Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist goes back to school

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea has enrolled in the University of Southern California (USC) music programme.

The bassist, real name Michael Balzary, said he decided to take music classes at the prestigious private California university to learn "the math and academics" of musical structure.

"I'm glad my music education has developed the way that it has, but it's so much fun to learn this stuff because I never knew anything," he told the Los Angeles Times.

"I played trumpet in the school bands," he continued. "I learned things I liked to play on my trumpet but I didn't learn why this note goes with this note and why it produces that sound. Or how to create tension in the composition.

"The Chili Peppers did that in our song structures but all based on emotion and intuition as opposed to knowing the math and academics of it. Knowing the structure is really fun."

Flea also confirmed that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking a two-year hiatus from recording music together.

"We just needed two years," he explained. "We had our noses to the grindstones so hard for so long. We needed to get away from it and get a fresh perspective on things."

The band's last release was the 2006 double album 'Stadium Arcadium'.

--By our Los Angeles staff.
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