Nickname:	Flea / The Red Hot Chili Peppers / Red Hot Chili Pepper
Known for:	The Big Lebowski, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Back to the Future Part III
Birth name:	Michael Peter Balzary
Birthday:	16 October 1962, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Height:	5' 6" (1.68 m)

Bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Rode in the ambulance with River Phoenix the night he died. The nickname Flea comes from a joke he had with some of his high school friends. At some point they decided to call each other with a cartoon name, and finally "Flea" remained as the name by which all of his friends were calling him. His friend from junior high, Keith Barry, who played saxophne with the Red Hot Chili Peppers during the Mother's Milk tour in 1989-90, also got his nickname "Tree" the same way. Met Peppers pal Anthony Kiedis at Fairfax High School. When a kid, he played the trumpet and wanted to become a jazz trumpet player. Anthony Kiedis, Hillel Slovak, Jack Irons and him formed a band called Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem (later to become the Red Hot Chili Peppers). Daughter Clara (with now-ex-wife Loesha), born September 16th, 1988. Replaced Eric Avery Weiss as Bassist for Jane's Addiction for a reunion tour and four tracks of a subsequent compilation album in 1997. Played bass in the punk rock band, Fear, from 1982 to 1984. Co-founder of the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, a music school located in a rough, artsy neighborhood in Los Angeles. Firm supporter of art conservatory schools. As stated in a radio interview, he reached out to the public to donate money to these schools due to budget cuts. He and Kurt Cobain (as well as other members of Nirvana) were bound by a friendly relationship since the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana had been touring together in the early 1990s. He even played the trumpet on "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at one of their shows. Played bass on the album "De-Loused in the Comatorium" by the Mars Volta. His first instruments were the drums, then the trumpet, and he didn't play a bass guitar until the age of 17 when his friend, Hillel Slovak, asked him to join his band Anthym and helped him learning how to play the bass. However his step-father was a jazz bass and upright bass player. Engaged to model Frankie Rayder (January 2005) Known for his role as Needles in the 1985 film _Back to the Future_ , and the 2 sequels. Has a baby daughter, Sunny Bebop Balzary, with fiancee, model Frankie Rayder, born October 26th, 2005.

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