Michael Balzary was born on October 16th 1962 in Melbourne, Austrailia. His parents split up when he was still a toddler and his mother remarried in 1967 to jazz musician Walter Urban Jr. Michael, along with his mother Patricia, his stepfather and his older sister, Karen moved to New York around this time. Urban and his friends, who were mostly jazz musicians, heavily influenced young Michael's musical tastes and Michael picked up the trumpet aged nine. By the age of eleven he was a very competent player and was able to jam with his stepfather's friends. It was also when Michael was eleven that his family moved again - this time to California.
Michael Balzary was something of an oddity in his school days. He was a runty looking boy with a weird accent (part Austrailian, part New York) and he only listened to jazz and classical music. In fact, a young
Jack Irons decided to illustrate a rather nasty picture of
Michael and pass it round the class one day.
Michael met
Anthony Kiedis in Fairfax High School when he was fifteen... through a fight.
Michael had decided to beat up
Anthony's best friends at the time, a guy named
Tony Sherr. Of course, just as
Michael was bashing up this guy,
Anthony came rushing to his buddy's defence, demanding that
Michael leave
Tony alone or he'd have him to deal with (I'm sure he didn't put it quite so politely).
Michael complied immediately and decided to get himself into
Anthony Kiedis's good books because 'he looked like a lunatic'.
Anthony Kiedis was well known in the school for his wild antics and numerous sexual innuendos.
Michael Balzary, on the othe hand, was terrified of even asking a girl out on a date. But the two became tight buddies and with
Anthony's help,
Michael Balzary shed his innocence and learned to experiment with what life had to offer him. The pair got themselves into awful trouble at school, doing things that nobody else dared to do - for instance, they once rearranged the letters on a marquee in the school and made it proclaim that a teacher of theirs '
Don Platt sucks anus'.
Michael and Anthony had become friendly with Hillel Slovak and Jack Irons (yes the same one that had drawn the nasty picture). Hillel and Jack were buddies since Hillel's thirteenth birthday party and they were both learning musical instruments - the guitar and drums respectively. The foursome called themselves Los Faces and offered each other the support that they could, for different reasons, not get at home. Hillel and Jack started a band with two other friends, Alain Johannes (guitar) and Tom Strasman (bass). The band was called 'Chain Reaction'. But they didn't like their bassist and Hillel suggested to Michael that he take up bass so that he could do the job instead. Michael, who had been all set to become a jazz musician - the teachers marvelled at his trumpet skills - decided to do just that. He took just one formal bass lesson, thought himself the rest of the stuff he needed to know and joined Hillel, Jack and Alain. The band was now called 'Anthym'.
The nickname Michael Balzary is known by worldwide today came up on a ski trip he took with Anthony Kiedis and a friend called Keith Barry. They decided it would be fun to use nicknames and so Anthony became Swan, Keith became Tree and Michael became Flea (Mike B The Flea in full). The innocent Michael Balzary was no more. Instead there was Flea, who had hated his first punk rock show but had since grown to love punk rock, a young man who dared do things others would never even dream of doing, a young man who dabbled in drugs.
Anthym had changed its name again - it was now 'What Is It'. But Alain Johannes had his sights set on college and so after graduation, he left the band, who had been doing rather well on the local circuit. Flea joined a punk band called 'Fear'. But it was clear tha the would not suit this band - the style he loved to play, an in-your-face mixture of punk and funk was not what 'Fear' wanted. Still, he stayed with them.
Anthony Kiedis was becoming enthralled by the meaning and messages behind rap music. He had begun rapping his poems privately. But it wasn't until he was aked to do some weird opening act at a club that he revealed his new skill to Flea. And so 'Tony Flow And The Miraculously Majestic Masters Of Mayhem' performed for the forst time - Anthony on lead vocals, Hillel on guitar, Jack on drums and Flea on bass. They were a huge hit with their unique blend of sexy funk, punk and hard rock, tied together with Anthony's ninety-mile-a-minute vocals. Soon The Masters Of Mayhem were playing clubs all over L.A. But they needed a name change. Anthony came up with it - 'The Red Hot Chili Peppers'.
