Dominic Davis has known Jack White since they were kids growing up in Detroit. The two jammed together for years and caught a vibe – but Davis didn’t realize how strong their chemistry was until later. “After a couple of years of not finding anybody to play with in college, I was like, ‘Wow… the guy was special,’” he tells Bass Player.

Eventually he did find others to play with. He formed Steppin’ In It before moving into a session career, working with everyone from Pharrell Williams to Adele to Beyoncé. “It’s always interesting,” he says. “Everybody does something different.

“Pharrell sent me a finished album and wanted me to do exactly what he’d done. But with pop songs there’s a lot of ear candy. You hear about trying to ‘have a moment,’ – maybe there can be a bass moment there. If I’m forced to do that, I will, but I don’t usually think like that.”

His understated yet virtuosic approach works so well that it led to old pal White inviting him to join his band over a decade ago. Since then Davis has appeared on five of White’s solo records, the latest of which is 2026’s Frozen Charlotte, and he’s about to tour the globe with White again.

Davis has other projects too. “I’ve been doing a bunch of soundtrack work,” he says. “I moved to Nashville 14 years ago, and there’s lots of sessions, lots of producing records, and lots of hanging with friends in the studio. In Nashville you never know who’s gonna call or where you’re gonna wind up.”

What inspired you to take up the bass?

I was always interested in music. Growing up, there was a cardboard Kay guitar in the house. I grew up in Detroit with a single mom, and we were pretty poor, but she always encouraged me. She bought me a crappy pointed headstock guitar with a fake Floyd Rose – it just would not stay in tune!

I’d go to Jack’s house when we were 9 or 10 and we’d play in his attic with his brother Eddie. One day, since my guitar wouldn’t stay in tune, Jack’s brother Eddie said, “You know what? I bet you’re a bass player.” He put a bass in my hands, and that was the beginning of it all. I still play guitar, but I’ve always felt like a bass player.

What was it like growing up with Jack in Detroit?

I don’t know that I was terribly receptive. He was into some things that kids our age weren’t. He was always making things, like cutting up Dr. Pepper cans and making trains, planes or whatever.

One time he was listening to one of those big Lifetime classical music box sets. No one else was really listening to that. But when I moved to college, it took me forever to find people to play with, and that’s when it dawned on me that Jack had something special; he was motivated in a way that other people weren’t.

Eventually you transitioned into a healthy session career.

Yeah, I got pretty lucky. The band I started in college, Steepin’ In It, was kind of like Americana before Americana had a term. We got a reputation for backing folks up around Michigan.

We ended up playing with the actor Jeff Daniels a bunch, and with Greg Brown. That was a natural step into session work – we were already backing half of the singer-songwriters in Michigan.

What’s been your typical bass rig during sessions?

I’m a Jazz Bass guy, so I usually bring a J and a P-Bass. And I usually bring something short and weird, like a Kay or a [Teisco]. And whether they want it or not, I always bring the upright, because it seems like it’ll get used if I bring it!

I have a pretty giant session pedalboard. It’s everything you could want – a bunch of octaves, synthy things, and a couple of compressors. Not everybody wants to use amps, especially in Nashville, so I rarely use an amp on a session, unless it’s a rock session like with Jack.

What led you to become a mainstay in his solo band?

For years he dealt with his bands The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and all that. He was only doing that, aside from the Loretta Lynn album [Van Lear Rose], but when he moved to Nashville he started producing more.

I started coming down and playing on tons of stuff, like for Wanda Jackson and Tom Jones. It was a natural progression. I think for Jack, assembling bands was about him calling all his old pals.

What’s it generally like recording with Jack?

In high school he’d call and say, “Hey, come over – I wanna record!” and that’s how it still goes now. He’s pretty fearless in the studio. He doesn’t necessarily need a plan; he kind of chases it a lot. You just gotta trust him and know it’s gonna work, ‘cause there’s a lot of experimentation.

There’s a lot of pulling things from thin air, more so than a typical Nashville session where you get demos ahead of time, and you have a session leader who sends you all the charts.

Put us in the room with the band and Jack during a typical session for his latest, Frozen Charlotte.

It used to be half and half where there were finished songs, and he’d sit down and play you the whole thing, then the other half were experiments. But with the last couple of records, it’s more him just playing you riffs, and we connect parts.

We’ll say, “Maybe this should be longer,” or, “This should be shorter,” when there’s not a lot of lyrics yet. He’s an old-school guy but he’s also futuristic; he kind of walks between those worlds. He’ll be very specific about what he wants you to do, but he’ll let you be yourself somehow.

