Flea

My friend John lent me an old VCD of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea’s interview with River Phoenix titled “Flea: Adventures in Spontaneous”. It is supposed to be an instructional video on how to play bass the “Flea” way, but it’s obvious that Flea is not as fluent in English as he is in playing bass. His words are far, far off. He’s dishing out all these Hendrixian, 60’s flower power metaphysics about being “true” and “being in tune with the cosmic forces surrounding you” and all that stuff that obviously only a spaced out guy say. Well, it’s obvious that he’s spaced out because he’s always sniffing and scratching his nose as if there’s a living, feral booger inside his nostrils trying to claw its way out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m an avid fan of The Red Hot, and for me Flea is the Jimi Hendrix of bass. Both Jimi and Flea have something in common, and that is the ability to play their instruments while doing something else, like jumping up and down like a pogo stick while rotating their heads while singing while sticking out their tongues and etc.

But the real common denominator of these two guys is their spontaneity. There are technically better and more sophisticated instrumentalist than they are. But what made them great player is their natural playing and unpredictability.

My friend also lent me an instructional video by Dream Theater’s bassist John Myung but after watching Flea do his improvisations on a four stringed bass, I found Myung with his six string bass and his theories artificial and boring. Myung is a great technical bass player but he’s not Flea—raw passion and twilight zone.