Flea - Honora

After a nearly five-decade (and counting) career as one of his generation’s defining rock bassists, Flea releases his first full-length solo album, Honora, on Nonesuch Records.  Time and space have finally allowed him to return to his first musical loves: jazz and playing the trumpet.  The album features the track ‘Traffic Lights’, co-written with Thom Yorke and Josh Johnson, as well as the previously released ‘A Plea’.  Flea and the Honora band embark on an international tour, playing intimate venues in select cities, this May.

For Honora, which takes its name from a beloved family member, Flea composed and arranged the music, and also plays trumpet and bass throughout, joined by an elite crew of modern jazz visionaries: album producer and saxophonist Josh Johnson, guitarist Jeff Parker, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Deantoni Parks.  The record features vocals from Flea, as well as friends Thom Yorke and Nick Cave.  Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms for Peace) and Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes), among others, also join the band.  The album comprises six original songs – including one co-written by Flea, Johnson, and Yorke – as well as interpretations of tunes by George Clinton and Eddie Hazel, Jimmy Webb, Frank Ocean and Shea Taylor, and Ann Ronell.

“Deantoni and I played what became ‘Traffic Lights’ the first day,” Flea explains.  “Something about it reminded me of Atoms for Peace, so I sent it to Thom.  Just knowing him, I thought it would be a rhythm and a sensibility that he would relate to.  And I was right, he did.  With a gorgeous melody and the words, you know, about living in the ‘upside down’ and how do you make sense of things when we’re getting all this fake shit and real shit?  Everyone has their ways of dealing with the world.  But he’s just the warmest, free flowing, jamming motherf*cker.”

Best known as a founding member and bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flea was first introduced to live jazz as a child, when family friends played the music together in his own living room.  “It was the greatest thing I ever saw,” he recalls.  “The wildness, warmth and we of it.  Straight Bebop.  Boom.  I knew there were higher things on this earth, way above the pettiness that had left me disheartened.  The holy trifecta of my life, music, sports and nature was complete.”