Flea.

Michael Peter Balzary — Flea — was born in Melbourne in 1962 and co-founded Red Hot Chili Peppers in Los Angeles in 1983, where his slap-and-pop bass became one of the most recognizable sounds in rock. But the trumpet came first: he took up brass as a kid and only later learned bass, and that early instrument is at the center of his solo life.

For decades his own music stayed almost entirely inside the band. The 2012 EP Helen Burns was a rare solo outing; otherwise Flea poured his teaching energy into the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, the nonprofit community music school he co-founded in Los Angeles in 2001. In 2019 he published a memoir, Acid for the Children.

In 2026 he finally released a full debut album under his own name: Honora, a record built around his trumpet, bass and singing voice. It threads originals together with covers — a horn-led reading of Funkadelic's 'Maggot Brain', Jimmy Webb's 'Wichita Lineman' with Nick Cave, and 'Traffic Lights' with Thom Yorke among the guests.

For the first time, Flea is touring as a headliner in his own right — small halls and jazz stages rather than arenas, the loudest bassist in the world playing something quiet and searching.