Flea’s solo album Honora was released last week and the Chili Pepper has given an interview to Apple 1’s Zane Lowe about it, his recent collaborations and the next Chili Peppers' album.
One of the highlights of the record is a cover of Wichita Lineman with a guesting Nick Cave. “I’ve been a huge fan of his forever,” Flea said. “He always gets right down to it. Initially, it [the track] was going to be an instrumental – I had no plans for anyone to sing on it.”
As he explains, he had originally had just a trumpet there for the top line. “(But) I was sitting back listening to it and I recalled the few times in my life I had conversed with Nick, we had spoken about Jimmy Webb.. and I just thought ‘Oh man, maybe Nick would want to sing on this?’"
"(So) I sent it to him, and he responded within a half hour, you know, ‘I’m leaving to go on tour in two days but I’ll try to get in the studio right away tomorrow and do it’. And he did and he was like ‘it’s my gift to you – take it.’”
"He recorded it right away. He sent it to me and I'm, like, sobbing… in tears, because it was so… I mean, he's a poet"
“He’s such a kind, soulful, heartbeat of a man,” the bassist summarised, revealing that when he heard Cave’s vocal he ended up sobbing. “He was in touch with the narrative of the story, in a soulful real way. You can tell – he feels every word. He is a very humane, in-touch person.
"When I spoke to him afterwards, I could tell it meant a lot to him to do it and he really cared about it. And that he saw the song itself as this infinitely powerful vehicle, and to inhabit that vehicle meant he had to really bring it. And he did.”
Another guest was Thom Yorke, who appears on the track Traffic Lights. “Again I had no intention of having any vocal on this song. I was sitting listening to it through the speakers, thinking ‘this is cool’ and then having the thought ‘I can’t wait to play this to Thom – he’s going to love this. This is right up his alley’, which segued to the next thought, which is ‘maybe Thom would want to sing on this?’ And he did. And he sang and it was beautiful and everything that Thom does.”
And the inevitable Chili Peppers' question? The band are “writing” according to Flea. “(We’re) getting together, putting songs together, feels really good, feels different. All I can say is that it’s different… really different,” he says, wondering if he’s already said too much. “We’re putting together music, and it feels beautiful.”
