Flea Talks ‘Crazy’ Snowboarding Spill, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ New Direction
Watch Red Hot Chili Peppers perform “Dark Necessities” from new album The Getaway in a preview clip from Red Hot Chili Peppers on AT&T Live at the iHeartRadio Theater L.A. The full concert airs June 17th at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the Audience Network.
What was the moment of impact like? How painful was it?
When the bone initially broke, I knew it really hurt. My arm started swelling up right away, and I thought I just really tweaked it. I didn’t want to accept that it was broken. They tried to put me in one of those little sleds so I could be carried down by the ski patrol. I refused to go. I snowboarded down the mountain. I thought I just tweaked it, but when I got down the mountain I was like, “OK, I think I really broke it.” That’s when they put me in an ambulance. I thought at worst I just broke it and I’d be in a cast for a month or two. And then a gal looked at my X-rays and said, “There are big pieces of bone shorn off. You broke it in five places. There’s nerve damage. This is going to be a major surgery.”
How long ago did this happen?
This happened in February of last year. We were just about to record our record then. I was so bummed and it just kind of dawned on me that I felt like I let everybody down because we couldn’t record our record, but we had written all our stuff. I was just really, really sad. I had a long rehab process. I had a really great surgeon, Doctor John Itamura. And I got better and now I’m totally back on top.
I’m sure part of you worried the accident would permanently impact your bass playing.
Yeah, man. It wasn’t so scary when I wasn’t playing. There were four or five months where I didn’t play at all. I just sat on the couch all day. During that part, I just figured I’d be able to play again. What was really scary was when I started to play again. I went to play just one little note and a bunch of pain shot up my arm. It hurt so bad. For the first month I was just trying to play the simplest things and my hand wouldn’t do it. I just thought, “Fuck!” What was scarier than never being able to play again was not being able to do what I’ve always done, not being free, not being able to do my thing and continue as a bass player.
It was about three months of playing before I was able to go in and record our record. I still wasn’t there all the way. There were a few things my hand didn’t want to do, but it’s all back now. It’s totally fine. I’m happy and I’m grateful.
Was Danger Mouse attached to the record before the accident or did he enter the picture afterwards?
He was attached before, but I think we all sort of felt differently about it. There was a lot of confusion about what the right thing to do was. We weren’t really sure. We wanted to use a different process from what we were used to. Even though I felt I wanted to be out of my comfort zone and make myself vulnerable and do something new, I didn’t know what my right direction was out of my comfort zone.