Born | October 16, 1962 (age 44) Burwood, Melbourne |
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| Origin | Los Angeles, California | |
| Genre(s) | Alternative, Funk rock | |
| Occupation(s) | Bass Guitarist | |
| Instrument(s) | Bass Guitar, Trumpet, Vocals | |
| Years active | 1981 – present | |
| Label(s) | EMI Warner Bros. | |
| Associated acts |
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Mars Volta, Jane's Addiction, Fear | |
Michael Peter Balzary, better known by his nickname/stage name Flea (born on October 16, 1962, in Burwood, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia), is the bassist for the alternative rock/funk rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as a frequent session musician and occasional actor.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early Life
Michael (as Flea was then still known) led a relatively conventional family lifestyle in Australia until his father Mick was posted to New York in March 1967 in accordance with his job as a customs officer, taking with him his wife Patricia, daughter Karen and the young Michael. After only four years in the U.S., Michael's mother Patricia met and fell in love with a jazz musician named Walter Urban Jr in 1971, resulting in the divorce of his parents. Michael was again uprooted, this time right across America, as his mother and soon to be stepfather moved with him and his sister to live in Los Angeles in 1972. [citation needed]
Michael developed an enthusiasm in playing music very early, first trying his hand at the drums. However, at the age of nine he took up playing the trumpet, soon finding a strong natural aptitude for the instrument. He was so skilled that upon his family's settlement in LA he swiftly earned himself a place in the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic Orchestra. Watching his stepfather jamming with his bebop jazz band had a profound effect on the eleven-year-old Balzary, and this fueled his new-found love for jazz and leading exponents of the genre, such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Ornette Coleman. Concerning his singular love for the jazz genre at the time, Balzary confessed to VH1's Behind the Music that he originally had no interest in rock and roll, and his ambition was to become a jazz musician like his stepfather. He was still (and remains to this day) an avid trumpeter and jazz fan when he started at Fairfax High School in September 1976, but this academic shift also brought about a fateful meeting that would change his life forever.
[edit] Fairfax High School
About a day into his first year at Fairfax, Michael was playfully roughing-up his friend, a fellow tenth-grade student in the quadrangle named Tony Shurr, when he found his target being defended by a fellow student and future bandmate Anthony Kiedis. Despite the initial enmity, both found an affinity for each other and swiftly became best friends, with Michael introducing Kiedis to the world of jazz. Both had somewhat unstable homelives, with Kiedis' drug-dealing party-animal father, and Michael's formerly alcoholic, though often aggressive stepfather. Through Kiedis, Michael also soon became friends with another fellow student and future bandmate Hillel Slovak, whom Kiedis had befriended thanks to Slovak's playing guitar in a band named Anthym. All the while, Michael still grew ever more proficient with his trumpet, taking the place of first trumpet in the Fairfax school orchestra, and impressing Kiedis with the fact that his lip was constantly swollen, as noted in Kiedis's autobiography, Scar Tissue. Michael got his nickname "Flea" during the time of Anthym as Kiedis was "the Swan" and Barry as "The Tree".
Michael's musical focus first became significantly distracted from jazz when Slovak introduced him to the world of rock, through artists such as Led Zeppelin, KISS, Queen and Jimi Hendrix. With his new interest in rock, Michael started being taught to play the bass guitar at the age of 17 by Slovak. This was due to the fact that in concurrence with Anthym guitarist Alan Mishulsky and drummer Jack Irons, Slovak considered the band's existing bassist Todd to be of sub-standard skill, which was in contrast to the raw musical talent of the other band members. One day, Todd walked in to find the band rehearsing with Michael playing bass using his equipment, causing him to take his stuff and walk out. Anthym were left with their official new bassist, who had the technical and musical skill to match his bandmates.
[edit] The punk years
During a trip to Mammoth Mountain with his friends Keith Barry and Johnny Karson, Michael B. became known as the Flea, which would essentially become the effective name of the now famous bassist. Playing in Anthym, Flea swiftly proved himself to be as equally naturally talented playing the bass as he was playing the trumpet, and this attracted attention from outside the band. In 1982 he received an offer to become the new bass player in Fear, an aggressive and wild band from the Los Angeles punk scene. In 1983, Flea, Kiedis, Slovak and Irons went on to form Red Hot Chili Peppers together. They got a record deal with EMI in 6 months, and Flea then left Fear to concentrate on the Chili Peppers. At the time he even turned down an offer by his longtime idol John Lydon to join his post-Sex Pistols band Public Image Ltd., because he preferred to stay with his friends in the Peppers.
[edit] Flea's style
Flea's bass-slapping technique is unique [citation needed] and was a major influence on other bands even before the Red Hot Chili Peppers broke into the mainstream, which is why, on their breakthrough album Blood Sugar Sex Magik, he refused to use the technique in the same way, to avoid it being imitated (as stated personally by Flea in the documentary of Blood Sugar, "Funky Monks"). Flea's style is influenced by Bootsy Collins, funk music and by the energy of early punk rock bands such as Black Flag.
