Quotes from Flea

I exercise; I have a big career. I'm a parent, and I run a music school.

I grew up with all these old jazz guys in the '70s in L.A., and they grew up idolizing Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Lester Young - all of these incredible musicians.

Bands develop their own weird ways of doing things.

I'm a performer and have managed to get my performing into the mainstream consciousness of the world, I guess.

When I first heard about Twittering, I thought it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever heard of in my life. It's like the devil: the idea that your personal life is there for everybody.

The most important thing to me with any politician is that they don't start wars, but education is a big part of that, too, because educated people are less likely to do stupid, violent things.

Just so people know, the Silverlake Conservatory of Music is not at all about celebrity or fame or being a star. It's an academic music school.

I worked full time jobs, basically doing manual labor until I could make enough money supporting myself as a musician.

When I was growing up, in L.A., I went to these schools, Fairfax High School, Bancroft Junior High School, and they had great music departments. I always played in the orchestra, the jazz band, the marching band.

Playing music is a beautiful thing. But listening to music is just as great.

For me, music was the only reason I went to school. I was kind of a street kid, in a lot of trouble committing crimes and stuff. Music gave me something to focus on.

With acting, I always feel conscious of what I'm doing.

I've always kind of been an in-the-moment kind of person. I don't think that far in advance or have any idea what's around the next corner.

Later in high school, I met Hillel Slovak, who was the original guitar player of the Chili Peppers, and we became really close. We had a band, and we didn't like the bass player, so I started playing bass, and I got a bass two weeks later.

I wanted to play in a band, and I wanted to do music for a living, and that's what I dedicated my life to.

Kids deserve arts, and it's just as important as science, math, history, English or athletics.

I had a friend who had been teaching music for a long time, and he knew a bunch of teachers, so I just put up the money and started a school.

Being a rock star isn't all it's cracked up to be, let me tell you.

My whole musical life has been an educational process, and I'm just furthering my education and filling in the blanks. There's stuff that I want to know that I don't know.

We were at the dark end of the L.A. punk scene, and that scene was full-on and violent and aggressive and wild and intense.

I grew up being terrified of my parents, particularly my father figures.

Lucky enough, through the public school system, I had been able to have some music education, and that gave me something to focus on, and discipline - like a family to feel part of. There was a healthy family.

Steven Adler and I played football in the street when we were 12. I remember rehearsing in my bedroom with my first band, and some kid climbed over the fence of my backyard and peeked his head in the window to see who was rocking. It was Slash.

I was on a path that could've really led to disaster, and the one thing for me that really kept me focused and gave me something to believe in and a sense of self-worth and a discipline was music.