Flea makes his solo Billboard chart debut, as his first solo album, Honora, arrives on six album charts (dated April 11). The jazz project, from the longtime Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ bassist, launches in the top 10 on Billboard‘s Jazz Albums (at No. 2), Contemporary Jazz Albums (No. 2) and Indie Store Album Sales (No. 3) charts. It also takes a bow on Vinyl Albums (No. 12), Top Album Sales (No. 16) and the overall Billboard 200 (No. 198).
Honora is the highest debut of 2026 thus far on either Jazz Albums or Contemporary Jazz Albums.
Flea plays bass and trumpet throughout the Honora album, which features guest vocal turns from Nick Cave (on a cover of the Jimmy Webb-penned “Wichita Lineman”) and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke (on the new original tune “Traffic Lights”)
Honora has been an album decades in the making, according to a press release from Nonesuch Records, which released the project. Flea grew up listening to jazz music from the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, before eventually picking up the bass and joining the Red Hot Chili Peppers as a teenager. “When I was a kid,” he recently told NPR, “I wanted to be a jazz trumpet player. I wanted to be Dizzy Gillespie.” Flash forward to 2022, and Flea (who played the trumpet as a child) began practicing the trumpet daily for the next two years, leading to the album’s recording in early 2025.
Flea will bring Honora on the road beginning on May 7 in Chicago, with tour dates lined up through July 11 in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
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