Flea Releases His Interpretation of Frank Ocean's "Thinkin Bout You"

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Debut solo album Honora out March 27 on Nonesuch Records, featuring Flea on trumpet & bass, elite band of modern jazz visionaries, special guests Nick Cave & Thom Yorke

Flea & the Honora Band begin sold-out Honora Tour in May, playing intimate venues in select North American & European cities

February 11, 2026 - Today, Flea shares his take on Frank Ocean's "Thinkin Bout You,"reinterpreting the Channel Orange classic as an instrumental and orchestral ballad. Led by Flea's electric bass and trumpet, the song features upright bass from Anna Butterss and strings arranged and orchestrated by Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes). Following the release of singles "A Plea" and "Traffic Lights" (feat. Thom Yorke), "Thinkin Bout You" marks the third preview to be unveiled from Honora, Flea's debut solo album, which arrives March 27, 2026, on Nonesuch Records. 

Listen to "Thinkin Bout You," and watch the song’s visualizer, with direction, animation, and illustration by @nespy5euro: HERE

"Channel Orange! When that record came out, it really blew me away. I listened to it ten million times. It was something I just couldn't stop listening to. I loved it so much and still do. Just one of those real watershed moment records for me. 'Thinkin Bout You' is one of the many great songs on that record, and I thought it would be fun to play on trumpet.

Then I went to Nate Wolcott, who plays keyboards on Honora on several tunes. He did that string arrangement for me. He stepped up to the plate and really did something beautiful. I just wanted to get the honest beauty of the melody because it's a great song."

-Flea

After a nearly five-decade (and counting) career as one of his generation's defining rock bassists, time and space have finally allowed Flea to return to his first musical loves: jazz and trumpet. Honora, which takes its name from a beloved family member, comprises six original songs composed and arranged by Flea–including "Traffic Lights," co-written by Flea, Josh Johnson, and Thom Yorke–as well as interpretations of Frank Ocean and Shea Taylor's "Thinkin Bout You," and tunes by George Clinton and Eddie Hazel, Jimmy Webb, and Ann Ronell.

Flea plays trumpet and bass throughout the album, joined by an elite crew of modern jazz visionaries: album producer and saxophonist Josh Johnson, guitarist Jeff Parker, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Deantoni Parks. The record features vocals from Flea, Thom Yorke and Nick Cave, with Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms for Peace) and Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes), among others, also joining the band. 

This May, Flea and the Honora band embark on a sold-out international tour, playing intimate venues in select cities in North America and Europe. Further information is available here and exact dates are below.

Best known as a founding member and bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flea was first introduced to live jazz as a child, when family friends played the music together in his own living room. Though he dreamed of being like his heroes Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Clifford Brown, Flea's path went a different direction: his close friend Hillel Slovak asked him to pick up the bass and join his rock band when he was sixteen, leading Flea into a decades-long career with the hugely successful Chili Peppers. But late one night in 1991, in the midst of that band's ascent, Flea was acting in the now-classic Gus Van Sant film My Own Private Idaho when he shared with a friend, "I want to make an instrumental record with deep hypnotic grooves, trippy melodies layered on top, meditations on a groove." The caveat was that he first needed to get his trumpet-playing together. 

As Flea neared his sixtieth birthday, he realized if he did not pick up the trumpet again, he probably never would. So he resolved to practice every day for two years–in the midst of a stadium tour with Red Hot Chili Peppers, with a wife and newborn at home. At the end of those two years, he would make an album, regardless of where his knowledge or talents ended up.

Until Honora, Flea had never been scared of making music before. He worried that the all-star band he had assembled would think he was "a non-playing motherf*cker, charlatan, rock poseur or fan." But, he says, "It turns out they were all the most genuinely supportive people, moving me deeply and daily with their generous spirits…Sitting in a room and playing the music with them made me feel like I was on drugs. I was buzzing, tripping and floating around the studio. I love them, they truly gave of themselves. I bow all the way down."