Atwood Magazine’s writers dive into Flea’s soulful and exploratory debut solo album ‘Honora,’ a jazz-rooted labor of love that opens a new path for the Red Hot Chili Peppers icon – unpacking its fusion of old and new sounds, its impassioned pleas for peace, love, and creative connection, and the ways it reframes Flea’s legacy beyond the bass lines that made him a rock legend.

Featured here are Atwood writers Adam Davidson, Jason Bauer, Jonah Evans, and Josh Weiner!

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To start, what is your relationship with Flea’s music?

Jason: The first day in March that the sun starts to peek out from the clouds I roll down my windows and throw on some Red Hot Chili Peppers (with a little Sublime sprinkled in for good measure) during my commute to school. The Chili Peppers music will always be a sunny hit of nostalgia, bringing me back to the back seat of my dad’s old Ford Explorer, as the bass of Californiacation echoed on repeat. One of his hands would be pounding the steering wheel as the other covered the screen so I could guess the band. I never needed more than the first ten seconds to get it right, because I could feel the bass rattling the seat beneath me, and the heart and soul of any good song is always in the bass. Flea to me was always an undersung hero, anchoring the soundtracks of my childhood without me fully realizing. Now, with his stellar debut album, I get the opportunity to appreciate him for both his past contributions to the Alt-rock landscape, as well as his experimental and heartfelt present.

Josh: I was about to say that I first discovered Flea alongside the Red Hot Chili Peppers 20 years ago– but I guess I knew about him even earlier than that as a kid, thanks to his brief roles in Back to the Future Parts II and III! Anyways, I remember that “Dani California” was the first RHCP song I ever encountered, as an 8th grader back in 2006. I’ve remained a fan of the band ever since and I have been lucky enough to see them perform live twice, first at Fenway Park in 2022 and then at Lollapalooza in 2023. I appreciate Flea’s positive contributions to the band the whole while, and I’m excited to see him branch out and make a new solo album!

Adam: I’ve been a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan for a good long while now. My school friend Davio was the biggest RHCP fan in the group – The first album he ever owned was One Hot Minute, a present from his sister. In hindsight now that’s an odd little record to have as your first taste of the Chili Peppers, the only one to have (the very talented, but perhaps not so well suited) Dave Navarro on lead guitar, but we were young lads who had minimal CD collections, so I heard that a lot whenever I was round at his place.

Like most guys in my age bracket, Californication hit me hard when it dropped, and really made me take notice of the Chili Peppers. With some huge singles (and an awesome video for the title track) it was a grand comeback for John Frusciante, and of course that unmistakeable, hugely funky bass riffing from Flea. It remains my favourite album of theirs, but I’ve loved most of what they’ve put out across their history. Flea of course has always been the beating heart of their rhythm section, a vital and energetic presence from day one, and I was excited at the prospect of a full-length solo release from him.

Jonah: I didn’t know that Flea had some solo records out until a couple months after I texted my friend Graham who I’ve been friends with since high school. I sent him the most recent Tom Skinner (The Smile) record, Kaleidoscopic Visions. It’s pretty great and Skinner’s deep into the jazz scene. Anyways, Graham texted back, “I’ll give a listen. Also, can we talk about Flea’s new jazz album? Kinda Good.” I remember Graham being a Boz Scaggs fan when he was 19 years old-ish, so I trust him, lol. I’m pretty sure my mother liked the Red Hot Chili Peppers and she would put on Blood Sugar Sex Magik back in the day. My friends also used to like that same record that my mother did. I think the album I listened to a whole bunch of times was Californiacation, and I vaguely remember listening to One Hot Minute, but Californication was where it was at. Warm and thick bass tones, great journey of an album, easy to sing along too. I’m happy to say I know have a new relationship with Flea, and that’s seeing a musician carve out a really nice and pleasurable path of jazz.

What are your initial impressions and reactions to Honora?

