Red Hot Chili Peppers – Biographies

Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary – trivia

• Flea was once a member of the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic Orchestra, he played the trumpet.
• Flea has many tattoos all over his body.
• He and Kurt Cobain (as well as other members of Nirvana) were bound by a friendly relationship since the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana had been touring together in the early 1990s. He even played the trumpet on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at one of their shows.
• Flea’s favorite basketball team are the Los Angeles Lakers.
• Flea along with his band have been featured on Pretty Woman, Coneheads, Beavis and Butt-head Do America and Wayne’s World movies soundtracks.
• The night River Phoenix died, his good friend Michael “Flea” Balzary rode in the ambulance with him.
• Flea with his band The Red Hot Chili Peppers Guest Starred on an episode of The Simpsons titled “Krusty Gets Kancelled”.
• Bass guitarist Flea is one of the only two original members of The Red Hot Chili Peppers. The other is Lead singer Anthony Kiedis.
• Michael “Flea” Balzary voices the Donnie Thornberry character on the Animation TV show The Wild Thornberrys.
• The nickname Flea comes from a joke he had with some of his high school friends. At some point they decided to call each other with a cartoon name, and finally “Flea” remained as the name by which all of his friends were calling him. His friend from junior high, Keith Barry, who played saxophone with the Red Hot Chili Peppers during the Mother’s Milk tour in 1989-90, also got his nickname “Tree” the same way.
• Played bass in the punk rock band, Fear, from 1982 to 1984.
• Firm supporter of art conservatory schools. As stated in a radio interview, he reached out to the public to donate money to these schools due to budget cuts.
• Known for his role as Needles in the Back to the Future sequels.