Michael Balzary aka Flea

Flea (born Michael Peter Balzary on October 16, 1962 in Burwood, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia) is the bassist for the alternative funk band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Flea is considered to be one of the most talented bassists in the rock and roll scene. Image File history File links Michael Balzary aka Flea This work is copyrighted. ... Image File history File links Michael Balzary aka Flea This work is copyrighted. ... October 16 is the 289th day of the year (290th in Leap years). ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Melbourne is the state capital and largest city in the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-largest city in Australia (after Sydney), with a population of approximately 3. ... The terms alternative rock and alternative music were coined in the early 1980s to describe punk rock-inspired music genres which didnt fit into the mainstream genres of the time. ... Funk is a distinct style of music originated by African-Americans, e. ... In music, a band is a group of musicians, or musical ensemble, usually popular or folk, playing parts of a musical arrangement. ... The Red Hot Chili Peppers are a Californian Los Angeles-based band birthed from the Funk-Rock movement of the 1980s and early 1990s. ...

In March 1967, Michael's father, Mick, who worked as a Customs officer, was posted to New York, and the whole family moved to the United States. Around 1971, Michael's parents divorced, and his mother moved with him and his sister Karen to Los Angeles in 1972, to live with a jazzman named Walter Urban Jr, that she would soon marry. Nickname: City of Angels Motto: Official website: http://www. ... 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year that started on a Tuesday. ...

Flea got his start in music very early. He first tried the drums, and at age nine started playing the trumpet. After only a couple of years he had become proficient enough to enter the Los Angeles Junior Philarmonic Orchestra, and he also played in his Junior High School's orchestra. Balzary confessed to VH1's Behind The Music, that he originally had no interest in rock and roll and sought to become a jazz musician like his stepfather, but changed musical direction after being introduced to the music of KISS, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin by future bandmate Hillel Slovak. Music is an art, entertainment, or other human activity which involves organized and audible sound, though definitions vary. ... VH1 (which originally stood for Video Hits 1) is an American cable television channel that was created in January 1985 by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment (then a division of Warner Communications and then-current owners of MTV, which originally came up with the idea of the channel). ... Behind the Music is a television series on VH1 that ran from 1997 to 2003, and continues to air sporadically with new episodes. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... Jazz master Louis Armstrong remains one of the most loved and best known of all jazz musicians. ... KISS is an American glam rock/hard rock band formed in New York City in 1973. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Led Zeppelin was a British rock band that became one of the most popular and influential musical ensembles ever. ... Hillel Slovak (April 13, 1962 – June 25, 1988) was the original guitarist for the band Red Hot Chili Peppers. ...

He met bandmate Anthony Kiedis while at Fairfax High School, and started to play the bass around age 17, when he was recuited to play for Anthym, a band formed by his Junior High school friends Hillel Slovak, Jack Irons and Alain Johannes, to replace their current bassist who they believed was substandard. In 1981, he left Anthym, searching for new musical experiences. He then joined Fear, an aggressive and wild band from the LA punk scene. In 1983, he, Kiedis, Slovak and Irons went on to form Red Hot Chili Peppers together. They got a record deal with a major label 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 / Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols fame to join Lydon's new band Public Image Ltd., because he preferred to stay with his friends in the Peppers. Anthony Kiedis is the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. ... Fairfax High School is a Los Angeles Unified School District high school located in West Hollywood, California, on the border of Los Angeles Fairfax District. ... Fear is a punk rock band from Los Angeles, California that formed in 1977 and still performs. ... The Red Hot Chili Peppers are a Californian Los Angeles-based band birthed from the Funk-Rock movement of the 1980s and early 1990s. ...

