Latest news with #Flea
USA Today
a day ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea recalls a special Kobe Bryant memory
Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea recalls a special Kobe Bryant memory Flea, the great bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, isn't just one of the Los Angeles Lakers' most famous fans — he's also one of their most devoted fans. He has followed the team for over 40 years, and through all the ups and downs, his loyalty has never wavered. He first fell in love with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and the Showtime Lakers, but years later, he found a new superstar to back when the franchise traded for the draft rights to a 17-year-old named Kobe Bryant in 1996. Bryant played all 20 seasons of his legendary career with the Lakers and drove them to five NBA championships while elevating their legacy and fame to even greater heights. In an interview with Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson, Flea recalled a special memory involving him and the late Hall of Famer before a big playoff game. Via Lakers Daily: 'I think it was the Western Conference Finals against the Spurs and I did the anthem and I was in hallway in the back waiting to do the anthem and he came out and I knew when he came out, but I knew he had the game face on, like serious, you know what I mean?' he said. Bryant was famous for his iron-clad focus, intensity and will to win. But he still made some time to acknowledge the famous musician. 'He went out of his way to come over and say hello and I really appreciated that, you know? Because he knew my energy was dedicated.' Bryant died in a tragic helicopter crash along with his daughter Gianna and seven others in January 2020. But fans from all walks of life will never forget the memories he provided and the special touch he had with people.
USA Today
a day ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea: LeBron James could be the G.O.A.T.
Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea: LeBron James could be the G.O.A.T. Given their proximity to Hollywood, the Los Angeles Lakers have plenty of famous fans. People such as actor Jack Nicholson have been regular attendees at Lakers games for decades and have lived and died with the team through thick and thin. Flea, the bassist of the legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers, is another well-known fan of the Purple and Gold who can often be seen at their games. He has been a fervent fan for decades, going back to the days when he and his bandmates were relative unknowns and were looking to break out. In an interview with Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson, he talked about how he first became a Lakers fan back in the day. Via Lakers Daily: 'My mom took me in '75 to a Lakers game right when they got Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], and we're up in the nosebleeds in The Forum watching Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and I just fell in love with him,' Flea recalls. 'And I'd start seeing in the newspapers different things he would say and things he would do; and it was just that hook shot and the way that he moved and the goggles. … He was just this extraterrestrial being, you know?' That love carried over into the team's flagship Showtime era in the 1980s. 'Those Showtime Lakers: Magic [Johnson] and Kareem and then they have Michael Cooper and Byron Scott and Mychal Thompson. … That whole team was so beautiful to me. Magic Johnson would run the fast break and just…didn't know what was going to happen. I'm telling you man, it was thrilling! You couldn't take your eyes off them.' Through all the ups and downs that have occurred over the last three decades, Flea has remained loyal to the Lakers. While he still holds a special place in his heart for Johnson, he acknowledges that LeBron James is an incredible player in his own right. 'No I don't. They're both phenomenal players. Grant Hill was great. LeBron could be the greatest player of all time. It's just different though. It's that fast break with Magic — he passed BEHIND his head! And it wasn't just to be fancy, he did it because he KNEW it was going to work and no one knew it was coming, you know?' To him, Johnson was simply a one-of-a-kind player and perfect for Showtime. 'Magic was a 6'9' point guard with eyes in the back of his head who could do it ALL. Now LeBron might be the most similar in terms of the size and all the abilities and I think LeBron has grown to be a better shooter than Magic but not like that. Not the fast break.' Flea, whose real name is Michael Balzary, has been the Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist since it formed in 1982. He told Robinson that he hasn't missed a Lakers game since the early 1980s.
CBS News
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Pittsburgh concert promoter Rich Engler selling his impressive rock and roll memorabilia collection
In a room somewhere in western Pennsylvania, concert promoter Rich Engler's treasures are on display. Engler's collection numbers 235-plus guitars and 800 pieces of memorabilia, all signed by a who's who of rock and roll, country and blues history. Like a rock and roll guitar hall of fame, the items are housed in an expansive series of rooms. Artists from all across the music spectrum are represented. The instruments are signed by the likes of Merle Haggard, Garth Brooks, Phil Collins, Coldplay, ZZ Top, Little Richard, B.B. King, Joe Cocker and Toby Keith — to name a few. Electric, acoustic, bass, twelve-string guitars and even Kenny G's soprano saxophone were all collected from the over 6,000 concerts and shows Rich Engler promoted. (Photo: KDKA) In addition to the instruments, Engler and his wife Cindy gathered an eclectic collection to include Willie Nelson, Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, and Charlie Daniels' hats, as well as 12 platinum and gold records. There's also something special from the Red Hot Chilli peppers bass player, Flea. It's his on-stage costume, aka a pair of white underwear. Engler putting collection up for sale All of it can be yours, if the price is right. "The plan is that they're all going to be on sale in two separate sales. I'm going to sell all the guitars at one time and all the memorabilia at one time," Engler said. Why is Engler putting the collection up for sale? "It's time. It's time. I think this has become my collection, but what it really is, is it's an attraction," Engler said. Some of Engler's favorite items are from an eccentric kid from the Brixton section of London whom Engler introduced to Pittsburgh a long time ago: David Bowie. The Thin White Duke's guitar isn't the only item in Engler's heart. Wearing an outfit that drips with the vibe of rock and roll, the 79-year-old Engler said, "You have to say Bob Dylan. I mean, Bob Dylan doesn't hardly ever sign anything." Each item has a story Each item has a story behind it, as Engler put it. "There've been some shaky moments where you couldn't get the artist on or you couldn't wake them up." According to Engler, one time Aerosmith trashed some RVs they were using as dressing rooms while opening for ZZ Top's World Wide Texas Tour in the mid-1970s. Engler says the Bad Boys from Boston ripped up the Winnebagos because they wanted dark blue towels, and the ones inside the units were light blue. Engler chalked it up to Aerosmith being Aerosmith. And while he'll be somewhat sad to say goodbye to all of this, he says he can't complain. After all, most people will tell you that Rich Engler has been, and still is, the heart of rock and roll in Pittsburgh. With a smile on his face, he'll tell you, "I never really worked a day in my life. It was very enjoyable." For more information on the sale, click here.
