Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea Rallies for Environmental Change Ahead of Grammys

Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player Flea called for some environmental activism this weekend, just before the 61st Grammy Awards.

Many artists spent this week preparing for the Grammys, though Flea spared some time for lamenting the damage to nature caused by industrialization. The bass player took to Instagram on Friday with a breathtaking photo of his dog sniffing at a damp path just after the rain. The sun was low in the sky behind the animal, peaking through thick clouds and casting a rich orange light across the ground.

“The sweetness of sunset at the end of last weeks rains,” Flea explained. “After a rain Los Angeles is the greatest city on earth. Bright eyed animals scurrying about the chapparal of the surrounding hills, open space beckoning, moods lifting, and basketballs bouncing. How I wish we could kick our addiction to fossil fuels and get our air clean on the regular.”

Fans were on the same page as Flea, wishing there for more decisive action on environmental issues. They also agreed that, on the rare occasion there is rain in L.A., it creates a lovely atmosphere in the city.

“Preach! Nothin better than L.A. after the rain,” one fan agreed. “The hills are soooo green right. Love it!!!”

“What an amazing shot,the light of the sun is marvelous. [Thumbs up] for nature,” someone else wrote.

“This would have been a nice album cover,” another fan noted.

Flea and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are not up for any Grammys this year (since they did not have a record out in 2018) but they will perform at the event. The group is at work on a new studio album, first announced in September, which they hope to release sometime this year. The band’s drummer, Chad Smith, appeared on Sirius XM’s Volume West last month, saying that the band’s writing and recording sessions were put on hold because of the catastrophic Woolsey Fire raging across southern California.

“We started to work on [the album], which, for us, is just getting in a room and making some noise and putting some notes together. And then the fires came, and the house we were working in, there was no damage, it didn’t burn down, but we couldn’t get back in there. So that halted our [progress].”

With any lucky, the group will be back in the studio in time to qualify for next year’s Grammys. In the meantime, the award show airs on Sunday night starting at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.