Flea spends most of his time playing bass for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and beekeeping. This is a full enough life for most, but Flea will not rest on his laurels. Instead, he’s stepping up to the plate to support Bernie Sanders in his quest to become President of the United States (of America).
Flea and his fellow Chili Peppers of the Red Hot variety are headlining a Sanders benefit show in Los Angeles on Friday. In conjunction with that, Flea has provided an essay for Rolling Stone outlining why he is so fervently behind Sanders, even though, as the piece indicates, he has “absolutely no interest” in politics.
It’s an extensive piece that is a little difficult to break down into convenient chunklets for the connoisseur of musicians’ political opinions on the go. However, there are a few key pieces of information that Flea wants to get across. If you want to synthesize Flea’s feelings into a particular snippet, though, this one works well:
“A year ago, nobody really cared about Bernie Sanders or knew who he was. And here’s a guy that is not relying on fear-mongering or Super PACs or billions of dollars. He’s just talking about issues that really affect us as human beings, like caring about each other and evening the playing field.”
Flea also calls the thought process that socialism is just a step on the road to communism “insane silliness,” and praises Sanders for refusing to allow the Chili Peppers to pay for the venue rental for the benefit concert, because that’s too big a financial donation from a supporter.
While dudes like Kid Rock are supporting guys like Donald Trump with something approaching incoherence, Flea’s thoughts on Sanders are quite well-articulated. Will he change anybody’s opinion? Maybe, maybe not? But it’s an interesting piece, nevertheless.
(Via Rolling Stone)