[edit] Trumpet on the side
Flea still plays trumpet occasionally, for example, as part of a horn section on the second Jane's Addiction album, on Mike Watt's Ball Hog or Tug Boat? on The Mars Volta's sophomore release Frances The Mute, and with Nirvana on a performance of Smells Like Teen Spirit at Hollywood Rock '93, a music festival in Brazil. Most recently, he joined Incubus on "The Fourth Movement of the Odyssey" for the Halo 2 soundtrack. The songs "Subway To Venus", "Pretty Little Ditty", and "Taste the Pain" on the Chili Peppers album Mother's Milk, "Apache Rose Peacock" on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and "Tear" on By the Way also features Flea on trumpet, and lately he has been playing some trumpet during the Peppers live performances. It is known that he plays trumpet in some of the songs on Stadium Arcadium, namely "Torture Me" and "Hump De Bump".
[edit] Independent work
[edit] Session
In 1982 Flea was the bassist for Fear before choosing to stick with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He played bass on the hit 1989 single Bust a Move by Young MC. He played trumpet on Jane's Addiction's Nothing's Shocking, and filled in for Eric Avery during their reunion tour in 1997, as well as played bass for The Mars Volta on 2003's De-Loused in the Comatorium and trumpet for 2005's Frances the Mute. He also played bass for Alanis Morissette on the acclaimed song 'You Oughta Know', as well as guest appearances on countless albums by other artists. Flea has also played in support of the activist group Axis of Justice.
[edit] Acting
Flea made his acting debut in the 1984 cult classic punk drama Suburbia where he was credited as Mike B. The Flea. His filmography also includes My Own Private Idaho, Motorama, Son in Law, The Chase, The Big Lebowski, The Blue Iguana, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Liar's Poker, Mr. 3000, and the 1998 remake of the Hitchcock classic Psycho. More notably, Flea played the character "Needles" in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III, and provided the voice of the feral boy Donnie in the animated television series and film The Wild Thornberrys.
[edit] Personal
Flea married Loesha Zeaviar in 1986, and their daughter Clara was born in 1988. Clara currently attends Bennington College in the class of 2010. Flea and Loesha split up in 1990 but have joint custody of Clara and remain on friendly terms, with Loesha's name remaining tattoed on Flea's chest. In 2005 Flea had a baby girl named Sunny Bebop Balzary with his new fiancee, 30 year old model Frankie Rayder. Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmate John Frusciante is both Clara's, and Sunny Bebop's godfather.
In 1993, Flea met an unknown local artist, Jewel, after he saw her perform at a local cafe. He went back to her van where she was living, where she sang a few of her songs to him. He described her singing voice as being "beautiful", and "breathtaking". Two years after this encounter Jewel was signed to Atlantic Records and released her diamond record, Pieces of You.
[edit] Trivia
- Along with Slash and Ozzy Osbourne, Flea is referenced in the Super Nintendo game Chrono Trigger, as being a very feminine male character referred to as tone-deaf.
- He has 11 tattoos
- Following the completion of the "Tell Me Baby" music video, Flea wore the same suit, (that he had used during the filming of the video), whilst performing the tour shows for Stadium Arcadium and also during the Virgin Music Festival '06 held in Baltimore, MD, the November 3rd Detroit performance, as well as in Albany, NY. The suit also appeared in some of the European tours including, The Oxygen Festival Ireland and Reading Festival.
- Flea writes a blog for NBA.com about his beloved Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.
- The death of Flea's dog Martian during the writing stages of Stadium Arcadium inspired the creation of the song "Death of a Martian" from that album.
- In 2001 Flea founded his own, non-profit music school in the Los Angeles district of Silver Lake, named the Silver Lake Conservatory of Music. The school teaches all different music genres and instruments and provides qualifying students with scholarships. Flea sometimes teaches students himself.
- His daughter, Clara, along with her classmates were the children singing in the video to Aeroplane.
- His daughter plays in a band called the The Tints, which has toured England.
- At one point, he dated Tobey Torres, former lead singer of Snake River Conspiracy
- Flea stands 5 feet 6 inches tall.
- Flea provided the voice for Grunge on the animated Gen13 movie. The movie was shelved, though it still floats around as a bootleg.
- Flea uses a variety of gear
- Amplification - Gallien Krueger 2001-rb with GK 4x10 and 1x15 (he has 3 of these stacks) - Basses - Signature Modulus Flea bass, Music Man Stingray (used copiously on the band's early work), Wal Mk II, Vintage Fender Jazz Basses and Precision Basses (used on Stadium Arcadium), amongst others.
- Session musician on Warren Zevon's 1987 album Sentimental Hygiene.
[edit] External links
- Michael Balzary at the Internet Movie Database
- Michael Balzary at the Voice Chasers Database
- Flea Bass Lessons with videos
- Interview in Bass Player magazine, June, 2006
- A site dedicated to what flea does, as well as pics and equipment
- The school owned and run by flea himself
- Romanian Fan Site
- Brazilian Fan Site
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements | 1962 births | Living people | Australian Americans | Australian rock bass guitarists | Australian male singers | Australian rock singers | Jane's Addiction | People involved with Red Hot Chili Peppers | People known by single-name pseudonyms | Australian film actors | Australian voice actors | Back to the Future actors | Nicktoons voice actors | Fear (band)
