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• Longer bio of Flea
• Red Hot Chili Peppers official site
• Silverlake Conservatory Of Music official site

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Tavis: It's hard to believe that Flea and his groundbreaking band the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been around for 20 years now. The band continues to perform and record, of course, but Flea also has time these days for another personal passion. He's the cofounder of the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, a music school aimed at increasing music education and awareness for young people here in Los Angeles. Flea, nice to see you.

Flea: Nice to see you, Tavis.

Tavis: Glad to have you on, man.

Flea: I'm very happy to be here.

Tavis: Let me start--I wanna see if John Lee can zoom in on this just a little bit. Don't move. Stay still there. You have a lapel pin here, and they really can't--it's a little, eh-there you go. A little bit better. You have a lapel pin here that features one of my favorites, John Coltrane.

Flea: Yeah, this is the great John Coltrane, and actually this button was given to me by the great Mike Watt. I don't know if you know who Mike Watt is, but he's a great bass player. But anyways, yeah, Coltrane. I grewup loving Coltrane, and I kind of see him as, you know, a great sage of our time, of our-- well, I guess he's before my generation, but a great, youknow, intellectual, important American.

Tavis: How'd you grow up with such eclectic music taste in Los Angeles?

Flea: Well, my stepfather was a jazz musician, and I was raised on jazz. I was brought up on bebop. You know, he played hard bop. That was his main thing. And that's just what I grew up around, and as time has gone by it's clear to me that, you know, jazz--music--but jazz in particular--is really the great gift that America has given to the world. You know, I see that as being sort of the cultural high of America. You know, I mean, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally--

Tavis: You know, what's fascinating about that for me is that, particularly as an African-American, jazz--as you know--is the only music form that Americans have ever given to the world--to your brilliant point--and particularly African-Americans. But what bothers me about that is that I think as Americans we don't appreciate and embrace jazz as an art form in the way that we should, and it's particularly painful for me to see that black folk don't embrace jazz the way we should.

Flea: Right. Well, I mean, that anyone wouldn't embrace it is absurd, and especially during a time like in the Fifties and the early Sixties when the great bebop was happening and it was really at its pinnacle. You know, you had Bud Powell and Hank Mobley and Lee Morgan and--I mean, these guys were geniuses--Kenny Dorham--and they had to go over to Europe to get any sort of recognition or any sort of--to feel some sort of comfort in their lifestyle, like, not, like, scrapping for meals, basically. I don't know if you ever saw that Charlie Mingus film. He's getting thrown out of his house onto the street, and the guy's one of the great composers in music history. But it is a shame for it not to be recognized, not to be taught in schools, and not to be given the--even from an academic standpoint, the respect that it deserves, let alone popular consumption.

Tavis: Everybody knows you as the brilliant bassist of course for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but what a lot of people don't know is that you didn't grow up playing the bass first. You grew up as a trumpet player.

Flea: Yeah, well, I wanted to be Dizzy Gillespie when I grew up.

Flea: Yeah. I actually, uh--

Tavis: Can you blow those jaws up like Dizzy does?

Flea: Well, his whole neck--

Tavis: His whole neck, exactly.

Flea: Like a bullfrog. But I actually had a great Dizzy Gillespie experience when I was a kid. My mom took me to see him perform at Royce Hall at UCLA, and I said--he was getting ready to go on--I said, "Mom, I gotta go to the bathroom," but instead I ran and snuck backstage, and I ran in, and I saw Dizzy standing in the wings holding his horn, getting ready to go on, and I-I was 11 years old, I think, maybe 12--and I ran up to him, and I--"Mr. Gillespie, I--I--Dizzy, I--I--" I just couldn't talk. I was frozen in awe, you know? It was my hero standing right there. He was standing in the wings talking to someone and he just sort of put his arm around me and held me real tight for, like, 10 minutes. He was just talking to someone and he just held me, and then right before he went on, he just kinda let me go, gave me a rub on the head, and went on. And I was just, you know, standing there with my head in his armpit.