He’ll be like, “Big picture – octaves,” then he’ll say, “How about a higher octave or a lower octave?” instead of telling you exactly what to play. For this record I was trying not to do exactly what he did. You can hear the riffs aren’t exactly the same.

Like with Derecho Demonico, I’m keeping it all in one octave so it sounds a little tougher. I was sort of dissecting trios and hearing that a lot. In Led Zeppelin tunes, John Paul Jones is often playing a harmony, or not playing exactly the same riff. That was sort of theme for me. It doesn’t always sound right for me to do exactly what he’s doing.

I’ve learned from arranging White Stripes songs that you don’t have to play all the time. When we do Ball and Biscuit I play like 50 notes the whole song! It’s just roots on the one. On the album there’s a rhythm guitar that’s barely there. So, it’s like, “Okay, I’ll do that.” If we start playing it like a regular 12-bar blues song, it would go into a territory The White Stripes never would have gone to.

When we did My Doorbell a couple of tours ago, I just played tambourine! Sometimes a tambourine or a shaker will be more impactful than playing bass. But then there are some where you can really play the riff with Jack and be like his thumb.

What do you need as a part of your bass rig, no matter what?

I don’t need a whole lot, really – maybe a pick and my palm mute would be what I need most. But I use octaves pretty often, so that’s always part of my rig.

For my whole career it’s basically been octaves, fuzz and some sort of saturation distortion. I’ve also got an EHX POG, a MXR Poly Octave, and an MXR Bass Synth. I like octaves with presets; on mine I have four different octave settings.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from Jack?

I used to be a “bass on 10 and everything else on 0” guy, but Jack’s changed that. It’s so drastically different than the way I used to do it. Maybe it’s the bigger rooms, but now I’m bass on 2 and mid on 10. Jack’s really hammered home that the mid is kind of deeper than bass, or that you’ll hear it more.

And I play too hard! I can’t help it when I’m up there, but I wish I could have a lighter touch, especially with the pick. I’m really trying to play behind the beat, but it’s hard with him because he gets so excited, and it’s so energetic tempo-wise. But I’m trying to learn how to keep things back a bit.

• Frozen Charlotte is out now on Third Man Records.

Known for his seismic basslines with punk rock outfit Bad Brains, Darryl Jenifer has spent the last few years exploring a very different musical landscape. His latest project, The Weather Channel, swaps hardcore intensity for psychedelic grooves – but the philosophy underpinning it all remains exactly the same.

“People ask me to describe the new record, but to me it's just another part of what I've always done,” says Jenifer. “I've been making riffs and chasing ideas since I was a teenager. I'm just trying to keep that dream alive.”

As a kid growing up in Washington D.C., Jenifer’s career direction was decided by one of the early pioneers of the bass guitar.

“When I was young, Stanley Clarke was my hero. I went to see him at the Capital Center in D.C in 1978, and after the show, I got his autograph on a dollar bill.

“I loved his speed and technique, but eventually I became more interested in vibration instead of notes. The pulse became more important than showing people what I could play.”

In the years since, Jenifer has remained remarkably unfussy about his bass setup, relying on the same instrument for decades.

“Too many musicians get trapped chasing equipment, but my advice is always to forget gear. Forget pedals, and forget trying to sound like somebody else.

“I've been playing the same Modulus since the ’80s. I bought it because it had a graphite neck. It’s the only one that could survive a Bad Brains show! Give me that bass, a cable, and an Ampeg SVT and I'm ready for anything.”

What’s the concept behind The Weather Channel?

The title came from the feeling of the music. Whenever I’d hear music playing behind weather forecasts, it always had this smooth, calming groove. One day somebody asked what I'd been working on and I said, “I've been writing some smoothed-out shit.”

My stuff with Bad Brains is hard music. This is just smooth music. So I thought, The Weather Channel. That's exactly what it is.

Was it a conscious decision to move in that direction?

I've never believed you're supposed to play a certain style because of where you're from. If you're Jamaican, people expect reggae. If you're from Washington, D.C., you're supposed to play go-go. But that never made sense to me.

If I'm into punk, I'll make punk. If I'm listening to Roy Ayers or Lonnie Liston Smith, I'll make something inspired by that. I just play what I love.

A jazz musician might hear it and say, ‘That's some punk Weather Channel music,’ but I don't consider myself a musician, so I've never thought that way.

Musicians study theory. They learn the language of music. I never had the patience for that. I think of myself as a riff maker – a guy who loves instruments and has a knack for creating music.

