
Joel McIver
Joel McIver was the Editor of Bass Player magazine from 2018 to 2022, having spent six years before that editing Bass Guitar magazine. A journalist with 25 years' experience in the music field, he's also the author of 35 books, a couple of bestsellers among them. He regularly appears on podcasts, radio and TV.
Latest articles by Joel McIver

Paul Weller: “People should check out some of my bass playing on that first solo album”
By Nick Wells published
The former Jam frontman lifts the lid on his bass playing career saying: “I’ve written some great bass parts”

Andy Rourke: “If I wasn’t eating or in the bath, I had a bass in my hand. I played it constantly”
By Joel McIver published
In this interview from 2016, the late low-end legend reflects on an influential career with The Smiths and beyond, why the Fender P-Bass won his heart, and how he developed his distinct playing style

Tony Levin: “D’Angelo’s Voodoo made me want to go back to school as a bassist”
By Joel McIver published
The King Crimson bassist names four albums that shaped his sound

The 5 Nirvana basslines you need to hear
By Joel McIver published
From Smells Like Teen Spirit to About a Girl, here are Krist Novoselic’s five greatest basslines

"The Breeders, Hole, Sonic Youth, The Smashing Pumpkins all had female bass players. That was definitely an inspiration": When Melissa Auf Der Maur went solo
By Joel McIver published
From the Archive: Melissa Auf Der Maur on gear, grunge and the fine art of going solo

The Darkness’s Frankie Poullain: “If you go too posh with distortion, it gets too precise and nice. It’s got to be a bit nasty and a bit wrong”
By Joel McIver last updated
The world’s last great hard-rock band with an advanced sense of humor are back with new album Motorheart. Bassist Poullain brings the pick and the thumb...

The 50 greatest guitar riffs of all time
By Amit Sharma last updated
From metal to rock, punk to grunge, these are the best guitar riffs ever recorded, as voted for by you

Slipknot’s V-Man: “At first the mask was a bit weird, but the LEDs make the sides of the bass neck easier to see!"
By Joel McIver published
Slipknot’s Alex ‘V-Man’ Venturella reveals how he got the (literally) hottest gig in metal

Les Claypool: “The Pachyderm bass has one knob on it, a volume knob: I don’t want any tone”
By Joel McIver published
Primus’ bass wizard tells us all about his Pachyderm bass and exactly what naugahyde is

Metallica’s Robert Trujillo: “Cliff’s approach was, ‘I’m gonna play what I feel, and if you don’t like it, screw you!’”
By Nick Wells published
Trujillo remembers bass guitar’s ultimate metal maverick, Cliff Burton

Krist Novoselic: “The bass got caught in the TV lights – and then boom!”
By Joel McIver published
At the 1992 MTV Awards, Nirvana bassman Krist Novoselic threw his Gibson 25 feet in the air, forgetting it would come down again shortly afterwards

Charlie Jones: “I always wanted a plastic bass guitar, but people never took the idea seriously”
By Joel McIver published
The Cult’s bassist Charlie Jones gives us the first look at his plastic P-Bass, a Custom Shop one-off made by Fender Master Builder Scott Buehl

Lady Gaga bassist Jonny Goood: “Being a young Black brother and playing dirty with a pick is unique to me...”
By Joel McIver published
Bassist to one of the world’s biggest pop stars, Jonny Goood on coming from nothing and making it big: "I didn't have sh*t!"

From the vaults: former Machine Head bassist Adam Duce on the tone secrets of Cliff Burton
By Joel McIver published
“He had a Stratocaster pickup hidden under the bridge of his Rickenbacker”

Frank Bello: 5 bass players who influenced me
By Joel McIver published
Anthrax bassist Frank Bello on Geezer Butler, Steve Harris, Paul McCartney and more

The truth behind Lee Sklar's custom 'producer's switch'
By Nick Wells published
A living legend of the bass guitar, Lee Sklar makes a strong case for his non-functioning toggle switch

Watch Yves Carbonne play Teen Town on a custom 2-string bass
By Nick Wells last updated
Yup: TWO-string. French sensation Yves Carbonne demonstrates the mastery of multi-string basses that's wowed the likes of Marcus Miller and Michael Manring

Kings X leader Dug Pinnick: “My ADD meant that practising was useless...”
By Joel McIver published
The golden-voiced 12-string bass master discusses unlikely brass influences, his eternal search for tone and how ADD impacted his bass playing

Metal bassist and YouTube hero Kello Gonzalez: “How I went from zero to 75k subscribers...”
By Joel McIver last updated
Mexico’s Kello Gonzalez reveals his “Holy Trinity” of bass players and how to get his monstrous tone

MonoNeon: “I’m still not over Prince’s death – I was still getting to know him”
By Joel McIver published
We talk to MonoNeon, touted by Flea as the ‘greatest f**king electric bass player’, about his funk roots, playing with Prince and his new Fender 5-string Jazz Bass

How Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan recorded a bass classic with Sweet Child O’ Mine
By Joel McIver published
McKagan reveals how a trip to Guitar Center and the search for a sound to complement Izzy and Slash helped him find his Appetite for Destruction bass tone

Sleep’s Al Cisneros: “For my lifespan, I’ll be playing Rickenbackers. When I hear the sound of Rush’s Permanent Waves, there’s nothing else like that’”
By Joel McIver published
The OM and Sleep bassist on gathering his solo singles into a collection, Sinai Dub Box, flow states and the universal groove, and which bass is so heavy he needs pain relief to play it...

Kramer Disciple D-1 Bass review
By Joel McIver last updated
The unashamedly extrovert K-Bass continues its purple reign
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