“I never saw myself as a bassist. I haven’t played bass since the last Sonic Youth gig”: Why Kim Gordon has stopped playing the bass – despite being an icon of the instrument

Through her work with alt-rock pioneers Sonic Youth, Kim Gordon cemented herself as one of her generation’s most experimental and boundary-bending bass players.

That feat becomes all the more impressive when you take into consideration the fact Gordon doesn’t even see herself as a bass player. In fact, she hasn’t played the bass guitar in years – and not even on her newest solo material.

Speaking in the new issue of Guitarist, Gordon took a deep-dive into the making of her latest album, Play Me, revealing she drafted in her producer to lay down the low-end while she handled electric guitar duties.

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“I didn’t play any of the bass, actually – Justin [Raisen, producer] played that. He also played whatever melodic guitar there is and then I played all the kind of dissonant guitar stuff,” she admits. “Basically, I just improvised with a bunch of different pedals and a little Fender tweed amp.”

As for why she opted to take this approach despite her pedigree in the bass guitar scene, Gordon reasons that it’s all because, first and foremost, she considers herself a guitar player – not a bassist – and finds six strings to be more creatively inspiring than four.

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“I haven’t played bass since the last Sonic Youth gig [in 2011],” Gordon reflects. “I have this improv guitar duo with Bill Nace called Body/Head, and it’s just much more satisfying to improvise on a guitar. You can just get so many more textures and sounds.

“I never really saw myself as a bassist. I always played with the pick, punk-rock style. And when I first started playing music, I played guitar. But then I would play basslines on the guitar, so it made sense to just play the bass. But I don’t have any sense of identity as a bass player, strangely enough.

“I’m more interested in ideas than actually having to play the bass, y’know?”

To read Kim Gordon’s interview in full, head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitarist – which also features conversations with Robben Ford, Jake E. Lee and more.