Flea Australian Singer With 2.1M Instagram Followers

Early life

Flea was born Michael Peter Balzary on 16 October 1962 in Melbourne, Australia. When he was four, his family moved to Rye, New York, because his father had taken a post connected to the Australian consulate in New York. His parents separated in 1971, and he and his sister stayed with their mother, who later married a jazz musician. The family settled in Los Angeles, where Flea took up the trumpet and took private lessons. At that stage his heroes were jazz players rather than rock bands.

He picked up his nickname as a teenager and attended Fairfax High School. There he met Anthony Kiedis at the age of fifteen, and the two became close friends. Kiedis introduced him to punk, and the guitarist Hillel Slovak taught him to play bass. Flea played in the band Anthym, spent a period with the punk group Fear, and then joined Slovak, Kiedis and the drummer Jack Irons in a project that became Red Hot Chili Peppers. Decades later he returned to study at the USC Thornton School of Music, taking classes in music theory, composition and jazz trumpet.

Career

Flea is the bassist of Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band released its self-titled debut in August 1984, followed by Freaky Styley in 1985 and The Uplift Mofo Party Plan in 1987. Mother's Milk appeared in 1989, after which the group moved from EMI to Warner Bros. Records. Blood Sugar Sex Magik, released on 24 September 1991, was produced by Rick Rubin and sold more than seven million copies in the United States. One Hot Minute came out in 1995, and for that record Flea also wrote lyrics, including a song on which he sings. Californication followed in June 1999, By the Way in July 2002 and Stadium Arcadium in May 2006. The band later released I'm with You (2011), The Getaway (2016), and the albums Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen in 2022. The band's three shows in London's Hyde Park in 2002 drew a combined audience of more than 250,000.

Outside the band, Flea has worked with many artists. He joined a Jane's Addiction reunion tour in 1997, played on records by acts including Young MC, Alanis Morissette, Tom Waits and Bright Eyes, and became a member of Atoms for Peace, formed around Thom Yorke, which released the album Amok in 2013. He also took part in Rocket Juice & the Moon with Damon Albarn and Tony Allen, whose album appeared in March 2012. His first solo release, the largely instrumental Helen Burns, came out in July 2012, and he issued it to raise money for the Silverlake Conservatory of Music. His debut solo album, Honora, was released on Nonesuch Records on 27 March 2026 and features Thom Yorke and Nick Cave.

Flea has also built a screen career that began with the punk drama Suburbia in 1984. His credits include Thrashin' (1986), Dudes (1987), Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Part III (1990), where he played Douglas J. Needles, and My Own Private Idaho (1991). In 1998 he appeared in The Big Lebowski, as one of the nihilists, and in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Later films include Baby Driver (2017), in which he plays Eddie, Boy Erased (2018) and Babylon (2022). He voiced the character Jake in Pixar's Inside Out in 2015 and again in its 2024 sequel, and he played Vect Nokru in the 2022 series Obi-Wan Kenobi. In November 2019 he published a memoir of his early life, Acid for the Children.

Recognition

In April 2012 Red Hot Chili Peppers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2009 readers of Rolling Stone ranked Flea the second-best bassist of all time.

Public roles

In 2001 Flea co-founded the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, a non-profit school in Los Angeles that offers music education to young people, and he has continued to raise funds for it through projects and benefit concerts.

Personal life

Flea became a United States citizen as an adult. He is married to the fashion designer Melody Ehsani.