"Like tonight, I've just got off stage from playing to 20,000 people, and that's not scary for me at all, I'm comfortable doing that, but going and playing for 200 people in Haiti is different. They had no idea what I do.
"My sense of harmony, melody and rhythm was a lot different from what they are used to. It must have sounded strange to them but I think they appreciated that I tried - and it was beautiful, man. It really meant a lot to me to touch them and give to them this thing inside me that is beautiful and I wanted to share with them."
Though this might all sound a little sentimental for a hardened rock star bloke like Flea, in the days before the concert he had visited many Haitian villages with rural health worker Camseuze Moise and was touched, and a little saddened, by what he came across.
"I've been to favelas in Brazil and stuff but nothing like that. Haiti's the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and I'd never experienced anything like that. People have no water, no food ... a lot of it was really sad.
"I jumped on a plane out of Miami and in a hour we were there and people are starving to death. How can this be this way?"
Flea's trip to the Caribbean country was for an episode of American TV series 4Real, a kind of star-studded intrepid humanitarian travel show.
The series, which screens in New Zealand on the Travel Channel, with Flea's Haiti episode on Sunday at 8.30pm, has also featured actress Cameron Diaz in Peru, musician MIA in Liberia and Joaquin Phoenix in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
Along with host Sol Guy, Flea joins Moise as she travels from village to village, doing everything from educating people to saving peoples lives and helping women give birth.
"They have dedicated their lives to the welfare of others," says Flea, who along the way pitched in to weigh babies and crush breadfruit (it's harder than it looks) among other things.
One mother and baby they came across were in a grave situation. If the baby didn't get to a hospital it would die; however the mother could not afford the transport to get her there. So Flea gave her the money.
"She was a very young mother and asking her to go to the hospital was almost like asking her to go to the moon or something. It's 100 miles away, over that mountain or whatever and there is no way she could get there.
"But we were able to help her out with money and transportation to the hospital. Seeing that little child was heartbreaking and hard to fathom."
He says, with a laugh, that one of the biggest things he took away from the trip was that he doesn't need so much stuff.
"I have houses and cars and expensive things. But I just wanted to simplify my life," he says. "But the most profound thing I learned [in Haiti] was that when you meet people who have nothing - like a house, a nice comfortable bed, and regular nutritious food - because of that they have something else that I don't really have. They have their spirit and they are so close to their spirit and the way they connect with their sense of community and sense of self. I will never forget that.
"I love the Haitian people. I love their music. I love their dance."
LOWDOWN
Who: Flea
What: Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player goes to Haiti
Where & when: 4Real, Travel Channel, Sunday, 8.30pm.
On tour: There was no firm word from Flea about when the Chili Peppers will play New Zealand, just that it will be later this year.
-TimeOut