You've said you think differently about writing music these days.

When I was younger I used to force it. I'd sit down and tell myself, “I'm going to write a riff that feels like this.” Sometimes I'd even imagine pictures. I'd think, ‘This riff should sound like a brick wall falling over.’ That was how I translated ideas because I couldn't talk in musical language.

Now it's different. I believe in true inspiration. I'll come into my studio, meditate, smoke a little, play for 20 minutes without trying to write anything – and suddenly something appears. That's when I quietly hit record.

So I don't go looking for riffs anymore. I create the conditions where they can find me. The music starts telling me what it wants to be. That's the difference.

Do you analyse those moments afterwards?

Only enough to shape them. I've realized over the years that music almost has a life of its own. Sometimes an idea keeps coming back, even if it annoys me. The same thing happens with my artwork. I'll make something and think, “I don't even like this,” but other people connect with it. That's when I think maybe it wanted to exist more than I wanted to make it.

Music is a spiritual force. Sometimes it just wants to happen.

There's something hypnotic about The Weather Channel. It works as background music, but there's always enough happening to pull you back in.

That's exactly how I wanted it. Growing up in D.C. there was a radio show called The Quiet Storm. That music was everywhere. Roy Ayers. Lonnie Liston Smith. Smokey Robinson. Kool & The Gang when they got smooth.

My friends used to laugh because that's what I listened to. I've always had that side in me. So this album is really my Quiet Storm record.

You assembled a fantastic band, too.

The beautiful thing is none of it was planned. Everybody lives around here. One person would say, “Call John Medeski.” Someone else would say, “You've got to get Ben Perowsky.” It all happened naturally.

That's another reason this record feels honest. Nobody was chosen because of their résumé. It was just people making music together.

How much direction do you give players of that calibre?

I'll show them the basic idea. Maybe there's a verse and a B section. That's it. Then they bring themselves into it. It's like cooking. Everybody throws a little something into the pot and suddenly you've got something nobody expected.

Afterwards I go through everything and shape it. I call it combing the music. Like getting a haircut before you leave the barber shop. The music is already there. I'm just cleaning it up.

You've always seemed creatively fearless.

That's probably the biggest gift I've been given. When Bad Brains suddenly switched from hardcore into reggae, we weren't trying to surprise anybody. It just felt right. When Sailin' On suddenly turns into something that sounds like Stevie Wonder, that wasn't calculated. That's just where the music wanted to go.

I've always trusted that instinct. Sometimes musicians tell me something I've written is harmonically wrong. Maybe it is. If it feels good, I'm keeping it.

What advice would you give young bass players?

Learn to love a simple four-string bass, and pay attention to your touch. People won't remember how many notes you played, but they remember how you made them feel.

Sam Dixon’s talent pool as a gifted bassist, writer and producer has been tapped by the likes of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, David Holmes, and Corrine Bailey Rae. Beyond his session work, he’s also maintained a long-standing songwriting partnership with fellow Australian Sia Furler.

Together, they co-wrote and produced Christina Aguilera's Bound to You, which earned a Best Original Song nomination at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards. He also received a Grammy Award for his contribution to Adele's 25, which won Album of the Year in 2017.

When Bass Player last caught up with Dixon in March 2021, he attributed his success as a session player to an ability to leave his musical ego at the door.

“As a bass player, it’s rarely about you. You’re there to do what’s right for the artist and the material. It’s like being an actor, knowing how to play that role.”

Having arrived in London with just his mainstay Fender Jazz Bass, Dixon now has a studio’s worth of vintage gear, including a Silvertone, and a Harmony H2.

“I’ve always wanted to have a selection of basses to be able to recreate different sounds from records or players I love. I always say, ‘Look, you’re a musician and this is your craft, it’s what you do! You need to have good instruments to do your job.’ That’s always been my justification anyway!

“I’ve been lucky to be in the right place at the right time and I’ve been able to snag some great basses at reasonable prices. So it’s just kind of happened.”

Going back to his main bass, a 1969 Fender Jazz … “The original owner was a schoolteacher and it had been under her bed for 15 years in its case!”

“I’d started out on some cheaper Japanese-made basses, but was going out in Sydney and hearing other gigs and knowing that my sound wasn’t anywhere near as nice as some of the other players.

“I was really into Bootsy Collins when he was playing with James Brown and the sound of his Jazz Bass on those recordings was just awesome. I was lucky enough to have a friend who worked in a bass guitar store in Sydney – this was 1994 – and he found this bass guitar for me.

