I didin't know Flea was a band geek in high school either, but it's not that surprising -- he had to develop his appetite for flashy virtuosity (and the chops to back it up) somewhere, and that's not something he would have gotten from the early eighties LA punk scene. But anyway, good on him for stepping up with this:
After sitting by chance beside Fairfax's music teacher at a Knicks game in New York several years ago, the rocker decided to revisit his alma mater -- and found its music program decimated by budget cuts: "Everything was gone. I couldn't believe it," he says. "When I went, you could pick any instrument. You want to play in an orchestra? No problem. When I went back, it was a volunteer teacher, a couple of acoustic guitars. It was this shell of this thing that was still alive while I was there."Flea says he put up "a few hundred thousand dollars" to open the Silverlake Conservatory with high school friend-turned-music teacher Keith Barry, who is the school's dean.
Flea actually teaches there when he's in town, and apparently his trumpet chops are still strong enough to allow him to give lessons on that instrument in addition to bass. This almost makes me want to forgive him for inflicting Jewel on us.
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