Flea has broken his silence after it emerged he played the Super Bowl half-time show with his bass guitar unplugged.

Eyebrows were raised after the Red Hot Chili Peppers musician, who is one of the most respected bassists in modern rock music, was pictured at the massive show without any lead or wireless equipment.

He has now written in a letter on his band's website to state that the group were ordered to mime most of their performance of 'Give It Away' because the organisers didn't want to risk of anything going wrong as they swapped places with main performer Bruno Mars.

Flea confirmed that they pre-recorded the music, with only Anthony Kiedis' vocals performed live. He added that playing without a lead "seemed like the realest thing to do in the circumstance".

He wrote: "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."

Flea, who admitted that they deliberated with "a lot of confusion" over playing the slot, added: "We recorded a track for the day, just banged one out from our hearts that was very like in spirit to the versions we have been playing live the last few years with our beloved Josh on guitar. 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. Could we have plugged them in and avoided bumming people out who have expressed disappointment that the instrumental track was pre recorded? Of course easily we could have and this would be a non-issue. We thought it better to not pretend. It seemed like the realest thing to do in the circumstance. It was like making a music video in front of a gazillion people, except with live vocals, and only one chance to rock it. Our only thought was to bring the spirit of who we are to the people."

Read Flea's full letter here.