Flea picks his ultimate fantasy group: “I’d play bass!”
Flea, the iconic bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is a crucial member of one of the most popular rock bands on the planet. However, when asked which musicians he’d include in his fantasy band lineup, he looks beyond his own group for his selections.
For plenty of people, he’d be one of the players they’d want in their own dream league. Like a game of fantasy football, Flea feels like a sure-fire scorer as he’s delivered no end of iconic basslines throughout his discography.
However, the musicality he brings to the group goes way beyond the classic rock rhythms. His basslines have always borrowed from a broad pool of influence, including blues and R&B but especially funk, as Flea brings the skill of slapping the bass to the rock world. On tracks like ‘Higher Ground’ or ‘Tippa My Tongue’, he’s more of a funk master than any typical rock band bassist, inspiring hoards of players ever since to widen their scope and consider styles beyond the ordinary.
So it makes sense that Flea dream band would be a cross-genre gaggle. He was never going to pick a standard lineup of a singer, rhythm and lead guitarists and a drummer to hold it down. Instead, in his deepest fantasies, Flea is playing amidst an absolute melting pot of musical heroes.
“if I was starting my own fantasy supergroup I would have Jimi Hendrix on guitar,” he begins. It’s a solid and understandable answer. Given the choice of any players from history, dead or alive, Hendrix would probably be choice on the majority of lips as he’s remembered as one of the more electrifying guitarists to ever live.
But then there’s an immediate wildcard as he requests “Billie Holiday on vocals”. There’s no denying that Holiday was an incredible talent and one of the finest singers to grace musical history. However, the combination of Holiday’s staggering jazz voice, paired with Hendrix’s frivolous riffs could be a unique combo that would either work perfectly, or descend into total chaos.
“I’d play bass, and I’d have Tony Allen on drums,” he continues. Throwing another genre into the mix, he picks out the famed afrobeat drummer who was the musical director of Fela Kuti’s band throughout the 1970s. Allen was once described by Brian Eno as “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived”, so the choice to have him in the fantasy lineup makes sense, as Flea seems determined to gather up the absolute titans of music. However, he’s also adding a whole other, vastly different texture as he now layers pure rock and roll, crooning jazz and the high energy of afro beats.
He’s still not done. “I would want to play some trumpet as well,” Flea said.
On top of all of that musical carnage, he also wants some brass. Specifically, he wants to play it as the trumpet was actually the instrument he grew up playing after becoming obsessed with it at an early age. Having eventually switched to bass, where he’s honed his skills, his trumpet playing can’t quite live up to legend status, but he’d still like to try. “I wouldn’t pick Clifford Brown,” he said, denying access to the jazz player as he argued, “he would hog the stage!”
So for Flea’s dream band, he’s putting together a rocking, jazz-led, afrobeat-powered outfit where he somehow switches between his bass guitar and a trumpet, all at once. No one ever said that the dream band had to be realistic, but perhaps this one should be kept firmly to his fantasies.