“It’s so versatile. You can make it sound like a P-Bass if you want, or really zingy. It responds to different playing styles. It sounds great with flatwounds too – like on this track called Little Black Sandals.

“There’s just something about that bass: it can sound really modern and clean and new, but at the same time it can sound like what it actually is, an instrument that’s been around since the late ’60s.”

Despite the Precision Bass having earned iconic status, Dixon believes the Jazz Bass remains the go-to choice for generations of recording bassists.

“Sometimes I get the impression that a Jazz Bass isn’t as cool as a Precision and that it’s sneered at a little, but it’s such a versatile instrument and there’s a lot more of them on record than people think.

“I’m pretty sure it’s what McCartney played on almost all The White Album, and there’s Joe Osborn who played on all those great records. He did all of his playing with a Jazz with the back pickup and tone control rolled off – that was his sound.

“I played my ‘69 on Sia’s Clap Your Hands and Put Your Records On by Corinne Bailey Rae.

“It’s funny because it’s the one bass I keep coming back to all the time. I’ll have periods away from it, and it might not always be the most appropriate bass for a track recording-wise, but I always find myself playing it again.”

That said, there are sessions where only a P-Bass will get the job done. In those moments, Dixon reaches for a pre-CBS 1960 Precision.

‘It’s beat to death but has that amazing played-in feeling that only beat-to-death Fenders can seem to get – especially the worn-down back of the neck. It’s not a pristine collector’s guitar, but it’s perfect for life on the road. It’s also blessed with the thick slab rosewood fretboard which Fender used from 1959 till mid 1962.”

Other firm favourites in Dixon’s collection include a 1969 Fender Mustang, a 1967 Silvertone Dolphin Bass and his 1964 Harmony H22.

“That’s a fantastic bass. There’s some ridiculous statistic that in the ’60s the company behind Harmony made more guitars than Fender and Gibson combined. They were made to be sold in supermarkets and department stores, and when you pick them up they kind of feel like that.

“Compared to a Fender or a Gibson from that period, they feel a bit flimsy and really light, but it’s great to have something that’s not your typical Fender or Music Man tone, something really different.

“I used it on tracks like Ludlow Street by Suzanne Vega and Sing Me To Sleep by Fran Healy.

“The Silvertone brand was used by the Sears chain for their line of instruments, amps and hi-fis from the 1930s through to the early ’70s. Harmony, Kay, National, Teisco and Danelectro all made instruments for Sears, which would be then badged ‘Silvertone.’

“My one was made by Danelectro and its semi-hollow masonite body, wood saddled bridge and lipstick pickup give it a really honky, resonant tone. It’s also short-scale and I’ve got reasonably light strings on there, making the tension quite slack, so it’s great fun to play.”

Few recordings have achieved the mythical status of the 15-minute Voodoo Child jam from the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland.

Cut in the early hours of May 2nd, 1968, with an all-star cast that included Steve Winwood and Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady, the sprawling blues workout was the product of a spontaneous late-night studio session at New York City’s Record Plant Studios.

For Casady, the invitation came after years of crossing paths with Hendrix on the late-‘60s touring circuit, where a friendship with drummer Mitch Mitchell led to one of rock's most celebrated recordings.

“In the late ‘60s Bill Graham was managing us, and we would suggest other artists to him for our shows,” explained Casady in the October ’93 issue of Bass Player. “Jimi was one of them.

“The first concert we did together was Monterey Pop, and we became friends. In fact, Mitch Mitchell and I really hit it off, both musically and personally.

“Later, when Jimi was recording Electric Ladyland, we came through New York, and a bunch of musicians, including Steve Winwood, went down to see him.

“Around 4am, Jimi decided we should do some playing – fortunately, I had my Guild with me. He broke out a blues tune that we ran through three or four times and then recorded; it ended up on the album as the long version of Voodoo Child.

“I'm also on a couple of tracks from the Live at Winterland tapes that Rykodisc later released.”

Unlike his more melodic work with Jefferson Airplane, here Casady locks tightly with drummer Mitch Mitchell, letting Hendrix and Winwood take the spotlight.

His bass tone is unmistakably late-‘60s – rich in low-mids, lightly overdriven, and full of the kind of natural bloom that comes from a cranked amp in a live studio environment.

“After hearing bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, I became really interested in overdriving my amp. I'd been using the semi-hollow Guild Starfire along with my Jazz Bass, and I noticed that the Fender didn't distort well, but when I played overdriven chords and moved up the neck on the Guild, it had a sweet sustain with a lot of interesting overtones.”