Jason: I think it’s great. It’s soulful, experimental, and a stellar direction for Flea’s music. The entire album feels alive, with improvisational flourishes and an ambitious sound. Flea takes the opportunity to create a trumpet-heavy record after decades of infatuation with the instrument and makes the most of it, with his brass-fueled excitement cementing the album’s thesis of love and joy.

Josh: I’m enjoying it! Flea obviously has decades of professional music-making experience, and I’m glad that he managed to channel his imagination and expertise into a compelling solo project just now.

Adam: I’m a big nu-jazz guy, so I dig the wandering compositions tethered back by familiar songwriting sensibilities. It’s common knowledge Flea was reluctant to join a rock band, having studied jazz and played trumpet at school. As soon as I heard he was releasing a solo album, I knew it’d be jazzy and not rock based. It’s got a great combination of orthodox tunes and lengthy jams. I think Jason put it perfectly – Soulful and experimental. I found it a pleasure to listen to from to off, whether cooking dinner or riding the bus. My only problem is that I’d have loved him to do this sooner. Sure the Chili Peppers release and tour frequently, but it’s taken him over 4 decades in the business to put this out. I’m glad he’s got in the mindset to do it.

Jonah: Okay, that’s a crazy fact that Flea was reluctant to join a rock band. I did not know that and I’m so super happy for him that he gets to expand on his own teachings in this part of his career. It’s a great record and I think Flea did some awesome work in composing the shapes and sounds of Honora. It’s an album that I will at some point get on vinyl for sure. It’s got great texture, beautiful collaborations, and a nice amount of experimentation while still feeling connected to the roots of jazz.

How does this album compare to his past work – both 2012’s solo record Helen Burns, but more notably, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ music?

Jason: Flea’s solo work is a far cry from his experience with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, creating a more quiet, atmospheric product. Even on Helen Burns, he opted for a surreal, genre bending approach rather than the funk rock space the Chili Peppers occupied. Where that EP differs from Honora is in its maturity and focus. Helen Burns is an unpolished and at times inconsistent record. It is synth heavy, a little psychedelic, and at times feels like it is trying to be artistic rather than simply being. Honora, conversely, was a far more organized collection and it absolutely shows. The album shows drastic growth as a composer and solo artist, being far more refined and earnest than his previous endeavor. It provides a much fuller sound, catchier tracks, and a more consistent overall quality.

Josh: I agree with Jason. This doesn’t sound much like an RHCP album at all, and I’ve never listened to Helen Burns (I don’t even think I’d heard of it before),, so that’s not really the comparison route I’d like to go down. In fact, the album that I’ve been comparing it to more in my mind is New Blue Sun by Andre 3000, another solo record by a key member of a cherished band that’s primarily instrument-based and, moreover, features instruments that artist wasn’t well-known for playing previously (the flute in Andre’s case; the saxophone, piano, and other instruments in Flea’s case). In both cases, I think that both experiments were successful and represent an exciting potential new direction for each performer.

Adam: It’s a complete departure from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, both in style and structure. The thing about being in a global behemoth like the Chili Peppers is that certain doors close creatively – There is an expectation for a single, the fans want to hear Under The Bridge at every concert, and so on. They are unequivocally a rock band, and they could not make a record that sounds halfway like Honora without confusing a lot of people. By making a solo record, Flea also holds the reins entirely. He gets to direct the music in ways he wouldn’t be able to in his main project. So there’s a sense of freedom here, of treading a path untrodden. Look at Frusciante’s solo work – It’s a marvellously idiosyncratic and weird collection of albums, freed from the constraints of top-billing rock ‘n roll. Flea has released an album in the same vein, not as a rebellion against his rock star credentials, but as a complement to them. I’d love to see what else he has up his sleeve in years to come.

Jonah: I like how Adam points out the exploration and ability of Jon Frusciante’s to expand his sound on solo work. Listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it’s clear that Flea is limited to the confines of motley pop-style songs. Less freedom and serving the specific song without exploring or stretching sonic threads. Helen Burns was cool at times and at other times, very, very wild. Take for instance, “333 Revisited.” Noir, spacey, chill, and then REALLY freaking wild! He was really messing around with sounds. And the sounds were sometimes interesting, and like Jason said, inconsistent.

