Flea Rig

Flea (Michael Peter Balzary) has been the Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist since 1983, mixing slap-funk, punk attack, and later melodic counterpoint. Through the late 1980s he toured Music Man StingRay basses and recorded Freaky Styley on one; in the studio for The Uplift Mofo Party Plan and Mother's Milk he used a Spector NS-2. Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) was tracked mostly on a translucent-blue Wal Mk II — a Music Man StingRay 5 only on a couple of songs — into Gallien-Krueger 800RB heads.

From Californication (1999) through the I'm With You and 2013–14 tours he lived on graphite-neck Modulus Flea Basses (Lane Poor pickup, Aguilar OBP-1, Badass bridge) into three Gallien-Krueger 2001RB heads and 410RBH/115 cabinets, with a Boss ODB-3 grinding “Around the World” and an Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron on “Sir Psycho Sexy.” Since Stadium Arcadium he has recorded on a 1961 Shell Pink Fender Jazz Bass, and after Modulus his stage instruments are Custom Shop Jazzes — the same circuit as the 2018 Flea Signature Active Jazz Bass. On Unlimited Love and the 2022–24 tours he swapped the long-running GK stack for Ampeg SVTs; the Fender Flea Jazz Bass in Road Worn Shell Pink is the signature still in production.