S Poddar
For over forty years, Flea has been the indefatigable bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a defining group in rock. His funky and active bass lines have offered the constant core to this evolving band of children joining their elder, merging alternative rock with groove—always accessible. Throughout all of the lineup changes with Hillel Slovak, Jack Irons, Josh Klinghoffer, and John Frusciante, Flea has continued to build the innovative bass rhythms that have helped to define the unique sound of this band.
Flea is known not only by his talent as a musician but also for his charisma on stage. He is the one who is described as the wild guy who does everything from peeling naked during performances to being extremely dedicated and talented. One can listen to his most iconic basslines in his songs, such as “Nobody Weird Like Me,” “Give It Away,” and their powerful cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground.”
With a career such as his, Flea—being the influential musician that he is—draws his tastes from a huge pool of bassists. From his legendary fellow, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, down to the innovation of sounds by Thundercat, Flea shows a deep appreciation for the craft. During a recent appearance on Where Everybody Knows Your Name, the podcast hosted by Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, Flea revealed who he believes holds the title for the greatest rock bassist of all time.
While he’s said wonderful things about Thundercat before, like that he’s “the greatest bassist on the planet”, he went with Paul McCartney of The Beatles when asked to nominate the greatest rock bassist. “I think Paul’s the greatest rock bass player,” Flea said. “There are so many guys that are great in different ways, but Paul’s bass playing is so lyrical and melodic, and it’s just so beautiful. One of the things I’ve heard is that he puts the bass on after.”
On a technical level, one may refer to bassists of the like of John Entwistle of The Who or Geddy Lee of Rush as truly outclassing McCartney, for one, regarding complexity and speed. What puts McCartney above and beyond consideration, though, isn’t simply the fact that he wrote inventive, vastly melodic songs; it’s that he wrote inventive, vastly melodic songs that no one else could have dreamed up. There is simply no matching McCartney in terms of songwriting and vocals, in terms of stitching up dynamic bass lines into his material.
He didn’t see himself as the bassist, though. In fact, from the beginning he was a bit pushed into the role because The Beatles’ original bassist, Stuart Sutcliffe, had left. As McCartney explains in the book Many Years From Now, “Nobody wants to play bass, or nobody did in those days. Bass was the thing that the fat boys got lumbered with and were asked to stand at the back and play… So I definitely didn’t want to do it, but Stuart left, and I got lumbered with it. Later, I was quite happy.”
McCartney started playing a six-string guitar and later as his career continued to use it as an essentially significant tool in playing music on his songs. Even when he started using piano in his conceptualizations a little later, he never thought the bass to be his front line instrument through which he could write songs for the band. As Flea expressed, “In a band like mine, a lot of songs start with bass lines… or the music comes first. Whereas, I think, Paul and John and George, by and large, wrote songs, and then Paul would do the bass… So then he’s doing like, a counter melody, so the bass is like a melody as opposed to just rhythm, and that’s amazing.
Flea’s love for McCartney got so much attention on social media. He then followed it up by posting on his Twitter/X, “Chrissie Hynde is the greatest female rock singer of all time.”.
And Chrissie Hynde dazzled audiences during the late ’70s when, at the helm of The Pretenders, she came forth with a riveting style and sound. Today, she continues to lead The Pretenders on tour, giving high-voltage renditions of classics like “Brass in Pocket” and “Don’t Get Me Wrong.”.
The endorsements of both Paul McCartney and Chrissie Hynde by Flea illuminate the hugest respect for musicians, who have made the biggest impacts on rock music not only through the technique of their work but also through the creation of timeless song structures.