Tavis: Well, the talent rubbed off 'cause you're doing your thing.

Flea: Well, I don't know about that, but it was a great experience.

Tavis: You are giving, providing for a lot of young folk in the greater L.A. area, an experience of a lifetime as well, and that is the experience to really understand, appreciate, and embrace music at a young age through your Silverlake Conservatory of Music. Tell me about the school. Tell me about the school first.

Flea: Well, the Silverlake Conservatory of Music is a school that I started with a friend of mine named Keith Barry, who's a teacher and a great multi-instrumentalist, and he's the Dean of the school. And we basically just wanted to fill the void in music education in the city where we grew up. We went to public schools together in Los Angeles and we played together--and always, you know, the jazz band, the band, the orchestra, the marching band, whatever we could do, you know? 'Cause it was our thing. And honestly, for me personally, if I didn't have that outlet in public schools, I would've been a complete delinquent, 'cause I was already--I was on the street, I was up to mischievous things. I wasn't really being an honor student or a real good kid in a lot of ways, and having that touchstone school was the thing kept me--had something to be focused on and kept me sane and was really important in my growth as an individual and growing up to be OK, you know? And I know there are a lot of kids like me, and when I graduated high school in 1980, they passed Proposition 13 and they cut out all the arts programs, all the music in L.A. public schools, which is a crime, which is absurd. And, um, so I just always had it in the back of my head that if I ever had the money to do it, I would start a music school. And I had the money, so I did it.

Tavis: It's not just in L.A., but, indeed, across the country, as our educational system has devalued whatever it is that music provides. And what's fascinating for me, as you well know, is I've seen any number of studies that suggest how much better off kids are, in terms of their intellectual development, if they give music a try, so to speak. And I know you've seen the same studies.

Flea: Well, yeah, of course. And I think for kids to study music--for one thing, it helps the other part of their brain develop, too, so they do better in everything, you know, math or whatever they choose to study, whatever academic things. But it's also--it gives--and if someone's really into it, it gives them a sense of self and it gives them a confidence and it gives them a way to relate to other people on a higher level than, you know--not such a base level that life can get into, which can be depressing.

Tavis: We're all gifted. We're all gifted in uniquely different ways. For one who has not been gifted by God in the musical genre, what does being exposed to music do for that particular child?

Flea: It gives them a richer life. It gives them a deeper, more meaningful life and a greater sense of being a human being or being a kind and compassionate person. And I just think--and especially today, in this day and age, where we have a government that is doing its best to keep people in fear so they can manipulate them for their, you know, corporate interests--they have no arts and no opportunities for kids to grow in that way and to grow creatively and to just be the best people that they can. It's a crying shame, you know? So, anyway, in this little way, we can help with our conservatory, and it's been--it's just a beautiful place. Every time I walk in the door, it gives me such a meaningful feeling. The kids love it. Everyone loves it.

Tavis: Tell me about what happens inside the building. How do classes work? Tell me about the program?

Flea: It's mostly private instruction and, you know, we cover all the instruments, all the orchestral and band instruments, and there's group classes as well. You know, there's a funk class and there's, uh, you know, a real little, like, kinda toddlers' class, like music theater, and it's mostly private instruction.

Tavis: Do you teach?

Flea: I do teach. I have a trumpet student and a bass student, and they're both outstanding kids.

Tavis: How do you--how does the school decide who gets admitted, who gets a chance to be a part of the program?

Flea: Anyone gets admitted. It's not a conservatory in a traditional sense that you have to pass an exam. Anyone that wants to learn can come. And we also--if you can't afford it, you should come, too, because we give out scholarships if you can't afford it. But it's very reasonable. It's usually-you know, it's private instruction. A lesson is 20 bucks, so it's--

Tavis: Knowing you, you've got, obviously, a good ear. You know when you run into a kid who has the gift, um, how--what's your process? When you hear, when you see, how do you know that this kid is here and that they're gonna learn, they're gonna grow, their lives are gonna be-their life is gonna be enriched by the experience, but this kid over here has it. When you hear that or when you see it, how do you know that "it" when you see it?

