Red Hot Chili Peppers Bassist Flea Opens up About His Relationship With God

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea opened up about how he found a relationship with God and his thoughts on religion. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Flea, 60, revealed he is “a praying guy” and shared how…

Rebecca GuzelJul 7, 20233 min read

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. I grew up virulently anti-religious, and there came a time in the early ’90s, right around when I turned 30, I got really sick with chronic fatigue,” he shared.

During that time, he said drugs and partying had taken over his life and he thought he was invincible.

“And all of a sudden it was like all the energy got sucked out of my body. I was like, ‘I can’t go on tour, I feel too sh*t,'” Flea continued.

He also mentioned how his friends cut him off because he “wasn’t partying.”

“So I read this self-help book by this guy Jon Kabat-Zinn where he talked about how if you strip away all your thoughts and actions — your pain, your pleasure, your memories, your hopes — what’s the thing that’s left? And it really struck me because I’d been so caught up in the external,” he said.

Flea further explained thinking about “that emptiness” resulted in God making “perfect sense” to him “in that moment.”

“I mean, like I said, I’ve still never been religious. And I’ve tried — I’ve been to churches,” he continued.

When speaking about why he decided to give the church a chance, Flea said he thought “there might be a sense of community.”

“In the ’80s I’d go to churches in South L.A. as an atheist. I had a friend who knew where the best gospel groups were coming through, so I’d go and it would be incredible,” he said.

Flea added, “I thought punk rock was intense. Punk rockers are a bunch of p*****s compared to a church where people are speaking in tongues and throwing themselves on the ground.”