Los Angeles Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Why David Fincher turned the Red Hot Chili Peppers into string puppets
Chad Smith remembers the night in 2003 when the Red Hot Chili Peppers played for an audience of 80,000 or so amid the rolling hills of the Irish countryside. After a somewhat fallow period in the mid-'90s, the veteran Los Angeles alt-rock band resurged with 1999's eight-times-platinum 'Californication' and its 2002 follow-up, 'By the Way,' which spawned the chart-topping single 'Can't Stop.' To mark the moment, the Chili Peppers brought a crew to document their performance at Slane Castle, where they headlined a full day of music that also included sets by Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, for an eventual concert movie. 'Everything's filmed now, but back then it was a big shoot,' Smith, the band's drummer, recently recalled. 'You can get a little self-conscious. At the beginning, I f— something up — nothing nobody would know, but we would know — and Flea kind of looked at me,' he said of the Chili Peppers' bassist. 'We gave each other this 'Oh s—' look. We laughed it off, and I don't think I thought about it after that because the crowd was so engaged. The energy was incredible.' Twenty-two years later, the Chili Peppers are bringing that 2003 gig to screens again — only this time they're string puppets. 'Can't Stop' is director David Fincher's re-creation of the band's rendition of that tune at Slane Castle. Part of the just-released fourth season of the Emmy-winning Netflix anthology series 'Love, Death + Robots,' the animated short film depicts the Chili Peppers — Smith, Flea, singer Anthony Kiedis and guitarist John Frusciante — as dangling marionettes onstage before a veritable sea of the same. As the band rides the song's slinky punk-funk groove, we see Flea bust out some of his signature moves and Kiedis swipe a fan's cellphone for a selfie; at one point, a group of women in the crowd even flash their breasts at the frontman. The puppets aren't real — the entire six-minute episode was computer-generated. But the way they move looks astoundingly lifelike, not least when one fan's lighter accidentally sets another fan's wires on fire. So why did Fincher, the A-list filmmaker behind 'Fight Club' and 'The Social Network,' put his considerable resources to work to make 'Can't Stop'? 'A perfectly reasonable inquiry,' the director said with a laugh. 'First and foremost, I'll say I've always wanted a Flea bobblehead — it started with that. But really, you know, sometimes there's just stuff you want to see.' Fincher, 62, grew up loving Gerry Anderson's 'Thunderbirds' series featuring his so-called Supermarionation style of puppetry enhanced by electronics. But the Chili Peppers project also represents a return to Fincher's roots in music video: Before he made his feature debut with 1992's 'Alien 3,' he directed era-defining clips including Paula Abdul's 'Straight Up,' Madonna's 'Express Yourself' and 'Vogue' and George Michael's 'Freedom! '90.' (Fincher's last big music video gig was Justin Timberlake's 'Suit & Tie' in 2013.) In addition to 'Thunderbirds,' he wanted 'Can't Stop' to evoke the '80s work of early MTV auteurs like Wayne Isham and Russell Mulcahy — 'that throw 24 cameras at Duran Duran aesthetic,' as he put it. Fincher said he knew his puppet concept would require 'a band you can identify just from their movement,' which seems like a fair way to describe the Chili Peppers. He recalled first encountering the band around 1983 — 'I think it was with Martha Davis at the Palladium?' he said — and was struck by a sense of mischief that reminded him of the 'elfin villains' from the old Rankin/Bass TV specials. 'I feel like Finch got the spirit of me,' said Flea, 62, who's known the director socially for years. The bassist remembered discussing 'Can't Stop' with Fincher at a mutual friend's house before they shot it: 'I was talking about how I still jump around onstage and my body still works really good. But I used to dive and do a somersault while I was playing bass — like dive onto my head. And now I'm scared to do it.' He laughed. 'Some old man thing had happened where I'm scared to dive onto my face now. Finch went, 'Well, Puppet Flea can do it.'' After doing a day of motion capture with the band at a studio in the Valley, Fincher and a crew of animators from Culver City's Blur Studio spent about 13 months working on 'Can't Stop.' Fincher said the hard part was giving the marionettes a feeling of suspension. 'With the mo cap, you're capturing the action of a character who has self-determination,' he said, referring to a human Chili Pepper, 'then you're applying that to an object that has no self-determination,' meaning a puppet controlled by an unseen handler. 'It's so much trickier than it looks. But that was kind of the fun, you know? I mean, not for me,' he added with a laugh. Asked if the production involved any use of AI, Fincher said it didn't. 