Flea is widely considered to be among the finest bassists in the field of Rock music. He 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. The songs "Subway To Venus", "Pretty Little Ditty", and "Taste the Pain" on the Chili Peppers album Mother's Milk, and "Tear" on By the Way also feature Flea on trumpet, and lately he has been playing some trumpet during the Peppers live performances. Bass guitars typically have four strings instead of six as found on regular guitars. ... In music, a horn section is a group of wind instruments--sometimes dubbed horns--which are arranged to enhance a song or musical group. ... Janes Addiction was an American band, named in reference to Jane Bainter, a (now ex-) heroin addict who was a housemate of the band. ... Michael David Watt (born December 20, 1957 in Portsmouth, Virginia) is a bass guitarist, singer and songwriter, best-known for co-founding the punk rock bands The Minutemen and fIREHOSE; as of 2003, he is also the bassist for the reunited Iggy Pop & The Stooges. ... The Mars Volta is an American musical group founded by Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. ... Frances the Mute is the second studio release by progressive rock band The Mars Volta released in the US on March 1, 2005. ... This article is about the grunge band Nirvana. ... Smells Like Teen Spirit is a song by the American grunge band, Nirvana. ...

Flea's style is influenced by Bootsy Collins, funk music and by the energy of early punk rock bands such as Black Flag. Bootsy Collins on the cover of Bootsys Rubber Bands Live in Louisville 1978 William Bootsy Collins (born October 26, 1951 in Cincinnati, Ohio,) is a pioneering funk bassist, singer, and songwriter. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... Black Flag was a hardcore punk group formed in 1976 in southern California, largely as the brainchild of Greg Ginn, guitarist, primary songwriter and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes. ...

Basses

Flea recorded with a MusicMan StingRay bass guitar on the Red Hot Chili Pepper's first two albums; Red Hot Chili Peppers and Freaky Styley, and appears playing it in the band's earliest videos 'True Men Don't Kill Coyotes', 'Jungle Man', and 'Catholic School Girls Rule'. This early StingRay of Flea's was adorned with various pink and green tape and paint, and he used it live for the band's earliest performances for the first two albums, adding more stickers over his own original pink and green additions towards the Freaky Styley era. An exception in this period is a Fender Precision Bass he used as a live backup, and ended up wielding in the band's 1985 Rockpalast (Germany) show, and a Silvertone, probably meant as a joke, which can be seen on some of the band's early videos. The Music Man is a musical play written by Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey; it premiered on Broadway in 1957. ... Red Hot Chili Peppers is the Red Hot Chili Peppers self-titled debut album, released in 1984. ... Freaky Styley is the second album by Red Hot Chili Peppers, released in 1985 through EMI America. ... The Fender logo, often called the spaghetti logo. ... Categories: Music stubs | Electric bass guitars ...

For the recording of the band's 1987 The Uplift Mofo Party Plan album, Flea switched to using a black Spector NS bass with chrome hardware, dot inlays, J-J pickups and stickers of two reclining figures on the instrument's body horns, which he plays in the video for 'Fight Like A Brave' in addition to once more employing a StingRay for the video's day-glo paint/interior set shots. Compared to the band's earlier efforts, the superior mixing on The Uplift Mofo Party Plan and its 1989 successor Mother's Milk combined with Flea's introduction of the Spector, brought a fresh bite to the band's bottom end on these productions in contrast to Flea's prior use of the StingRay in recording. This new bass sound was consolidated with Flea's significantly faster and more advanced fingerstyle and slapping techniques, especially on Mother's Milk. Although on both of these albums the sound is distinctively that of the Spector, Flea swapped his original NS for a new one on Mother's Milk featuring gold hardware, block inlays and a P-J pickup configuration, which he performs with in the Chili Pepper's video for 'Knock Me Down'. Flea used his Spectors live at this time besides the studio, as in the 1988 live video for 'Fire' performed in Finland with the band in their classic 'socks on cocks' dress, and on live tracks from 1989 that feature on the remastered Mother's Milk and 1994 Out in LA compilation. The Uplift Mofo Party Plan is the third album by Red Hot Chili Peppers, released in 1987 through EMI America. ... Mothers Milk is the fourth album by Red Hot Chili Peppers. ... Fingerpicking is playing the guitar using the fingertips or fingernails, rather than with a plectrum (or pick). It is usually used in Classical guitar styles, and some other acoustic styles, but it has found its way into other genres as well, including rock and roll, although its use in such... In music, the term slapping is often used to refer to two different though related playing techniques on the double bass and on the (electric) bass guitar. ...

