The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.
— Flea
We were these arty punks from Hollywood. I considered myself an intellectual.
With acting, I always feel conscious of what I'm doing.
We always write way more than we put on a record. We always write a lot-lot.
I wanted to play in a band, and I wanted to do music for a living, and that's what I dedicated my life to.
For me it's the high-water mark of American culture - not so much contemporary jazz, which has become kind of academic, but the jazz from the '20s on through the '70s.
My father was out of my life when I was pretty young - when I was 7 years old, he was gone. I didn't see him for the rest of my childhood.
When you make music, you're forming these invisible vibrations in the air into different shapes and consistencies and speeds in order to create music, and understanding how the math of that works just gives you more colors to paint with, and allows you to get to what you want quicker.
For me, music was the only reason I went to school. I was kind of a street kid, in a lot of trouble committing crimes and stuff. Music gave me something to focus on.
Ethiopia is such a great country, beautiful place.
We were at the dark end of the L.A. punk scene, and that scene was full-on and violent and aggressive and wild and intense.
Before every show, we get into a circle, hold hands, and someone makes a speech. Most bands are too cool for that.
I like the idea of acting. Of all these things I've done, sometimes I think I've done well, and sometimes I think I didn't do well, but they are more cameos, and I come in and be crazy.
After running for a while, things really start to open up in your body. I felt like I'd tapped into parts of my body that I hadn't before. I let things in the universe flow through me that opened me up in a really cool way.
When something comes up, and it's interesting, and I have the time, I'll do it.
I was raised to think that rock was music for ignorant people who didn't think for themselves.
You teach your kids about your beliefs and tell them what you think is right and the conclusions that you've come to from living in the world, and then they can make their own decisions.
Running opened up something beautiful in my life. I try to send the energy all over my body. I love the feeling of it.
As a musician I'm about expressing what's inside, and I think everyone has a song in them that they need to get out, whatever their gig is.
I went to school and studied music for a year at USC, which unlocked a bunch of doors for me in terms of my relationship to music.
We must improvise, and we must experiment, and we must do things that might go wrong, and everything we bring - the people and the equipment - must serve us in that goal.
I grew up with all these old jazz guys in the '70s in L.A., and they grew up idolizing Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Lester Young - all of these incredible musicians.
The quality of instruction is very high at the Silverlake Conservatory of Music. It's not about being a rock star. It's about the fundamentals of music, theory and technique on a particular instrument, and playing in an ensemble or private setting.
I studied chord theory and started playing the piano.
Being a dad and being in the Red Hot Chili Peppers and all the stuff I have to do... The trumpet requires a lot of diligence, and I haven't had the time.
I got my love of jazz from my stepfather, who was a jazz musician.
If you live a rebellious lifestyle, then you rebel against things because they go against your ideals and the integrity of who you are as a person.
Music gave me something that was not only good for me - it gave me something to work on, something to be proud of and something that I really loved and have a love for - but also music was good for other people because you put joy into the world.
All I knew about Ethiopia was from a few records that I like, as well as what I read about the famine. But you get there and it's another world. It's filled with art and music and poetry and intellectuals and writers - all kinds of people.
