Flea

FLEA
 
 
Flea  (born Michael Peter Balzary; 16 October 1962) is an Australian-American musician and actor best known as bassist and founding member of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers.  Flea briefly appeared as the bassist for such bands as What Is This?, Fear and Jane’s Addiction.  He has also performed with rock supergroups Atoms for Peace, Antemasque, Pigface, and Rocket Juice & the Moon.  Flea has also collaborated with artists including The Mars Volta, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Alanis Morissette, and Young MC.  In 2009, Rolling Stone readers ranked Flea the second best bassist of all time, behind only John Entwistle.  Flea has also acted in films such as Suburbia, Back to the Future Part II and Part III, My Own Private Idaho, The Chase, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thrashin’, Dudes, Son in Law, The Big Lebowski, Baby Driver, and Low Down.  Flea is the co-founder of Silverlake Conservatory of Music, a non-profit music education organization founded in 2001 for underprivileged children.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

Jack Irons and Alain Johannes were part of the coterie where the band Red Hot Chili Peppers was born.  RHCP founding members Hillel Slovak (guitar) and Jack Irons (drums) were in a high school band in Los Angeles that was eventually called What Is This?, along with Alain Johannes (vocals) and Todd Strassman (bass).  (The name is taken from the reaction they noticed by many people when they heard the band).  A third founding member of RHCP, Michael Balzary, better known as Flea was the bassist in What Is This? for a time, but he later joined the punk rock band Fear (and began making numerous appearances as an actor); also, Anthony Kiedis was serving as a roadie and “hype-man” for What Is This?. 

 

In 1983, Hillel Slovak, Jack Irons, Flea and Anthony Kiedis came together for what was intended to be a one-time, loose performance at the Rhythm Lounge, billed as Tony Flow and the Majestic Masters of Mayhem.  Although only about 30 people were in attendance, the show was so well received that they returned the following week and eventually put together a six-song demo tape under their new name Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

 

In the following year (1985), What Is This? released their only full-length album, What Is This? plus a live EP, 3 out of 5 Live.  After that, What Is This? broke up, and Jack Irons returned to Red Hot Chili Peppers also.  According to Wikipedia, the band’s third album, The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987) is the only Red Hot Chili Peppers album to feature all four original members – Hillel Slovak, Jack Irons, Flea and Anthony Kiedis – on each track. 

 

(April 2015/1)

 

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Allmusic reports that the Weirdos reformed in 1988 with original members the Denney brothers (John Denney and Dix Denney), Nicky Beat, and Cliff Roman, plus Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers; they released a new album in 1990 called Condor.  I haven’t heard that record, but I couldn’t resist sharing the above cartoon that was on the back cover of Destroy All Music.  Greg Shaw used to put this kind of thing in his Bomp! Records releases and publications like Bomp! Magazine all the time. 
 
(March 2017)