Chili Peppers put through the grinder

By LINDA HERRICK

It's hard to suppress a giggle when a grown man rings and introduces himself with the golden words, "Hi, it's Flea." Yes, it is he, Flea, bass player extraordinaire for all of the 20 years of Californian band the Red Hot Chili Peppers' occasionally bumpy life.

Recovering from a tour of Japan and on the eve of an Australasian round, Flea is resting up at his father's home somewhere in southern New South Wales, a spot he savours for its quiet privacy - and its surf.

"I haven't been doing that much surfing because we've been in Japan and I just got here a couple of days ago and I'm feeling a little wiped out," says the man who was christened Michael Balzary, and who turned 40 last month, "but I went out surfing yesterday."

It's been a terrific year for the Chili Peppers, a band Rolling Stone magazine describes as being in a "golden state", with new album By the Way surpassing all the spectacularly high praise heaped upon the 1999 best-seller Californication.

While Californication was hailed as a more soulful, introspective effort from the pioneers of white-boy rap-rock, By the Way stretches even further into an intriguing merger of poppy melody and nu-funk. Hard-to-please Herald entertainment editor Russell Baillie gave the album a rare five-star salute, praising the Peppers' balance "of sonic detail and power with warmth and intimacy".

The ultimate test of a band's merit though is live shows, and recent reports of the Chili Peppers' high-energy performances confirm Flea, singer Anthony Kiedis, guitarist John Frusciante and drummer Chad Smith are in sublime form.

There's a secret to this so-called "golden state", says Flea, although he jokes "we're more of a chartreuse-pink colour".

"What we do is really, really hard work and hard work is not always fun, you know, but it is always meaningful.

"What we do definitely has a feeling that it is something that's worth doing, that makes people happy, and that we're expressing ourselves with a real feeling of sincerity and honesty. We feel like we're growing and moving creatively and using ourselves to a high purpose."

A grown-up band then? Keeping in mind these used to be the guys who performed nude apart from strategically placed, um, socks. Flea snorts. "W-e-ll, we're growing some which way - I don't know if it's up but we are definitely growing."

Which is no small miracle in itself, given that original guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose in 1988, while Kiedis, a former addict who'd stopped using, had a serious relapse. The scariest loss though was Frusciante who simply dropped out of the band in 1992 - just as they were taking off on the back of the album BloodSugarSexMagik and about to play in Auckland - and adopted heroin and crack as his 100 per cent lifestyle for six years. The publicity shots for By the Way show Frusciante most often with his hand over his mouth: all of his top teeth fell out during those lost years, although he has had restorative surgery.

Health and fitness are now priorities, says Flea, who is a vegetarian. "Touring is very gruelling so you try to sleep right, eat right, stretch out, do yoga - it's sort of like being an athlete."

Anyone who's seen the Peppers' live act had better believe it. They are booked to tour until next September, with many of their European gigs - in March - already sold out.

Flea reckons that's partly because they do things on stage you will never hear on disc.

"We do a lot of improvisation in the context of the songs and that helps keep us interested, on our toes, because we're reaching into a big space of nothingness and pulling music out of it.

"People don't get a lot of improvisation with rock bands these days, it's pretty much by the numbers. They write their songs, they go into the studio, they make the record and if they play live, they replicate the record exactly every night. With us, every show is completely different. If we were to do the same thing night after night, I don't think we'd still be together, it would have become boring a long time ago."

The band, he admits, has been unsettled by the shadow of terrorism, cancelling gigs in Manila and Bali and, earlier, Israel.

"Terrorism definitely impacts on me in many ways; there are the practical things like not playing where we might get bombed. We have to deal with all the stuff at airports like extra security but more than that, there's the sense of emotional fragility that we feel everywhere. People's defences are up ... people are afraid."

The set for Sunday's Western Springs show is mainly based on songs from By the Way and Californication, as well as a few of those RHCP classics like Give It Away and the drug lament from BloodSugarSexMagik, Under the Bridge.

"We do reach back a little bit because people want to hear the songs they know and at this point there's a lot of them," explains Flea.

"I mean just from those three records, that's three-quarters of a set right there, songs everyone knows, but we always try to throw in a few obscure ones."

But no nudity on Sunday then? "Huh?" Flea chuckles. "You never know. The bottom line is we will do anything within our power to put on the best possible show we can."

* The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Western Springs stadium, tomorrow. Gate sales start from 11am, gates open 4.30pm, Quirk on stage, 7pm, Papa Roach, 8pm; RHCP, 9.30pm, with an 11pm finish.