I recruited my dad to be my bass player and fired him on several occasions. He stayed on as a bus driver.
For me, I guess music has always been the through-line. You know, I played guitar from a really young age, and my dad played, and my cousin gave me a drum kit when I was 13, and I played bass guitar, so, you know, it was definitely always in the house.
My high school teacher, Reggie Andrews, was a huge factor in my learning my instrument. He didn’t play bass, but it was the part where he gave me a knowledgeable perspective of what it was that I was doing.
I find it really easy to write on the bass, because you kind of get straight to the point: you do lyrics and melody without thinking about decorating the song until after you’ve finished it.
I had done chorus before in school, but I was only trying for an easy A. I was a bass going ‘dum dum da doo wop.’
Black Sabbath was written on bass: I just walked into the studio and went, bah, bah, bah, and everybody joined in and we just did it.
When I was in a band after high school and in college, I didn’t even play the guitar. I played the bass because I couldn’t play lead, and I didn’t have the gear.
I have managed to conquer my fear of fire one fish at a time. I’ve gone from eating sushi to prawns, to baking sea bass fillets.
I’m not a ‘practicing’ musician anymore. I played bass and guitar. I still pick up a guitar around the house every once in awhile.
The bass is just the crayon that I picked out of the box. I’d probably be writing similar stuff if I played guitar or trumpet. The pictures I want to draw I do with this crayon I chose, which is the bass.
Ever since I picked up a bass, I’ve written songs.
I just like to catch fish, I don’t care if it weighs half a pound or 10 pounds. But I can’t do a lot of casting. I can work a jig or a worm. But not for long, especially if the big ones are biting. Those big bass will make it hurt after a while.
There were a lot of different styles in the house – Motown, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, jazz – and my dad played flamenco guitar. Soon I realized that bass was what was really grooving me.
I do seem to like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.
You get some confidence in your songwriting abilities and go for the essentials – guitar, bass, drums, vocals. Those are the basic band essentials that have to be in place before you go any further.
Heaven to me is percussion and bass, a screaming guitar and a burbling Hammond B-3 organ. It’s a soup I love being immersed in.
Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that’s not what I call rock.
I remember when I would write a song as a kid, I would also write out on paper what the drums would do, what the bass would do, and what the vocals would be doing.
The sound system influence is undeniable in hip-hop, in jungle, drum and bass, now EDM.
I set myself up to be a bass guitarist and bass players get a lot more work than people like me.
I drive my family nuts because when I watch something on TV, I’m likely to watch it with a bass guitar. But I don’t plug it in!
Since I was a kid, I always wanted to figure out how to make a bass line that was a pendulum – like, gravity would control it, and then you could make it play different notes.
My son, Wolfgang, plays drums, guitars and bass.
I’m a bass player from way back and Paul is a guitar player and we’ve been in many bands.
A lot of other bass players have told me I’m the only bass player who plays with a pick but sounds like he’s playing with the thumb and fingers, which is a great compliment.
I like to practice on the bass, but I don’t do it as often as I should.
You don’t want to be a one-trick pony. On a lot of Smiths songs, I used a pick or a plectrum, and for some of the slow songs, I used my thumbs and my fingers. That’s why I love the bass – it’s adaptable, and you can express yourself so well with it.
James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they’re fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together.
I played bass for a year, but I wasn’t getting better at it, so I decided to stop so I could see my friends.
The bass, no matter what kind of music you’re playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.
I went to see my first gig when I was 15 – it was Loyle Carner at Shepherd’s Bush – and I remember just feeling the bass in my feet and in my body. I was so energised.
Lemmy is, I think, for anybody in the world of rock n’ roll – you don’t have to be a bass player – he is a pioneer, and he was true to his music and also the lover of a lot of different styles of music.
When I listen to a record, or when I’m making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble. I don’t only listen to the guitar player.
New Order has always been a hybrid band. We always mixed guitar, bass, drums with electronic.
I usually speak with all my drummers so that I write my songs with them in mind, and we’ll have bass sounds, choir sounds, and then you can multi-task with all these orchestral sounds. Through the magic medium of technology, I can play all kinds of sounds – double bass and stuff.
I wonder if I could make an electric bass.
If you’re working on a computer and you’re editing bass, it looks like a warm curvy, sort of feminine object.
I’m the quiet bass player.
The sound of tap is not ‘clickety clickety tap tap,’ this monotone thing. The sound of tap has depth. We want you to hear the different highs and lows, the bass, the trebles and the melodies, if you can.
My band, Miles Long, is a jazz-funk spoken word band. There’s jazz sensibilities, but I’m a bass player, so I’m very much into the head-bobbing vibe with sophisticated lyrics.
For me, if the music is good, whether the artist is famous or unknown, I love being part of the music and contributing what I can to the bass end.
My favorite guitar now is my Martin HD-7 because it’s got everything. It’s got the jingle-jangle thing from the twelve string, it’s got the flexibility of the six string, and the bass notes where you can do bass runs and that sort of thing.
I could be just as happy playing a Beatles song as I am when I’m thrashing out the double bass stuff with Adrenaline Mob.
Being a bass player in these big-time rock bands is hard work.
From the first album I’m playing bass on a lot of the tunes, and piano on a lot of ’em, and drums, and guitars. I did that on almost every album.
I like a bass drum. A big one.
A lot of times, I played bass on songs. Gene plays guitar on some songs.
It wasn’t until after private lessons and learning bass lines that I even noticed bass in the music I was listening to at that age. My ears were blown wide open.
You can’t beat 2 guitars, bass, and drums.
When I was a kid, I had asthma, so I would have to take cod liver oil all the time. So anything fishy that reminds me of that taste, I can’t eat. I love Chilean sea bass because I don’t taste it there. But salmon? No, no, no.
In 1972, I got my first electric bass and started playing the kind of instrument I play now. I found that the majority of musicians couldn’t bear that. They are not used to listening to the bass because they think the bass is in the background to support them.
It’s not so surprising that there are more women in metal bands. And they’re not just fronting them. There are drummers and guitar players, bass players.
I’ve put out records over the years, whether it’s with Blackfield or No-Man or Bass Communion or Porcupine Tree, that are pop records, ambient records, metal records, singer-songwriter records.
I went to my first drum n’ bass rave when I was 16 and remember being terrified. Looking around, trying to figure out how to dance to this music, watching some girl in some hot pants, trying little ways to learn her movements.
Billy Sheehan has always been my number one favorite bass player of all time.
I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.
The lousy guitar player in any band is the bass player.
I love to be able to put my hands on a keyboard, to have a guitar and a bass within reach, as well as all the effects.
When I was 14 I would pick up my brother’s bass guitar, and I would just pound on it, having no idea how to play it.
Most punk rock bands just have a guitar, bass and drums. The Descendents, the Ramones, you name ’em, it’s just how it’s always been.
I’ve always liked a very dry snare and, like everyone else, a very dry bass drum.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve got more bass in my voice but also because I don’t talk very much during the day I’ve managed to keep my voice in good condition.
I grew up around salsa, merengue, bachata, bass music, freestyle, hip-hop, techno, house, rave.
I was a kid, 12 or something, when the Partridge Family was big on TV. I liked the curly cord running from the bass to the amps, which were real fancy. That cord looked so cool. I said, ‘Wow! I gotta play something like that!’
