Michael Balzary

Flea  (born Michael Balzary; 16 October 1962) is an Australian-American musician and actor best known as bassist and founding member of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers.  Flea briefly appeared as the bassist for such bands as What Is This?, Fear and Jane’s Addiction.  He has also performed with rock supergroups Atoms for Peace, Antemasque, Pigface, and Rocket Juice & the Moon.  Flea has also collaborated with artists including The Mars Volta, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Alanis Morissette, and Young MC.  In 2009, Rolling Stone readers ranked Flea the second best bassist of all time, behind only John Entwistle.  Flea has also acted in films such as Suburbia, Back to the Future Part II and Part III, My Own Private Idaho, The Chase, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thrashin’, Dudes, Son in Law, The Big Lebowski, Baby Driver, and Low Down.  Flea is the co-founder of Silverlake Conservatory of Music, a non-profit music education organization founded in 2001 for underprivileged children.  (More from Wikipedia)

 

Jack Irons and Alain Johannes were part of the coterie where the band Red Hot Chili Peppers was born.  RHCP founding members Hillel Slovak (guitar) and Jack Irons (drums) were in a high school band in Los Angeles that was eventually called What Is This?, along with Alain Johannes (vocals) and Todd Strassman (bass).  (The name is taken from the reaction they noticed by many people when they heard the band).  A third founding member of RHCP, Michael Balzary, better known as Flea was the bassist in What Is This? for a time, but he later joined the punk rock band Fear (and began making numerous appearances as an actor); also, Anthony Kiedis was serving as a roadie and “hype-man” for What Is This?. 

(April 2015/1)