Flea Laments New Chili Peppers Album Leaking On To Internet

You wouldn't want to break Flea's heart, would you?

The Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist has posted a long and grammatically challenged message in the Fleamail section of the band's website urging fans not to download songs from the group's forthcoming Stadium Arcadium album.

The two-CD set will be released by Warner Bros. on May 9, but its songs started appearing on file-sharing sites this week. Flea (real name Michael Balzary) and his bandmates aren't happy about it. Here's a major excerpt from Flea's statement:

"if you down load it now off one of these file sharing sites you will be getting a pale imitation of the record"it will be of the poor sound quality of the technique they used to get it on there and that will break my heart

"it will break john frusciante's heart

"it will break anthony kiedis's heart

"and it will break the heart of chad smith

"yes, we worked for a year and a half to make the epic record of our lives and it is sad to me for the business reasons of course

"i think we are selling something really cool and we put all we had into it, 28 songs, 2 hours of the best that we can offer

"and i think it is a fair deal for everyone

"and for people to just steal a poor sound quality version of it for free because some asshole stole it and put it on the internet is sad to me

"but, equitable business reasons aside the thing that really bums me out is we worked so hard, and so thoughtfully, all of us, for so long to make this record sound as warm and full from top to bottom as was possible

"we spent day and night for a year making sure every little sound was just right that they were all put together in the most beautiful way we could

"we did not leave a stone unturned in doing that work

"i can not put in words how much this record, stadium arcadium, means to us how sacred the sound of it is to us and how many sleepless nights and hardworking days we all had thinking about how to make it be the best sounding thing we could

"and now, for someone to take it and put it out there with this poor sound quality it is a painful pill for us to swallow

"let me tell you this bums all of us out and i know that, as sensitive as john frusciante is about sound the idea of anyone getting and hearing this thing that way will devastate him

"for people to not hear the work the way we meant it to be will really hurt him deep inside and all of us will hurt

"yes, it is stealing from us, and that is lame

"everyone has to live with their own conscience on that one

"let it be your guide

"but to take a version that has been defiled sound wise a version in which some idiot has taken our year and a half of soul baring work and pissed all over it that will break our hearts"

Promotional copies of Stadium Arcadium were mailed to certain journalists under the fake name Ryan's Song to try and deter potential theft, but Flea is obviously singing a sad song now.

Maybe getting on the road will help make the Peppers feel better. They've announced a tour on their site and, though no official announcement of it has come from Canadian concert promoters, shows are expected to take place in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City in September and October.