One of Fender’s big announcements back at Summer NAMM this year was a new Signature Active Jazz Bass for Red Hot Chili Peppers madman Flea - a bass that’s now available, complete with oddball promo video.
In the clip above, Flea plays his new squeeze up in - we’re guessing - the Hollywood hills, through a Fender backline, and spends his time jamming, painting his face, waxing lyrical on music and… not talking a whole lot about the bass.
Fortunately, we’re on hand to dish the dirt on the spec. The model owes its name to a hot Fender humbucker equipped with an Aguilar OBP-1 18V preamp, featuring discrete FET circuits with up to 18dB of boost.
Elsewhere, there’s a quarter-sawn C-shaped maple neck with 12-16” compound-radius fingerboard and contoured heel, a HiMass bridge and custom neck plate engraved with Flea’s signature and logo.
That alder-bodied Jazz Bass shape is adorned with a satin urethane finish available in Inca Silver and Shell Pink finishes. Mmm.
Say what you like about Flea, but he knows how to design a good four-string - this one is available now for $1,699 in the USA, and from January for £1,599 in the UK.
See Fender for more details.
“The bass solo in My Generation is one of the classic bass things of all time. And John Entwistle said it was the bane of his life”: Rick Wakeman explains the problem with recording a classic solo, and how he experienced it with Yes’s Close To The Edge
“Good thing the custom shops are up high!”: Guitar Center in Sherman Oaks flooded after car ploughs into fire hydrant
“The bass solo in My Generation is one of the classic bass things of all time. And John Entwistle said it was the bane of his life”: Rick Wakeman explains the problem with recording a classic solo, and how he experienced it with Yes’s Close To The Edge
“Good thing the custom shops are up high!”: Guitar Center in Sherman Oaks flooded after car ploughs into fire hydrant