Reflecting on his almost telepathic lock with drummer Mitch Mitchell, Casady said: “When I work with drummers, we often have a hard time seeing eye-to-eye because I don't play patterns with them. It's still a marriage rhythmically, but playing together does not mean just playing the same notes.

“Fortunately most of the drummers I play with understand this, so we're able to support each other while still exploring new ideas.”

The Rolling Stones didn't just tour America in 1969 – they rewrote the rules for stadium rock, playing to unprecedented crowds with towering PA systems, a purpose-built stage production and a volume level that pushed contemporary equipment to its limits.

At the same time, their search for a stage-worthy guitar and bass rig had become a logistical headache. The British amps they'd relied on at home weren't always practical overseas, and the band's ever-growing live setup demanded more power than most manufacturers could comfortably supply.

Andy Babiuk, who published Rolling Stones Gear: All the Stones' Instruments From Stage to Studio, explained in the May 2014 issue of Bass Player: “When the Stones came to the States, they got some Fender amps, but Bill Wyman stuck with his Vox. He said he really liked the tone, and he didn’t want to change it.

“Brian Jones and Keith Richards both got a pair of Sheldon amps, so they were using those. At that point, Vox also started making other things that they kept on giving them – the 760 cabinets, the heads, and the Supremes. But for their 1969 Hyde Park performance in London, they each had stacks of Hiwatts.

“The intent was to bring those to the United States for the ’69 tour. The problem was, they weren't set up for the right voltage.

“When they got over to rehearse, at Stephen Stills’ place, Stills had a bunch of small Ampeg combo amps, and they liked them. So Stephen was instructed to ask, ‘Hey, you got any bigger amps? We're going to be doing a tour.’”

The events that followed would see the Stones abandon their original plans, and unwittingly help launch one of the most legendary amp lines in rock history.

“Rich Mandella, who was with Ampeg at the time, said, ‘We’d designed the SVT, but we’d only built a handful of them.’ So they never really tested them out – 300-watt heads with two cabinets per head.

“But they put them on a truck that belonged to the Stones and hoped for the best. The Stones were the guinea pigs for those amps.”

The gamble transformed the Stones’ live sound, helping lay the foundations for the modern high-powered bass rig. But revolutionary gear has a habit of revealing its limits in spectacular fashion.

“I talked to some of the guys from Ampeg that went on that tour. Every night they were terrified. They didn't know if the stuff was going to work. They were working on them at night after each show, and trying to fix it to make it better.

“I think the show was Oakland. Second song in, the amps blew up. You can hear Jagger apologizing to the crowd: ‘We're trying to get it together up here. Maybe we'll do a couple acoustic ones.’

“By the time they did Madison Square Garden, they had so many amps because they just wanted to have backups. There were 17 SVTs onstage. That's far out to me – who in their right mind would have the balls to use the Stones as guinea pigs for beta testing SVTs? But it sounded great.”

With Keith Richards plugging his guitar into a 300-watt bass amp and refusing to ease off the volume knob, the band's stage levels became the stuff of legend.

“Here was Keith Richards playing guitar through an SVT – and Keith's not one to turn down. Bill told me that when you see videos of Mick running across the stage and sprinting when he’s near Keith, he's not running because he wants calisthenics. He's doing it because he's trying to get away from the volume!

“Bill told me he didn't really want to play loud, but had to just to compete. He said one night when he was standing in front of Keith’s amp, ‘I looked down and my trousers were moving!’”

Jennifer Finch, the influential L7 bassist who helped shape the LA punk scene, has died at the age of 59. The news comes days after Finch announced she was battling an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Finch’s L7 bandmates shared a statement on social media confirming the news, writing: “With a very heavy heart we announce that our beloved bandmate, friend, and fellow troublemaker Jennifer Finch has passed away today.

“She had a long courageous fight with brain cancer and was loved by many wonderful friends, musical peers and fans worldwide. We love you Jennifer.”

The band paid tribute to their bassist in a separate statement shared by their publicist, in which they say, “We are shattered by the loss of our beloved bandmate, sister and friend Jennifer Finch, whose fierce spirit, humor and boundless creativity helped shape L7 and changed all of our lives forever.

“Jennifer was a true original who lived entirely on her own terms, and the impact she made on music, art and everyone lucky enough to know her cannot be measured. We love her beyond words and will carry her with us always. Rest in power our dear friend.”

Earlier this month, Finch announced she had pulled out of L7’s Last Hurrah farewell tour as a result of her cancer battle, which had left her in need of extensive medical care and in-home support.

