After a nearly five-decade (and counting) career as one of hisgeneration’s defining rock bassists, Flea releases his first full-lengthsolo album, Honora, March 27, 2026, on Nonesuch Records. Time and space have finally allowed him to return to his first musical loves:jazz and playing the trumpet. The song “Traffic Lights,” co-written withThom Yorke and Josh Johnson, accompanies the albumannouncement.For Honora, which takes its name from a beloved family member,Flea composed and arranged the music, and also plays trumpet andbass throughout, joined by an elite crew of modern jazz visionaries:album producer and saxophonist Josh Johnson, guitarist JeffParker, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Deantoni Parks. Therecord features vocals from Flea, as well as friends Thom Yorke andNick Cave. Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms for Peace) andNate Walcott (Bright Eyes), among others, also join the band. Thealbum comprises six original songs–including one co-written by Flea,Johnson, and Yorke–as well as interpretations of tunes by GeorgeClinton and Eddie Hazel, Jimmy Webb, Frank Ocean and SheaTaylor, and Ann Ronell.Though Flea dreamed of being like his heroes Dizzy Gillespie, MilesDavis, and Clifford Brown, Flea’s path went a different direction: Hisclose friend Hillel Slovak asked him to pick up the bass and join hisrock band when he was sixteen, leading Flea into a decades-longcareer with the hugely successful Red Hot Chili Peppers.As Flea neared his sixtieth birthday, he realized if he did not pick upthe trumpet again, he probably never would. So he resolved topractice every day for two years–in the midst of a stadium tour withRed Hot Chili Peppers, with a wife and newborn at home. At the endof those two years, he would make an album, regardless of where hisknowledge or talents ended up.Until Honora, Flea had never been scared of making music before.He worried that the all-star band he had assembled would think hewas “a non-playing motherf*cker, charlatan, rock poseur or fan.” But,he says, “It turns out they were all the most genuinely supportivepeople, moving me deeply and daily with their generousspirits…Sitting in a room and playing the music with them made mefeel like I was on drugs. I was buzzing, tripping and floating aroundthe studio. I love them, they truly gave of themselves. I bow all the way down.”
