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Michael Peter Balzary, or Flea as he’s better known is the bass player with the rock band “The Red Hot Chili Peppers” and has one of the most recognizable bass sounds in modern rock. To understand how he gets such a monster tone – we’ll break his playing down into his inspirations, his technique and his gear. Firstly a little about the man himself.

Born in 1962, Flea played a variety of instruments starting out with the drums (aged 9!) and moving onto the trumpet later featuring in the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic Orchestra. With a burgeoning interest in Jazz – Flea started playing the bass aged 17.

Flea is renowned for his improvisational style and a lot of this comes from his love of jazz. Listening to his stepfather’s jazz band he became embroiled in the jazz greats from the likes of Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman. His other influences come from the world of Funk and Punk – there are two points to note here – first the approach - greats like Bootsy Collins and Larry Graham were renowned for great grooves and their influence is apparent in Flea - secondly Punk – Flea has an incredible ferocity in his playing – a lot of this is driven from his technique – his approach is un-relentlessly hard and fast.

A lot of the speed comes from a combination of his slapping technique and the speed of his fretting hand – with hammer ons and pulloffs– when playing funk groves – on close inspection of his style his use of fingers becomes apparent – positioned close to the bridge when plucking and placing the hand just off the neck when slapping using it as a percussive technique to drive the rhythm section. However it’s not all drive and funk Flea can also be really melodic and produce some really challenging bass lines with effective use of drone sounds and full use of the fretboard. Rarely Flea also plays with a pick.

Over the years Flea has used a variety of gear. Guitar wise these have varied from Fender Basses (predominantly Fender Jazz Basses), Ernie Ball Stingray’s, Alembic and Modulus – who have produced a signature guitar. The Modulus signature is an interesting insight into his needs – ultra-strong carbon fiber neck – contoured body – Bartolni active pickup system – all this produces a solid tone but with enough strength to put up with his playing style.

Flea also uses a range of effects – a swift look at his live rig reveals some overdrive, envelope filters among a small number of pedals. Like many artists there are subtle changes between songs and effects come in and out of the sound depending on what’s needed. Amplifier wise he’s used Gallien Krueger heads and cabs for a while and they form the center piece to his live setup.

So there we have it – but as with all masters of their art – it’s not only in the gear or the technique but in the touch – that indefinable x factor that makes someone a true great – and that’s Flea – bags of tone, style and drive oh and the odd tattoo!

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