Fender launches Flea Signature Active Jazz Bass with bonkers promo video
Confirmed: Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist still weird
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.
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Mike has been Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld.com since 2019, and an offset fiend and recovering pedal addict for far longer. He has a master's degree in journalism from Cardiff University, and 15 years' experience writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitarist, as well as 20 years of recording and live experience in original and function bands. During his career, he has interviewed the likes of John Frusciante, Chris Cornell, Tom Morello, Matt Bellamy, Kirk Hammett, Jerry Cantrell, Joe Satriani, Tom DeLonge, Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, Polyphia, Tosin Abasi, Yvette Young and many more. His writing also appears in the The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar. In his free time, you'll find him making progressive instrumental rock as Maebe.
