Flea

After a nearly five-decade (and counting) career as one of his generation’s defining rock bassists, Flea delivers his first full-length solo album, Honora. Time and space have finally allowed him to return to his first musical loves: jazz and playing the trumpet. Best known as a founding member & bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flea was first introduced to live jazz as a child, when family friends played the music together in his own living room. Though he dreamed of being like his heroes Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, & Clifford Brown, Flea’s path went a different direction. As Flea neared his sixtieth birthday, he realized if he did not pick up the trumpet again, he probably never would. So he resolved to practice every day for two years–in the midst of a stadium tour with Red Hot Chili Peppers, with a wife and newborn at home. At the end of those two years, he would make an album, regardless of where his knowledge or talents ended up. Until Honora, Flea had never been scared of making music before. He worried that the all-star band he had assembled would think he was “a non-playing motherf*cker, charlatan, rock poseur or fan.” But, he says, “It turns out they were all the most genuinely supportive people, moving me deeply and daily with their generous spirits…Sitting in a room and playing the music with them made me feel like I was on drugs. I was buzzing, tripping and floating around the studio. I love them, they truly gave of themselves. I bow all the way down.