blog

negative and positive ions

Posted on January 02, 2012 by Flea

Hello men and women and boys and girls and all manner of animal and fish.

    We are having this break right now and it is really good for us, Ahhhhhhhhhhh....reeeeeeelaaxxxxx.  We just toured for about 5 months, and a little battery recharging is in order.  Befre the tour started we spent a solid year, working in a new Josh Klinghoffer, writing, recording,  doing press, all non stop, it is great to stop for a minute. Being in the ocean is the greatest thing, the waves flowing in and out , up and down, getting in touch with the world breathing like that fills me with the power. I love to sweat blood and truth at every show, or not play at all, as anyone has seen us knows (i hope), and having this down time, man, i am getting raring to go for when we start the u.s. legs of this tour in a couple of weeks.

    We are gonna be home in a couple of days and I am excited about that. I am thinking about my studio, all the instruments in it, the recording equipment, and it seems ike paradise to me. I just wanna play and write, absorb my days completely into music. Actually, I have had a hard time letting go and just being on vacation, I have such a burning desire to get in that studio, but some surfing is straightening me out, forcing me to calm down. As Marisa Pouw used to say to me in a matronly voice, "settle down little fighter".

    For all the people who follow me on twitter, I'm sorry about all the basketball tweets I just cant help it, basketball is very emotional for me, Just like music. Maybe I should just start a basketball blog and keep it separate from everything else. 

Hall of Faaaaaammmme

Posted on December 07, 2011 by Flea

     We are getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.I am not usually one to get to excited about awards or accolades, but about this one I am very excited indeed. 

    Our band is really riding a high right now. We are out on the road, playing some of best shows we have ever done. We are establishing a new language with Josh and there is a feeling of hope and potential in what we are doing that is really inspiring to us. Each time we step out on the stage it feels so creative and vibrant, we are really having a blast playing the shows and it fills my days with meaning. I feel an infinite energy from what we are doing and looking forward to taking this togetherness we are forging out on tour, and getting in the studio and making new music. Feels like we are growing like a new born baby, and that is best feeling that I can have ever have in our band.

     So hearing this news about the hall of fame now really seems like it has extra significance for me. To be recognized this way seems especially full and profound.  It makes me think about Hillel Slovak, without whom we would have never existed, and who created with us the foundation of our sound. He directly  influences everything we have ever done. What he did with us in our early years is the blueprint of what we are. This would have meant a lot to him, and I love him so much. And of course, the mighty Jack Irons, our other founding member, who fortunately, is here to enjoy this moment with us.

     It also makes me think of something I think of everyday anyways. Of John Frusciante, the virtuoso musician and songwriter who gave so much to our band. Without him, we would not be going to the hall of fame. He wrote countless great things with us, played an infinite amount of stunning things, and taught us how to be a great band. He helped lift us to a much higher level, he is the greatest. We connected deeply for many years, and he left our band with many gifts.

    I am truly grateful for this honor. To our fans, who have supported us for all these years, given us purpose, and wildly energized us night after night, thank you.

orange door yellow brown rug spiral staircase

Posted on December 06, 2011 by Flea

HI.

Sitting here in my hotel room in Munich. It is a really funny hotel room, weird orange, yellow and brown colors in the rug and walls. A spiral staircase that goes up to the bedroom. Kind of a funny surrealish spinal tap moment me sitting here listening to bad music coming out of the television, too lazy to get my boom box out of its case and put on something decent.  wait hold on, i gotta turn this garbage off its doing something bad to my soul.

aaaahhhh this silence is so much better.

So we were home for a week and then headed back to Europe for another couple of weeks before the christmas break. While we were home, the day before we left, we made a video for our song 'Look Around'. It was such a fun experience, truly liberating and wild feeling for me, I have high hopes for the thing, haven't seen the footage yet though.

    I am just in the final pages of the book 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy, it has been a long read that was a little arduous at times, adjusting my brain to the long passages written about a time that is hard to wrap my head around. But, I never gave up! And the final few chapters are truly riveting, tragic and sad and beautiful. As Joe Strummer said, "It's a sad and beautiful world".  I'm not sure what I will read next, probably Jerry West's biography.'

  Speaking of books, I heard that there is a movie just made of 'Midnight's Children', the book by Salman Rushdie. That is very exciting to me, I love the writing of Salman Rushdie. Also, someone just gave me a copy of a movie made of the book 'The Master and Margarita' by the transcendantly good writer Mikail Bulgakov. Can't wait to se it!!!!!!! It is 11 hours long i think! 11 hours of greatness I am psyched! It could be a terribly made film and I will still love it, the book is that amazing. But, I hear it is a well made movie.

