I grew up with all these old jazz guys in the ’70s in L.A., and they grew up idolizing Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Lester Young – all of these incredible musicians. Flea Read Quote
All my career, all that I’ve really done has been based on emotion and intuition and gravitating toward what sounds good. Flea Read Quote
About 13-14 years ago, I went back to my alma mater, Fairfax High School, and ran into the music teacher. She invited me to come speak to the kids about the viability of a music career. When I went into the room where I used to play every day in a big orchestra, they had nothing! Flea Read Quote
We must improvise, and we must experiment, and we must do things that might go wrong, and everything we bring – the people and the equipment – must serve us in that goal. Flea Read Quote
Kids deserve arts, and it’s just as important as science, math, history, English or athletics. Flea Read Quote
Music is made up out of these building blocks. Studying how these blocks go together and what they consist of and the math of how it works – it’s all the same stuff; it’s just different aesthetics that we’re talking about. Flea Read Quote
The most important thing to me with any politician is that they don’t start wars, but education is a big part of that, too, because educated people are less likely to do stupid, violent things. Flea Read Quote
Turning 50 is a little bit of a ‘taking stock’ moment. I feel probably a little dumber. I don’t think I’m as sharp as I was when I was younger, but I’m definitely wiser and less likely to make gigantic blunders of an intellectual, spiritual, emotional or physical type. Flea Read Quote
A big part of my life is music education because it changed my life – but arts, academics and athletics should all be equally treated in the school. Flea Read Quote