Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers got heated this week on the issue of preserving musical education, calling the idea of removing it from schools ‘child abuse’. Speaking to Rolling Stone on the issue of music education being cut from public schools, he declared “It’s child abuse. It’s just wrong.”
Flea’s mission for music education started in 2000, when he visited students at his alma mater Fairfax Senior High School. “They had maybe one or two acoustic guitars, a boombox, a volunteer teacher, and they were sitting around talking about music,” he tells Rolling Stone. “I was so disheartened. I was like, ‘Where’s the orchestra? Where’s the band?’ And I was told they cut out all the funding for that stuff. They didn’t have instruments for the teachers anymore. It really shocked me.” This forced him to form the Silverlake Conservatory of Music to continue the efforts of musical education in the Los Angeles area. The Chili Peppers perform a benefit show for the non-profit music school every year, which recently opened a new spacious facility and has been operating since 2001.
Referencing recent government initiatives to reduce funding for National Endowment for Arts, the bassist and love of jazz music expressed a public need to preserve these efforts in our neighborhoods and towns. “I encourage everybody to reach out into the communities they live in and do what they can to help out. There are people that don’t have money, people that don’t have food or an education or healthcare. And yes, getting to change things on a fundamental, institutional level is an awesome thing, but we can personally reach out in our communities to do stuff that is profoundly helpful.”
