Flea Launches "Affordable" Line Of Basses

A good quality guitar or bass can sometimes be extremely expensive, and that's particularly troublesome for young music students.

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea discovered his students at the Los Angeles' Silverlake Conservatory Of Music were using cheap instruments, so that's why he's launching his own line of "affordable" bass guitars dubbed Fleabass.

"I found that a lot of the kids I was teaching were coming in with inexpensive basses, which were pieces of shit," the musician whose real name is Michael Balzary told Kerrang! magazine. "The necks were warped and were falling apart. They were like toys. I wanted to make something that kids could afford but were quality, play well and last a long time.

"It's hard to get it perfect the first time, but I'm really happy with what we've made.

"When I was a kid, skateboarders would form their own skateboard companies. It was fucking cool to have a DIY company. I had been adding my name to established bass models for many years, but I thought, 'Fuck it, I'll make my own bass! I'll make it bitching and It'll be cool!' I just want the kids to rock!"

The Fleabass sells for around $499 U.S. (about $517 Canadian). According to the bass' website, it has a "solid alder body" with "dual cutaways" allowing for "easy accses to the higher frets." Each Fleabass comes with a maple neck, rosewood fingerboard and the headstock features an autograph and doodles by Flea.

More information about the Fleabass is available through the bass line's website.

Flea is set to work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers on their follow-up to 2006's Stadium Arcadium, which they say should be out sometime this year.