Flea, bassist of alternative funk band Red Hot Chili Peppers, have finally issued a statement about their alleged miming of their Super Bowl 2014 performance, claiming that the reports are actually true.
RHCP have been under public scrutiny for more than a week after pictures of their Super Bowl 2014 performance circulated, showing their instruments to be unplugged during the whole number. The band performed "Give It Away" with main halftime performer Bruno Mars.
In their website, the "Blood Sex Sugar Magik" bass man offered a 931-word letter why they chose to do air guitar in front of the biggest audience in sports entertainment:
"When we were asked by the NFL and Bruno to play our song Give It Away at the Super Bowl, it was made clear to us that the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded. I understand the NFL's stance on this, given they only have a few minutes to set up the stage, there a zillion things that could go wrong and ruin the sound for the folks watching in the stadium and the t.v. viewers. There was not any room for argument on this, the NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period."
He also explained that though they were against miming, as he enumerated instances in the late 80's where they were thrown out of Top Of the Pops and other MTV shows for making a mockery of the practice, conferring with friends and other musicians they respected made them think otherwise:
"So, when this Super Bowl gig concept came up, there was a lot of confusion amongst us as whether or not we should do it, but we eventually decided, it was a surreal-like, once in a life time crazy thing to do and we would just have fun and do it. We had given this a lot of thought before agreeing to do it, and besides many a long conversation amongst ourselves, I spoke with many musician friends for whom I have the utmost respect, and they all said they would do it if asked, that it was a wild trippy thing to do, what the hell. Plus, we the RHCP all love football too and that played a big part in our decision. We decided that, with Anthony singing live, that we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording especially for the gig. I met and spoke with Bruno, who was a beautiful dude, a real talented musician, and we worked out something that seemed like it would be fun."
He then shared that only RHCP vocalist Anthony Kiedis was live during their set:
"For the actual performance, Josh, Chad, and I were playing along with the pre-recorded track so there was no need to plug in our guitars, so we did not. "
The Red Hot Chili Peppers' official statement ended with expressions of gratitude to "Locked Out of Heaven" star Bruno mars and the NFL, and that despite the controversy, Flea admitted that he "would do (the Superbowl 2014 performance) all the same way again."