A GoFundMe page had been launched by family friends to cover medical costs, which arose as a result of unforeseen complications that led to “multiple surgeries and a string of difficult setbacks”.

It has raised almost $400,000 at the time of writing. Some of the proceeds will be directed towards an initiative to preserve Finch’s legacy “by creating an archive of her artistic and creative work”.

A distinct creative force that spanned the worlds of music, art, photography and bass guitar, Finch first joined L7 in 1987, shortly after the boundary-pushing band formed.

Musically, she became the backbone of the group’s classic lineup. With her iconic Ghost bass – which she loaned to Krist Novoselic and donated to the Punk Rock Museum – she propped up bandmates Donita Sparks, Suzi Gardner and Dee Plakas with a heavy, response-led bass ethos that defined the hard-edged L7 sound.

“One of my biggest fears is being revealed as not that great at bass. Technically, I know what I like – I want the bass to be explosive and hold down a bottom-end, but also to have overtone and drive,” Finch once told Bass Player of her style.

Culturally, she also became a force in the genre and the industry; a flagbearer who blended music with political commentary and activism to support women and queer rights in an often hostile, male-dominated space.

Her L7 days are just part of her legacy. Over the course of her career, Finch also played alongside a pre-Hole Courtney Love in Sugar Babydoll, founded the punk rock group The Shocker, produced a Ramones tribute album, opened for Nirvana on tour, and launched her own label, Little Pusher Records.

There has been an outpouring of love for Finch from across the music world, with the likes of Tom Morello, Garbage, Violet Grohl and Courtney Love all paying tribute.

“God bless her. An important fixture of the LA scene, a super cool person, a true artist with a kind and welcoming heart,” Morello wrote. “I loved, respected and admired her greatly. She will be missed.”

“This is so devastating, she was such a force,” Grohl added. “Made so many feel so seen. Rest in peace legend.”

Visit GoFundMe to continue donating the ongoing archive project.

With Mastodon officially announcing their long-awaited new album, Marrow Deep, months of speculation about the band's next chapter have finally come to an end. Yet for bassist Troy Sanders, a member of one of modern metal’s busiest bands, patience has always been part of the job.

“We genuinely viewed this as the most important record we’ve ever made,” says Sanders. “We nit-picked everything. We made sure every riff was the strongest it could be. We spent time figuring out who should sing what, whether parts were really serving the songs and whether everything fit together naturally.

“We’ve always challenged ourselves, and thankfully we still want to. We’ve never wanted to make the same album twice.”

Surrounded by Bill Kelliher’s intricate guitar riffs, the expressive lead work of new guitarist Nick Johnston, João Nogueira’s atmospheric keyboards, and Brann Dailor’s famously explosive drumming, Sanders viewed his role as providing the band's foundation rather than competing for the spotlight.

“I think I fit into the traditional rock bass-player model. That actually suits me perfectly because I’m not a flashy player and I’m not interested in forcing myself into the spotlight.

“If pulling something back makes the whole band sound bigger, that’s absolutely the right decision. It always comes back to keeping things simple.”

Sanders’ core bass arsenal has also remained unchanged, rotating between a Fender Jaguar Bass, his Fender Signature P-Bass, and a trusted Warwick that has featured on every Mastodon album and tour since 2009’s Crack the Skye.

“That Warwick just handles our low tunings better than anything else I’ve ever played. Those three basses are basically my entire world.”

One unexpected addition during sessions for the new album – their first since the departure of founding guitarist Brent Hinds – came courtesy of producer Kurt Ballou, who persuaded Sanders to abandon convention and run his bass through a Marshall guitar head and 4x12 cabinet.

“Kurt asked if I’d ever tried it and suddenly I’m running my bass through this old Marshall JMP guitar amp. It absolutely roared.

“It had this aggressive growl I’d never really heard before. That became part of the heavier blend throughout the album. It’s not sitting right on top of everything in the mix, but it’s there, adding another layer underneath.”

Despite being an enthusiastic pedal collector, for Sanders, years of experimentation almost always end in exactly the same place.

“Live it’s just a tuner and a Wren & Cuff Elephant Skin distortion, but I’ve probably got 50 pedals sitting on shelves in my practice space. Every time we make a record I’ll bring eight or 10 of them into the studio, but almost every time we finish by going, ‘Right… clean tone, dirty tone, done.’”