Flea teased Honora with “A Plea,” “Traffic Lights,” and “Thinkin Bout You.” Are these singles faithful representations of the album?

Jason: They represent the album perfectly. “A Plea” is an energetic, full piece. It ebbs and flows through love, hate, peace, war, and beauty. I think it is a great anchor and first single, bringing listeners into the heart of the album to come. “Traffic Lights” picks up right where “A Plea” ends with a mellow, catchy shuffle. It is a little distorted and funky, playing even more with genre than the spoken word jazz-soul previous track, occupying somewhere between alternative, funk, and jazz. It highlights Flea’s experimental approach and sonic fluidity. Lastly, “Thinkin Bout You” serves as a balance between tradition and modern hits. He takes something contemporary, and plays it through a timeless lens. The instrumental jazz approach in a sense takes the new and makes it old, illustrating Flea’s desire to toe the line between music of today, music of the past, and music to permeate culture forever.

Josh: Jason’s said a lot! I see no reason to argue. They’re fine representations of the mood and sonic atmosphere of Honora. One sidenote I’ll add is that the album isn’t strictly a collection of covers, so you might be a little misled to the contrary if “Thinkin Bout You” were the first song off the record that you listened to. But hey, both the originals and the covers that appear here are compelling in their own right at the end of the day.

Adam: They certainly cover a lot of the ground the album occupies. I find a lot of the pieces nicely unique – “Traffic Lights” in particular is completely on it’s own on Honora, a wonderfully syncopated and highly rhythmic song which suits Thom Yorke’s vocal style perfectly. “A Plea” was obviously designed to be the lead single from the record, but again it’s quite different from a lot of the material on Honora. “Thinkin’ Bout You” certainly covers the more instrumental and noodly side of the record, so between them, these three songs are a solid representation. “A Plea” is the skeleton key for the rest of the album – If you dig that, you’ll dig it all. I like Flea’s bass-as-a-lead-instrument insistence. He does the kind of riffing some guitarists would struggle with.

Jonah: To collectively agree and to insert a possibly reductive take, “A plea” feels close to a very familiar jazz you might hear on a jazz radio station. ”Traffic Lights” gives that contemporary electronic motif married with jazz, which I think is induced by the mix on York’s voice. It’s spooky, ethereal, and mysterious. “Thinkin Bout You” almost feels like a ballad – the trumpet is singing – and it’s got all these strings so it feels symphonic too. He’s definitely running the gambit in this album.

Honora is notably inspired by a longtime love for jazz music, named after Flea’s great-great-grandmother and featuring six original songs and four covers. Regardless of your past exposure to jazz music, how do you feel this record stands up as a body of work in 2026?

Jason: I think Honora meets the demands of an ever-growing niche. It is no secret that people today yearn for the past. For the same reason the shelves at my local record store are constantly empty and Pepsi changed their logo to more closely match their retro design, I think classic music genres like jazz are seeing a resurgence. Honora manages to scratch this itch, providing a timeless, soulful jazz record to satisfy the growing demand, all while still feeling innovative and new. His cover of “Thinkin Bout You” by Frank Ocean particularly illustrates this, taking the popular modern R&B track and smothering it in melancholic trumpets to create a unique and ageless piece. In doing so, he manages to fuse contemporary and traditional forms, appealing to audiences of any generation.

Josh: As best as I can tell, jazz has been in a good place lately– I’ve certainly been impressed with all of the talented performers I’ve encountered at jazz festivals in Montreal, Newport, DC, Burlington, and other cities in recent years. So, with Honora, Flea has contributed to jazz’s current strong standing, while also demonstrating that an “emerging jazz artist” doesn’t necessarily have to be all that young, as many performers I’ve seen recently have been. Being a veteran musician, and then pivoting towards a new genre later in your career, can earn you that label as well.