Flea: Well, you can feel a kid that's just not gonna be denied. They wanna play--I have a trumpet student. Every time he picks up his horn, he is so determined to play a beautiful note that nothing is gonna stop him. He has to do it. And that's a beautiful thing to see. But at the same time, even a kid that's not necessarily gonna be a musician--they deserve as much attention as the kid who's completely self-motivated and obviously, if he chooses to, has a career in music. I mean, sometimes the kids that aren't as inspired or aren't even as likely to take to a lesson that really need the most, you know, you have to give the most to.

Tavis: You have a daughter.

Flea: I do have a 15-year-old daughter. She's she's a rockin' drummer.

Tavis: She's--ha ha ha ha! Not just a drummer. A rockin' drummer!

Flea: She's like--she's like Clyde Stubblefield. She's good.

Tavis: How did that happen. Out of all the instruments, how did your daughter end up playing the drums?

Flea: You know, I was just playing the bass one day, sitting in a room, and she just walked in and sat down at the drums and started doing it. Never done it before. She just came in and-- and now she has lessons and she's, you know, going for it.

Tavis: That's amazing. How do you...how do you talk to her, or do you talk to her yet about the business? Or are you letting her just enjoy this experience, because I know that you've got a wealth of information to share with her if in fact she decides she wants to be a Sheila E or be a rockin' drummer one day.

Flea: Right. Well, as a father, my attitude towards her is that she can do whatever she wants as long as she doesn't hurt herself or hurt anybody else. But as a musician and the music business, I always feel like the business shouldn't really be a concern. If the business is your concern, go be a record company guy. I think you should--and I really think it's unhealthy for music these days, especially in the pop music world and the rock world and hip hop world-- everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. Everybody wants to have a record company and a clothing line and this and that. It's like, come on, focus on music. This is a deep art that's continually amazing and there's so many layers of mystery to be unraveled and great things to do, and you're gonna worry about a clothing line? That's not exciting to me.

Tavis: I hear your thoughts now very clearly on how artists have changed over the years. For 20 years you've been in the business. How has the business changed since you've been in it?

Flea: Well, it's become--I mean, especially recently with the internet and the way that the record companies are having to look at it in a different way. It's changing. It's changing because they can't control it as much anymore. The corporations aren't as in charge as they were, and I don't know if that's good or bad or not, but I'm not really that concerned with it. The music business-business people are always gonna be trying to make money, you know, and I just... I just wanna play good music.

Tavis: With so many interests and one of them being, of course, wanting to play good music, how do you balance your schedule? How do you figure out when you're gonna be at the conservatory, when you're gonna be on tour, when you're gonna be in the studio, when you're gonna be giving your private lessons, when you're gonna be helping your daughter learning how to play the d--how do you figure all this out?

Flea: Well, I mean, all the things that there are in life, I just try to wake up every day and have the attitude that I'm very grateful for, you know, not being in jail or being in a hospital sucking in breath, you know? And to be the most giving person I can in every situation that presents itself and try to use each situation to its highest purpose, you know? That's all I can do.

Tavis: Just got a few seconds left, so, uh, what's up with the Peppers?

Flea: Uh, the Peppers, we're going to play in June in Europe. We've been taking a few months off 'cause we finished an 18-month tour. And we had been going for about 5 years so hard. So we took a little time off, and next month we'll start rehearsing and do this tour. And we have a bunch of music in the can and we'll see what's up.

Tavis: Flea, nice to meet you.

Flea: So nice to meet you, too.

Tavis: We appreciate all the work you're doing.

Flea: Thanks for having me.

Tavis: My pleasure, man. Flea, of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That's our show for tonight. How's that? Only on PBS-Gwen Ifill and Flea on the same show. I love this gig. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR, National Public Radio. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, thanks for watching. Good night from Los Angeles. Keep the faith.