When the Chili Peppers were signed to EMI on the strength of their live peformances (where the infamous sock wearing came into play) though, it turned out that Anthony and Flea would be recording alone - Hillel and Jack were contractually barred from playing because they were signed to MCA with What Is It. So, Flea and Anthony brought in guitarist Jack Sherman and drummer Cliff Martinez. But the chemistry was nothing like what they had with Hillel and Jack and it shows on the self-titled debut album. Also, Flea and Anthony did not get on particularly well with the record's producer, Gang Of 4's guitarist Andy Gill. They even went so far as to present Gill with a shit in a pizza box... how charming. Anyway 'The Red Hot Chili Peppers' released in 1984, didn't do very well at all.
The Chili Peppers spent a long time touring behind the debut album and were building a small but loyal follwing because of their live performances since. But the relationship with Jack Irons was ripping at the seams. Flea and Anthony didn't like him. And soon enough, he was out of the band. Flea and Anthony set about getting Hillel Slovak back. And he came. He quit What Is It and rejoined the Chili Peppers for the recording of second album 'Freaky Styley' under producer, the legendary 'Dr Funkenstein' himslef, George Clinton. The album was released in 1985 and didn't do much better than its predecessor. The Chili Peppers again launched themselves into exhaustive touring. By this time, both Hillel and Anthony had developed heroin addictions though both claimed that were 'not slaves to the drug'.
The Chili Peppers were brought back to full strength when Jack Irons returned for the recording of third album 'The Uplift Mofo Party Plan'. This album released in 1987, captured the chemistry that the four had together and is definitely piece of work than the last two efforts. That raw chemistry and impenetrable friendship that the band was hatched from in the first place was back and they achieved more together than they ever could have with Jack Sherman and Cliff Martinez. When the record label sensed the hype around Uplift they sent the band off an extensive UK/European tour.
Hillel, though was falling rapidly into his own little world. He had his bandmates believing that he had the heroin under control, but it was becoming evident tha the had not. His guitar playing would often slip on nights when he was coming down off a fix or when he couldn't get one or when he and Anthony were going through one of their clean patches. It pained Flea to see his friends like this, but Hillel still had them convined there was nothing to worry about. Flea had experimented with drugs, but never become an addict and he, like everyone else around Hillel at the time, could not help but notice the guitarist's haunted state. But as he slowly accepted that Hillel, despite his reassurances, had not got his habit under control, Flea simply tried to ignore it. He feels bad about that now because he thinks maybe Hillel thought he was igonoring him and not just his habit. There was friction in the band now - spats about the drugs mostly. They were thinking of asking Hillel to leave, but they couldn't - he was their friend and he was sick - they had to stick by him. And still, it was Anthony, who never did anything to cover up his own addiction, that everyone was losing sleep over. His life seemed to revolve around scoring heroin wherever they went. Hillel kept his own addiction relatively private and this helped him to keep convincing people that he was fine.
After the UK/European tour behind Uplift, the band seperated to recuperate. Hillel Slovak was found dead alone in his apartment after a heroin overdose on June 27th 1988. He was twenty-six years old. Flea was shattered by Hillel's death and describes it as the most horrible thing that's ever happened to him. He was forced to stay in L.A. where he found reminders of Hillel everywhere he looked becuase his wife, Loesha was in the last stages of her pregnancy. Anthony, on the other hand, went AWOL. Neither Flea nor Jack Irons knew where he'd gone or whether he'd ever be back. The band was in a state of disarray. Flea and Jack were half-heartedly discussing hiring a new singer and guitarist, but Jack decided he couldn't continue in the band. He blamed the music industry for what had happened to Hillel, left the band, lay down his drumsticks and sunk into a severe depression. He suffered a severe mental breakdown and was hospitalised. He was resurrected by Joe Strummer and later went on the play with Pearl Jam for four years. And so it looked doubtful whether or not the Chili Peppers would - or more correctly could continue. Flea, alone, was left to hold the fort. The future looked extremely uncertain.
fleas my hero
Really gd! wen u doing part2