Adam: It’s really solid – As the fellas mention above, jazz is very much alive and kicking in the modern era. I like Jason’s point about mixing the contemporary and traditional, it’s something that great jazz artists have done since the start of the genre. The best jazz albums often incorporate “standards,” usually in tribute to the original artist. That’s plain to see on Honora, most notably with “Maggot Brain,” a nod to the legendary Funkadelic, a band that Flea will surely have loved his entire life. This mixing of the old and new, it’s a well-worn path in jazz, and makes the genre feel timeless, even though it outdates pretty much anything else in the post-classical era.

Jonah: Have people been noticing these absolutely beautiful and abrupt insertions of electronic music in music that is more shoegaze or indie or whatever? Take TAGABOW’s song “herpim” from their latest record. It’s like a shogazey grunge song that ends with an electronic beat that feels like you’re in the club. Or take Living Hour’s song “Stainless Steel Dream.” The song starts with an electronic breakbeat (I don’t know my electronic music terms) and slips into this beautiful warm tone of an indie band. How Jason describes Honora scratches this itch of the old and the new, it’s like that a little bit. And how Adam notes that this is actually a practice of jazz, mixing the old and the new. I think this all is a way of also representing our bodies melding with technology. Information is also now almost a composite of how culture is being formed. We are connected and exposed to everything all at once and this is only becoming more and more prevalent in music today.

Which song(s) stand out for you on the album, and why?

Jason: “A Plea” stands out to me the most. It is a slow crescendo of passionate outrage, and a therapeutic experience. Starting with a smooth bass line (no surprise) and three minutes of quick paced, fluid motion. Flutes, a tender electric guitar, and a brass section bring the piece to life and constantly build until the vocals eventually chime in. Flea brings a rageful warning, controlled but vivacious like an intentional forest fire. He sets the tone of the album to come, with warnings of civil war and violence penetrated by reassurance of the power of peace and love. The song is a powerful outcry, insisting that love permeates even the worst of political turmoil, you just need to shine your light.

Josh: In recent years, I’ve gained a strong appreciation for jazz music and, as I mentioned, I have attended many fun shows and festivals. So, I’m partial to tracks like “Morning Cry” where the saxophone is allowed to ring freely. “Traffic Lights” is also one of my favorites – I hadn’t realized that Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Flea of RHCP had worked together in the past! So, it’s nice to see them build on their collaborative spark with that song. Finally, as a Frank Ocean fan who’s close-to-utterly abandoned hope that he’ll ever put out a new album, I’m fine settling for perhaps the next best thing– hearing good covers of his old songs by other artists– and thus enjoyed the reimagination of “Thinkin Bout You” that Flea achieves here.

Adam: I’m biased here as a huge Radiohead nerd, but “Traffic Lights” is everything a collaboration between two great artists should be. They take the best elements of themselves and put them together in a way that couldn’t happen in their main bands. It’s so effortless and comfortable, Flea’s driving rhythmic sensibilities of course are the core of the sound, and Yorke’s weird-ass, almost malevolent mixture of spiky guitar chords and barely-liminal lyrics make for a compelling and funky listen.

And I echo Josh’s pain – Frank Ocean has apparently given up on following the seismic Blonde with any further releases, so to get a re-imagining of his work is a nice little treat. “Frailed” is another favourite, a super-cool and dark bass-driven piece, with haunting keys and a sparse soundscape that gives a lot of room for the various solos. I listened to it on the tube the other day and it was transcendent, moving at speed underground as the flutes, horns, violin and several other instruments floated in and out.

Jonah: I’d have to say “A Plea” as well. It’s urgent in its composition and in its lyrics. The bass is absolutely disgusting. The trumpet stabs carry so much tension, and the drums are bringing the chaos of the world to light, very succinctly. I LOVE Radiohead and I dig “Traffic Lights,” though the tension in “A Plea” is so dang powerful. But that spooky eerie voice from Tom on “Traffic Lights” is great. I’m also a sucker for minor chords, dissonance, and I think the track has a nice contrast between the instruments and York’s voice. It’s like the band is in a groove, and York adds this dark layer onto the groove.