• Marrow Deep is available to preorder, out August 28 via Loma Vista

For all the discussion of Mastodon’s latest album, Marrow Deep – their first since the passing of guitarist Brent Hinds – Troy Sanders is quick to point out that the album’s biggest bass guitar moment doesn’t actually belong to him. Instead, it comes courtesy of one of his lifelong heroes.

“There’s definitely a bass highlight on this record,” Sanders tells Bass Player. “But it isn’t me.”

Following their appearance at Black Sabbath’s 2025 farewell celebration, the band decided to take a chance.

“We’d just played the Back to the Beginning show and I thought, ‘What’s the worst that can happen if we ask Geezer to guest on our album? He could say no?’

“We knew he was aware of us because he’d mentioned Mastodon in his autobiography as a band he enjoyed listening to. That blew our minds.”

Rather than asking for anything specific, the band sent Butler a handful of songs.

“We wanted him to hear where the record was going and see if anything inspired him, and he sent back this incredible bass solo that became the introduction to a song called The Vanishing. It’s a very Sabbath-inspired track. It’s definitely the bass highlight of the album. And I’m completely happy saying that.

“Everything went through management. We’ve never actually met face to face. At the Sabbath show at Villa Park, it was a madhouse in the Sabbath area, so the idea of trying to go back there just didn’t feel right.

“We’re hoping to finally meet when we’re touring the States later this year because he’ll be near one of our days off. If we can actually sit down together, that’ll complete the whole circle.”

Ask Sanders where any aspiring rock bass player should begin and his answer comes without hesitation.

“Black Sabbath. Everything we do traces back to those four guys. They created the genre that we call home.

“I tell my son the same thing. He’s started playing bass, so I said, ‘Just learn any Sabbath songs.’ They’re challenging enough to train your ears, and your fingers.”

For all the anticipation surrounding the new album, not to mention the accolades Mastodon have already accumulated – including a 2018 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance – Sanders remains sceptical about buying into the mythology of rock stardom.

“You work incredibly hard to make records and tour the world, so when somebody genuinely connects with what you’ve created, that’s validating. So it’s okay to give yourself a little pat on the back occasionally, but it’s dangerous to start believing your own hype.

“When Mastodon started back in 2000, none of us sat around waiting for somebody to discover us. We got in a van and made things happen ourselves. That mentality has never changed.”

L7 bassist Jennifer Finch has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

The news was shared publicly by her bandmates on social media yesterday (July 13), only two months after the band announced The Last Hurrah Tour – their farewell tour – which will be kicking off on October 6 in San Diego, California.

“Following multiple surgeries and serious complications, Jennifer now requires extensive medical care, rehabilitation and professional in-home support,” reads the statement.

“The Last Hurrah Tour was planned along with Jennifer when all four of us were in good health and spirits.” The band confirmed that, as per Finch’s wishes, the tour will continue as planned “while making her care and well-being our immediate priority.”

They also announced that her friends and family, along with the L7 members, have launched a GoFundMe to cover urgent medical expenses, professional in-home nursing care, physical and speech therapy, medical equipment, and legal fees.

As the GoFundMe page explains, “The cancer and everything that comes with it have left her with significant physical limitations, so she’s handling this the only way she knows how: one day at a time.”

The money raised will also help preserve Finch’s legacy by creating an archive of her artistic and creative work, as well as completing a “significant creative project” originally scheduled for release next year.

As of the time of writing, around $220,400 has been raised toward the fundraising goal of $350,000.

Garbage and R.E.M‘s Michael Stipe are among the fellow musicians supporting the GoFundMe effort, with Stipe posting on Bluesky, “Punk rock and alternative music would not be what it is or where it is without Jennifer Finch. We send loving energy to her. Please – if you can – every contribution helps.”

In an interview with Bass Player last year, Finch spoke about her and the pioneering band’s legacy, and insisted that “L7 ain’t over yet”.

“I’m in my 50s now, and we still get to be examples,” she said. “But also we get to fail publicly in a way that we couldn’t do in our 20s. I’ve never felt directly responsible for anyone picking up a guitar – pick up your own fucking guitar! It’s a thing you gotta do or do not.

“I’m very heart-warmed when particularly women say, ‘Because of you, I got into politics’ or ‘I got my medical degree because of you.’ You know, fighting for housing rights – that’s awesome.”

Head to GoFundMe to donate.

What happens when you mash up punk, funk and hard rock? The Red Hot Chili Peppers. The centrepiece of the band has always been Flea (aka Michael Balzary), whose early bass parts were high-powered slap explosions, influenced by the groove of Larry Graham and all-out aggression of the Ramones.

