Flea Explains Why He Left Wild Stories Out of New Memoir
Flea just released his new memoir Acid for the Children, but if you’re expecting some Dirt-esque tell-all, you’d be wrong.
In a new interview with Forbes, Flea explains, “I knew that no matter how skilled of a writer or clumsy of a writer I would be, and I just wrote the best I could, the book would only have any value at all is if I was completely honest. And in the editing of it I took out a lot of stories that were great stories, they’re wild and entertaining and I wrote them well and they’re some of my best parts. But I realized I have this in for shock value. And I don’t want to go for shock value just for shock value.”
Flea continues, “Everything has to be something that really shaped me. And it has to be honest and it has to be something that made me who I am, like the insecurity of being a kid who wet his bed until he was 11 years old, or my dysfunction in relationships, or my acting like an obnoxious a–hole thinking I was being funny…But it is difficult to write about family members and people that are close to me in ways that they might find offensive. It’s funny cause my dad was just here. My stepfather and my mom are both passed away. But my father is still alive. He lives in Australia and I got married and he came out for it. I didn’t grow up with him, he left when I was six or seven. And I didn’t even really begin to navigate a relationship with him until I was in my 30s. And it was difficult. We’re very different and I knew it would be hard for him to read this. Yesterday he left to go back to Australia and I gave him a copy. I said, ‘Dad, I had to be honest, I had to tell my story, I hope you don’t find this offensive.'”
Acid for the Children is available now at Amazon.
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