'It's Blur — it's a point of pride for them,' he said. But he also shrugged off the idea that that question has become a kind of purity test for filmmakers. 'For the next couple of months, maybe it'll be an interesting sort of gotcha,' he said. 'But I can't imagine 10 years from now that people will have the same [view]. Nonlinear editing changed the world for about six weeks, and then we all took it for granted. 'I don't look at it as necessarily cheating at this point,' he continued. 'I think there are a lot of things that AI can do — matte edges and roto work and that kind of stuff. I don't think that's going to fundamentally ruin what is intimate and personal about filmmaking, which is that we're playing dress-up and hoping not to be caught out.' As he reportedly works on an English-language version of 'Squid Game' and a sequel to Quentin Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,' did making 'Can't Stop' lead Fincher to ponder the state of the music video now that MTV is no longer in the business of showcasing the form? 'Well, the audience that MTV aggregated — in retrospect, that was time and a place,' he said. 'Remember, the Beatles were making music videos — they just called it 'Help!' There was no invention at all on MTV's part. 'What I do miss about that — and I don't think we'll ever see it again — was that I was 22 years old and I would sketch on a napkin: This is kind of the idea of what we want to do. And four days later, $125,000 would be sent to the company that you were working with and you'd go off and make a video. You'd shoot the thing in a week, and then it would be on the air three weeks after that. 'You make a television commercial now and there's quite literally 19 people in folding chairs, all with their own 100-inch monitor in the back. The world has changed.' He laughed. 'I started my professional career asking for forgiveness rather than permission, and it's been very difficult to go the other direction.'
San Francisco Chronicle
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Bay Area radio station petitions for return of Red Hot Chili Peppers' NSFW ‘junk socks'
Bay Area alternative rock station Live 105 has launched a petition urging the Red Hot Chili Peppers to once again strip down onstage in nothing but 'strategically placed socks.' A callback to the Los Angeles rock band's early days, during which they performed onstage nearly naked wearing nothing but white tube socks over their genitals, the effort is being spearheaded by the station's morning show host Marci Wiser. 'Sign this petition and let the Peppers know that we, the fans, demand a nostalgic nod to their most iconic (and arguably most exposed) era,' she wrote on where the petition was posted Wednesday, May 14. 'Whether they opt for the classic single sock, the daring double-sock, or perhaps even a festive holiday-themed sock for special occasions, the message is clear: Bring Back the Junk Socks!' The petition does not state in what capacity Wiser wants the band to wear socks, but the Chronicle has reached out to Live 105 for comment. As of Wednesday afternoon, the petition has 13 signatures. Red Hot Chili Peppers — whose current lineup consists of frontman Anthony Kiedis, guitarist John Frusciante, drummer Chad Smith and bassist Flea — retired the schtick in the early 2000s but originally became known for their racy, sock-clad ensembles when they were on the rise in the 1980s and '90s. While the 'Californiacation' band is still active, they now perform fully clothed. Kiedis is set to make an appearance at BottleRock Napa Valley 's William Sonoma Culinary Stage over Memorial Day weekend, and only time will tell if Live 105's petition will make any impact on his festival attire. 'Frankly, in these trying times, a glimpse of Anthony's sock-clad… ahem… lower extremities would be more therapeutic than a truckload of mindfulness apps,' Wiser wrote. 'It's a reminder that life can be absurd, hilarious, and gloriously uninhibited. It's the punk rock equivalent of a giggle fit.' Flea reflected on the impact of the stunt during a 2019 interview with GQ, nearly two decades after the band gave it up, revealing that while it was a fun move in the '90s, it has also felt like it's held them back. 'We put socks on our dicks, and we're never going to outrun it,' he said. 'People are always going to think of that. … I've often felt misunderstood by people who don't know me and assume that I'm just a raving lunatic or shirtless dumbo jumping around slapping a bass.' Nonetheless, the move seems to still be cherished among fans like Wiser, who are fiending for another glimpse. 'Let's make this happen,' Wiser wrote. 'For the sake of laughter. For the sake of nostalgia. For the sake of seeing Flea try to play bass while simultaneously trying to keep the sock on.'
