Bass Player Features

Lee Sklar: "I go onto YouTube and see all these amazing players, and I say, ‘Christ, I’d be embarrassed to take a bass out in the same room as those guys'"

By Joel McIver

The great Lee Sklar, veteran of countless sessions, returns with the Immediate Family. “I’m your gardener!” he tells us...

Victor Brandt: “I’ve been happily surprised that, even with so much going in Dimmu’s music, I could squeeze in some nice bass parts”

By Bass Player Staff

The Dimmu Borgir bassist on satanic pickups, signature gear, and the cross-cultural exchange between Norwegian black metal and Swedish death metal

Ashley Reeve: "Your talent is all in your hands. You can make a $200 bass sound great if you know what you’re doing"

By Ashley Reeve

The Cher bassist shares her tips on how to make it as a musician

Scott Reeder: “I play left-handed but the bass is strung right-handed, so I can’t just walk into a store and try a bass. Not one!”

By Mike Brooks

The Kyuss, Obsessed, and Fireball Ministry bassist, soundtrack composer, studio owner and icon on a career less ordinary

Mark King: “Level 42 were so successful in the '80s. No-one was more surprised than me at how big the band became”

By Joel McIver

As Level 42 celebrate four decades in business, we sit down with King and take a look back - with the benefit of 2020 vision

David Vincent: "I started on upright bass when I was nine. It was a beast to get on and off the school bus"

By David Vincent

The former Morbid Angel frontman has spent his career among the low frequencies. Here he explains how it all came to pass...

Kristiine Silinja: "I love exploration, adventures, and freedom. All that comes with a six-string bass"

By Bass Player Staff

Solo bassist Kristiine Silinja reminds us that there’s no such thing as ‘you cannot’...

The best flatwound bass strings 2021: how to choose the right flatwounds for you

By Ed Friedland

Get one of the most iconic bass tones ever with our pick of flatwound bass guitar strings

Joe Goldman: “I use this piece-of-crap $25 guitar pedal that sounds like a rusted chisel for all the Code Orange stuff”

By Hywel Davies

The hardcore metal bassist reveals the origins of one of the most intimidating tones ever conceived

Ida Nielsen: "Prince always pushed us to be better - now I want to make sure I’m the best musician I can be"

By Mike Brooks, Joel McIver

Ida Nielsen talks cheap gear, the Purple One, and explains why her phenomenal new album, 02022020, is slap-free

Darryl Jones: "The Rolling Stones are pretty cool about letting me play what I want - they trust that I'll find the essence of the songs"

By Joel McIver

The in-demand bass player goes deep on nailing the Stones' tones, playing with Miles Davis and the luxuries of touring with one of the world's most commercially successful bands

Green Day's Mike Dirnt: “My wife bought me a ’58 Olympic White Fender P-Bass - it eats my friends alive that I play it live”

By Mike Brooks

The icon of the low-end talks songwriting, collecting vintage basses and giving others to good causes

My Dying Bride's Lena Abe: "When you’re playing slow, it’s even more noticeable if your timing’s not bang-on"

By Bass Player Staff

The doom-metal bassist talks playing exclusively with a pick and the creation of the band's latest album, The Ghost of Orion

Richie Goods: "In my neighborhood, it was all about the bass. It was all about Bootsy Collins and Louis Johnson"

By Joel McIver

The Whitney Houston, Christina Aguilera and Alicia Keys bassist on Mulgrew Miller's influence, tracking live, and how he became a 12-hour-a-day bass fanatic

Michael Mondesir: “In 36 years of playing professionally, I haven’t really owned a high-end bass”

By Joel McIver

The Jeff Beck and Whitney Houston session great on reading music, learning by ear, and why there are few better-sounding basses than the Yamaha BBN5 II

How trailblazing Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith helped bass playing take flight

By Joe Shooman

The best-dressed bass player of all time, hero of Billy Sheehan and more, we salute the incomparable Yardbirds bassist

Billy Sheehan: "I love playing. I can sit down for three hours and have a one-man party on the bass"

Billy Sheehan: "I never considered I had any natural talent at all. I just had a burning desire to play"

By Joel McIver

Guest editor and lord of the low-end, Sheehan talks complex arrangements, gear essentials and low-carb diets

Carol Kaye: "You want an instrument that gets all the sounds, not just rock and pop"

By Alison Richter

How the history of popular music changed in 1963 when A-list studio guitarist Carol Kaye was asked to fill in on bass

Mike Watt: "I think there’s something about using the bass as a composition tool. Why only compose on a piano or a guitar?"

Mike Watt: "There’s something about using the bass as a composition tool. Why only compose on a piano or a guitar?"

By Joel McIver

The Minuteman punk icon talks signature models, trying to be funky, and starting out on bass not knowing what it was

Stanley Clarke: "The bass is a very important instrument in film. It can create tension - that's powerful"

By Alison Richter

The skilled bassist discusses working on the soundtrack to Frédéric Tcheng's Halston, which documents the life and work of fashion designer Roy Halston Frowick