Do you have any favorite lyrics? Which lines, if any, stand out?

Jason: Unsurprisingly, my favorite lyric is also from “A Plea,” “I don’t care if it’s a little scrap of squiggly crayon on a paper / peace and love, peace and love / make something beautiful and see somebody / peace and love, peace and love / give it to somebody / I’m not being corny, this s**t is real.” He balances a storm of harsh imagery and references to very real and evocative tragedies with a simple call to action of peace. To earnestly combat hatred, all one needs to do is make something and share it with another. Community and creative expression are the keys to peace and happiness. The lyric reminds me that we only regress in tranquility as we age. The kids I used to babysit seemed to have it all figured out when they would happily hand me their stick-figure Crayola sketches.

Josh: I love a well-played Mother Earth/Nature metaphor, and so I appreciate the one that Flea slips in on “Maggot Brain”– “Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time because, ladies and gentlemen, you have knocked her up.” Hmmm, I’ve heard adjectives like “sick,” “angry,” “thriving,” etc. thrown at “Mother Earth” before, but I can’t recall ever hearing her described as “pregnant” before. What’s at play with a description like that, I wonder? It might take a little unpacking….

Adam: “A Plea” is an impassioned and authentic statement in favour of love and humanity, with a lot of profound lines in it. However, one always stands out to me. Near the end of the song, when it’s all calmed down, Flea delivers an earth-shattering stanza: “Everything besides love is cowardice. You wanna be brave, you wanna be tough? Peace and love is the toughest, hardest thing you can do.” He’s absolutely right. In a song where he’s clearly frustrated and upset at the state of the world, where his voice breaks a couple of times and you can hear the grimace in his voice, that verse is delivered with the calm assuredness of someone who cherishes every ounce of love in his life, and still has hope and compassion for humanity.

Jonah: Can I just say that I freaking love every time I hear Flea’s voice come in on a track. It’s slightly raspy, a little bubbly on the back end, and so honest. I can feel his sincerity with every word and it makes me trust him to be honest. That said, similar to the others, I like the direct call to action lyrics in all of “The Plea.” It’s crystal clear, and I can feel it.

Where do you feel Honora sits in the pantheon of Flea’s discography and legacy?

Jason: Honora is an incredible addition to Flea’s discography, bending time, genre, and the capacity for love in a piece of art. His legacy has always been one of breaking barriers, and Honora only further cements that much. His capabilities as a solo act are on full display, showing he absolutely has what it takes to hone a well rounded production on his own. My one hope is that the 63-year-old rock icon continues to experiment and release wonderful solo work in the future.

Josh: Like many fans, I have a longtime affection for many RHCP records, so it’s going to be hard for Honora to topple them in my rankings right away. But like I said, it’s a well-made album and successful sonic experiment. I’m glad it had that positive first impression on me, and I look forward to seeing how a little time-testing will impact it in my mind.

Adam: It’s not before time, and I’d be interested in what he comes out with next. I think it’s great when someone in such an established act can break away, do something entirely different, and have it sit alongside the hefty discography of their main project. That’s what Honora will end up signifying – He’ll always be a Chili Pepper, and the best of their records will always be what he’s loved for.

But he also does a wicked side-hustle in cool, multi-styled jazz, and when you’re done with the loud uncompromised riffing of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, there’s a whole different avenue to explore through Flea’s solo work. I’d say Honora is a great way to ease yourself into a genre which may seem impenetrably sprawling to a newcomer. It’s a complete and well-structured album, one which serves as a creative outlet, a basis for impassioned polemic, and a tribute to some of Flea’s favourite artists.

Jonah: Hot Take? I think Flea’s Honora will strengthen through time. I think RHCP made so many amazing records, but will they be as timeless as Honera? Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Peppers, but sometimes albums feel like they sit in a nostalgic place, though not on purpose. I don’t know how else to describe it. If not the cherry on top of his legacy at this moment in time, it will be one of the most clear bright spots of what kind of music he can make and contribute to the world.

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Honora

an album by Flea