The bass sounds on Blood Sugar Sex Magik that influenced countless numbers of today's bassists were mostly made with a Wal Mach II bass (he played a StingRay 5 on Funky Monks and Righteous and the Wicked). On One Hot Minute he mostly used an Alembic Epic bass, although Aeroplane featured his trademark StingRay sound. For both albums' tours, however, he was always wielding the StingRay. By 1997 his signature bass by Modulus entered production, and it's been his main instrument since then. Recently however, he has been seen with Fender Jazz basses. Mainly in Gallien-Kruger advertisements in BassPlayer magazine. Blood Sugar Sex Magik is the fifth album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, released in September of 1991 (see 1991 in music) and written and recorded at a mansion in Laurel Canyon, now owned by the albums producer Rick Rubin and known also as Damie Mathematique of Philosophical... One Hot Minute is the sixth album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. ...

Solo Work

Flea has also worked outside of the RHCP. In the early 80s he was the bassist for Fear. He filled in for Eric Avery during the reunion tour of alternative rock band Jane's Addiction 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 'Jagged Little Pill' album, as well as guest appearances on countless albums by other artists. He has done some acting, having appeared in the movies The Big Lebowski, My Own Private Idaho, Suburbia, Son in Law, The Chase (1994) (with RHCP bandmate Kiedis), Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III as 'Needles', headlining in Liar's Poker (1999), and providing the voice of the feral boy Donnie in the animated television series The Wild Thornberrys, as well as a minor, yet memorable role in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", among others. Fear is a punk rock band from Los Angeles, California that formed in 1977 and still performs. ... Eric Avery (born on April 25, 1965 in Los Angeles California - the son of actor Bryan Avery) is a bass player, most notably for the seminal alternative band Janes Addiction. ... Janes Addiction was an American band, named in reference to Jane Bainter, a (now ex-) heroin addict who was a housemate of the band. ... The Mars Volta is an American musical group founded by Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. ... De-Loused in the Comatorium is a concept album by the band The Mars Volta. ... Frances the Mute is the second studio release by progressive rock band The Mars Volta released in the US on March 1, 2005. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Big Lebowski is a 1998 film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen starring Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey The Dude Lebowski, John Goodman as Walter Sobchak, Julianne Moore as Maude Lebowski, David Huddleston as Jeffrey The Big Lebowski, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Brandt, and Sam Elliott as The... My Own Private Idaho (1991) is a film written and directed by Gus Van Sant, loosely based on Shakespeares Henry IV, part 1. ... Suburbia is a movie written and directed by Penelope Spheeris (The Decline of Western Civilization) about suburban punks who run away from home. ... In law and in cultural anthropology, affinity, as distinguished from consanguinity, is kinship by marriage. ... The Chase may refer to: // Movies A 1946 movie starring Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, and Peter Lorre. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV in Roman) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... Back to the Future Part II is a 1989 film and is the second part of the Back to the Future trilogy. ... Back to the Future Part III is a movie starring Michael J. Fox that opened on 25 May 1990. ... Liars Poker is a non-fiction, semi-autobiographical book by Michael Lewis describing the authors experiences as a bond salesman on Wall Street during the late 1980s. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... A feral child is a child who has lived isolated from human contact starting from a very young age. ... The Wild Thornberrys cast, left to right, Nigel, Marianne (with camera), Eliza (with glasses) and Darwin (the monkey) on a vine, Donnie (hanging down from the tree), and Debbie (sitting down) The Wild Thornberrys is an animated series produced at Klasky-Csupo for Nickelodeon, which follows the adventures of a... The hard cover version of the book. ...

Flea married Loesha Zeviar in 1986. Their daughter, Clara, was born in 1988. Flea and Loesha split up in 1990 but remain on friendly terms and have joint custody of Clara. Loesha's name remains tattoed on his chest. He has also recently had a baby with his new fiance, Frankie Rayder. 1986 (MCMLXXXVI in Roman) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII in Roman) was a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... Francesca Rayder (born January 26, 1976 in River Falls, Wisconsin) is an American Model. ...

In 2001 Flea founded his own music school in Los Angeles called the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, in the trendy L.A. district of Silverlake.

Flea also has a blog for NBA.com about his beloved Los Angeles Lakers. Link The Los Angeles Lakers are a National Basketball Association team based in Los Angeles, California. ...

External links

• Michael Balzary at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Balzary at the Voice Chasers Database
• Red Hot Chili Peppers Fansite, Come talk about Flea