     God, I love sports. It seems for many people, sports and art are mutually exclusive things, which is hard for me to understand. I love seeing people reach for things, really yearn to take themselves to a higher level. It really seems the same to me, athletics, arts, academics.....I just dont really differentiate between the things, it all feels like human exression to me and totally the same.  But, my point is that I am a televised sports fanatic. It is the only thing I watch on t.v. Basketball season is about to start, and as many of you probanly know already, I am an over the top unabashed freaky Laker fan. With great anticipation I await to dig in to the sumtuous feast that is the NBA season. When it clicks, and a team really plays together, it is  a beautiful thing to behold.

   I've never been bored a moment in my life. I've been delirious, I've been miserable, but I have never been bored, there's just too much stuff going on. I've also been ecstatically happy! 

   The other night when we arrived in Berlin, I took a walk and stumbled upon the holocaust memorial there. Man it was a heavy experience. It is made of thousands of concrete slabs, I think it  is one for every Jew from Berline that was killed (not positive about that, it's what I was told). When you look at it from the street, it seems as though each concrete slab, which are rectangle or square shaped, are about 2 or 3 feet tall. But as you walk into it, the ground sinks down and you are surrounded by these monoliths that are like ten fet tall. Each one representing a tragic death. It really had a powerful effect on me. God bless those poor souls. Sending my love to them.  It was late at night and I walked into the depth of the thing and really got lost in it. It is hard to comprehend that kind of cruelty, genocide. Man. It unbelievable what human beings are capable of.  I read a while ago about the genocide that took place in Rawanda of the Tutsi people. It happened in the early nineties. A really great book called "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families' by Phillip Gourevitch. That is a heavy book, but also really uplifting and inspiring. To hear of people who suffered the worst tortures that you can imagine, and yet retain their humanity, their love, it is amazing how great people can be in the face of the most malicious kind of evil. I highly reccomend that book. While I'm still on the subject of books, here's another one I reccomend, I was thinking about it today during our travel to Munich, about how much it inspired me and changed my life. My sister turned me on to it, it is about Haiti and an super cool guy who goes there to help out named Paul Farmer, and it is called 'Mountains Beyond Mountains' written by Tracy Kidder. It blew me away, and because of it I ended up in Haiti a few years after I read it. I really loved my trip to Haiti. Actually my trip was with some great guys who have an organization called 4real and you can look it up and see a film of the trip if you are interested.

 Well it's 2:54 am and I'm gonna get into something else now.

Really, this tour is going so well, I'm so happy with the way we are playing, and more than that, overwhelmed with gratitude for all of you who come to our shows and rock out and really listen. You give me faith.

knak7xf

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Flea

This run through Ireland, NOrthern Ireland, and Engladn so far has been fulfilling. Playing the music is always such an emotional thing. There are a lot of different levels of it for me. In one way, I go into a total animalistic single focus on rocking for all I'm worth, giving everything I have to make each song it's deepest most intense groove, to give every ounce of strength and concentration I can channel to every dynamic and emotiona twist and turn of the flow of the music. In another way, I just want to connect with the audience, to feel y'all, to do everything i can to uplift you, to share the magic from the divine source from where this music comes from, to get myself out of the way and let that happen. An in another way, the show, the music, all of it is a sanctuary for me, a safe place away from the chaos and pain and suffering of the world. Man, the whole thing is such a cathartic experience. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit.

      Yeah these shows have been fun. While we were here in London, the launch happened for the basses created by the great artist Damien Hirst and myself. Damien painted each one individually, they are all different and man they are just beautiful and wild!. You can see them at the 'Other Criteria' shop on New Bond Street in London.  You can also see pictures of them at Othercriteria.com. They are really amazing pieces of art, and every one of them is signed by Damien and I. Some of them come with additional artwork by Damien, and collaborative artwork by Damien and I. They are Dope! Rope a Dope!!!  All of the profit from the sale of these things will go to the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, I will not take a penny, and Damien is not even taking back the expenses he incurred making them, he has donated all his time and energy for free. He is a man among men with a heart the size of Leeds. The deluxe editions of the basses also come with individually handpainted cases, and are chockfull of great art surprises. Just sayin.

   We had a party for the basses on the night of the launch and Josh and Chad and Mauro and I jammed at it and let our freak flags fly as high as we could. Then Ronnie Wood joined us for a jam, and it was a goooooooood one. That ol' Ronnie Wood is a superb musician, it is always a beautiful thing to play with him.

