Flea – Honora

Flea – HONORA is the debut full-length solo album from Michael Balzary, known to the world as Flea, the bassist who has anchored Red Hot Chili Peppers for nearly five decades. Released March 27, 2026 on Nonesuch Records, this is not a rock record, a vanity project, or a curiosity. It is a jazz album, made by someone who loved jazz first, set it aside at sixteen when his close friend Hillel Slovak handed him a bass and pointed him toward a rock band, and spent the decades since wondering what might have been.

The Story Behind Flea – HONORA

As Flea approached his sixtieth birthday, he made a decision: practice trumpet every single day for two years, through stadium tours with Red Hot Chili Peppers, through a new marriage and a newborn at home, and then make an album regardless of where his playing stood at the end of it. The title comes from a beloved family member. The music is his own. He composed and arranged the entire record, plays both trumpet and bass throughout, and pushed himself into territory he openly admits frightened him in a way no previous recording ever had. That honesty is audible in the result.

The band assembled around him reads like a who’s-who of contemporary jazz and experimental music. Producer and saxophonist Josh Johnson shapes the sound throughout. Guitarist Jeff Parker, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Deantoni Parks form the core rhythm and harmonic engine. Mauro Refosco, known for his work with David Byrne and Atoms for Peace, and Nate Walcott of Bright Eyes also appear. Vocally, the record features Flea alongside Thom Yorke and Nick Cave, two collaborators who bring their own unmistakable weight to the project. One track, “Traffic Lights,” is co-written by Flea, Yorke, and Johnson.

What Is on the Record

HONORA spans six original compositions plus a carefully chosen set of interpretations: material drawn from George Clinton and Eddie Hazel, Jimmy Webb, Frank Ocean and Shea Taylor, and Ann Ronell. The breadth of that source material tells you something about how Flea thinks about music. These are not obvious jazz covers. They are songs chosen for what they mean, filtered through a sensibility shaped by Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Clifford Brown on one side, and forty-plus years of rock on the other.

Format and Label Details

This is the standard CD pressing on Nonesuch Records, Flea’s label home for this release. Nonesuch has a long track record of thoughtful presentation and reliable pressing quality across both physical formats. For collectors who follow the modern jazz space, the names on this record alone make it worth close attention. For anyone who has followed Flea’s career and wondered what he sounds like when he plays entirely on his own terms, this is the answer. It took him nearly sixty years to get here.