    So I find myself this morning at still at the hotel in London, bout to get it together to go get on a whirlybird and head for the gig in Glasgow tonight. Letyour freak flag fly. Peace and Love to all.

a little tin whistle

Posted on November 05, 2011 by Flea

Last night was such a fun show in Dublin. Truly, Ireland has been an amazing place for us to pay through the years. There is something about the soul of the place that really touches me.  An intangible thing, can't describe it, but it blows me away. I think the greatest crowd I ever witnessed was when we played Belfast in '91. It was the most explosive feeling I ever got from an audience they were just on fire. Anthony begs to differ with me, he say the audience we had in Buenos Aires a couple of months ago was just as intense, but I don't know. I guess it really is a matter of how you pecieve it at the time, sometimes the most still audience can be listening the deepest and it is a whole other kind of intensity. But man, sometimes  you can walk out on stage and they really blast your face off! I hope no other countries feel like I am diminishing their connection with us, there are certain times and spaces when a magic thing happens that is impossible to control. That time in Belfast there was just a feeling in the air. It was a time of a ot of trouble there, tanks rolling down the empty streets and guys walking around in groups of four holding maching guns scared to death. There was a lot of tension in the air. Also, the Rollins bnd opened up the show and really stirred up some emotions, it was just a wild night.

I purchased a tim whiste the other day in Dublin. I like to sit in my room and play it and try to eek out some melancholy tunes. Gets me in touch with my Itrish heritage. On my father's side, his grandfather came to Australia from Ireland and his grandmother came from Hungary. My mothers side is all from England as far as I know. I was born in Australia, left there when I was 4, movied to the suburbs of New York when I was 11, then came to L.A. when I was 11. I just consider myself from L.A. I really love Los Angeles, people have such a weird impression of it around the world. It is really a soulful place. People just think about the film industry and the shalowness and power hungry weirdos and psycophants that are invoved in it. There is also an impression of Beverly HIlls and the weird shallowness of thoughtless wealth that is there. The truth is all that shit is but a fraction of what L.A. is. It is such a multicultural place, so many ethnicities, and cultures, and art and music and cool little working class communities. Such a great proximity to the mountains, the ocean, and the desert. Anyways, I'm not patriotic at all. I love the United States, I live there and there is so much beauty and freedom, but I dont care about it any more than I do about Botswana or Timbuktu if you know what I'm saying. I just love the divine energy that flows through all of us and everything, and as far as I can tell, the ratio of cool thoughtful people to selfish assholes is pretty similar everywhere I go, it crosses all ethnic, cultural, and economic boundaries.

I am addicted to the episodic television program 'Friday NIght LIghts'. It  really isnt that great, but there are parts of it that are great and I just cant stop watching it. I'll be hapy when I am done with it. Well., I;m gonna go hit the steets of Dublin a little bit and see what I can find.

Well, here's my first blog for our new website

Posted on November 03, 2011 by Flea

Well, here's my first blog for our new website. I have decided to use punctuation and capitals. No more internet jargon or lame abbreviations. No more psuedo poetic garbage from me! It took a while to get this website up, but here you have it. The inspiration for the look of the website came from the great artist Josef Albers work with color science. I know that none of it looks anything like Albers, but he was an inspiration nonetheless.

We have begun our world tour in earnest, and it has been amazing for us. The crowds have been phenomenal and I feel our new version of the Red Hot's getting better all the time, I believe that we are locking into something that can unleash the power of the GODZZZ. We have had some transcendant shows, and it feels like we are getting better everyday. I really love my bandmates alot, and feel so grateful to be doing what we are doing. The feeling of hope and potential for the future of our band is a vibrant and colorful one indeed.  I just wanna rock with the boys day in and day out, I haven't felt so inspired about the Red Hot Chili Peppers in quite some time, it feels like a new beginning and our energy is focused like a mofo.

I am deciding whether or not I should curse or not in the course of this blogging. My day to day language is full of foul mouthed base communications, but in the interest of promoting a higher level of speech I will refrain from profanity. Wait......let me try it....fuck fuck shit shit fuck fuck fuck shit, ahhh no that didnt sound good,  no more profanity and that's it.  We have a short break from tour right now, I am on a little

holiday and staring out to a beautiful river in the lovely town or Cork, Ireland right now. This town is beautiful, I truly love Ireland.

That's it for now.

Sending love to one and all (even mean people),

Flea