“My position in the Chili Peppers goes beyond that of just a bass player,” said Flea in the February ’92 issue of Bass Player. “I also consider myself an entertainer. As a bassist, my job is to kick ass!”

By the time the Chilis hit big with 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, funk had become the main ingredient in their genre-spanning mix. Of course, Flea's simple, song-serving basslines were pretty mind-blowing as well.

“I used to play too many damn notes, but I think we're releasing tension on Blood Sugar. The songs are all simple, but it's the intangibles that make them happen: like paying attention and getting inside the groove.

“Don't get me wrong – I love bass players such as Jaco, but the simple stuff is what I was listening to when we did this record.”

For the first time, Flea was able to demonstrate his taste and restraint on ballads such as Under The Bridge, and his deep groove on Give It Away.

“For Give It Away, I had written something and told the guys, ‘Aah, it's just another bassline – I don't really like it. But they said, ‘No, no, it's really good – we gotta do it.’ It ended up being the album's first single.

“I wrote a lot on my 4-track at home. I came up with the core riffs on If You Have to Ask, Suck My Kiss, Naked in the Rain, and Apache Rose Peacock.

“I wrote the Mellowship Slinky groove one night while I was sitting around feeling pretty good; I wanted to write something light and airy and spacious, with that jumpy, swinging James Brown feel.

“Another time, I was watching the movie Taxi Driver; a 5-string was sitting on my lap, and I was just hitting the strings – not even listening to what I was doing.

“A commercial came on, and I realized I had written an entire song – all the parts for The Righteous & the Wicked – without even thinking about it. It was nutty – that song came from Jodie Foster!”

Dedicated to boundary-pushing US jazz-punk bassist Mike Watt (of The Minutemen, fIREHOSE and Porno for Pyros amongst others), Blood Sugar Sex Magic mined a rich seam of bass guitar chaos.

The team assembled to produce the album was also unmatchable. Producer Rick Rubin, engineer Brendan O'Brien and the band's lineup at its peak.

“Our producer, Rick Rubin, encouraged me to play simply, and the more I did it, the more I liked it. Part of it was the sound I got this time; on previous albums, I didn't have a nice, big tone that sounded good with simple parts.

“Another big factor was that we toured so hard after Mother’s Milk, and every night I was up there jumping around, sweating my ass off, playing as hard as I could, beating the shit out of my bass. When I got home, I wanted to relax.

“I didn't play one note on Blood Sugar to prove I was ‘Mr. Bitchin’ Bass Player’. I'm sure there will be a time when I'll want to be a big bassopotomous again, but right now, I just want to be part of the band and make it happen correctly.

“It's important to remember that anyone who has good technique can, with just one note, imply a billion more. Louis Armstrong never needed to play fast.”

Keith Richards has reflected on the Rolling Stones' latest collaboration with Paul McCartney, revealing why he thinks it meant so much to the legendary Beatle.

Macca guested on the Stones’ rip-roaring 2023 track, Bite My Head Off, from Hackney Diamonds. And, on their latest album, Foreign Tongues, which releases today (July 10), McCartney guested on Covered In You.

Richards thinks he knows why McCartney, who has largely gone solo since the end of the Beatles, was so willing to get his hands dirty with the Stones.

“I’ve realized that Paul really misses being in a band,” he tells Zane Lowe for Apple Music. “His joy of just being in that context is great. So if there’s any more songs to do, I’ll let you know, Paul.

“I’ve known Paul for well, basically, since The Beatles started, since we started, but only on the periphery,” Richards continues. “John [Lennon] and Paul did a couple of backup vocals for us way back when on We Love You and Dandelion, I think way back in 1967.

“But otherwise, it’s also great to have somebody from your own era, from way back when. He’s a lovely player, and I’d like to do more with him.”

McCartney himself has spoken about the fun he had in the studio with Richards and the Stones for Foreign Tongues.

Speaking to the BBC for the release of his own latest solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, McCartney confirms that recording with the Rolling Stones was the chance of a lifetime. And he loved every second of it.

“I showed up as a session player,” Macca said. “It was a really good feeling, because I wasn’t a star, I was just the bass player. I’m standing there playing, and I’m thinking, ‘I’m playing with the Stones!’ I should be blasé and say, ‘I’ve known them for years,’ but it was special.

“You better believe when I got home that evening, I said, ‘I’ve just played with the Stones. I loved it!’”

Though McCartney jumped at the opportunity, not all artists approached by the Stones were as forthcoming. Jeff Beck famously turned the band down, for instance.

But other music icons have readily accepted, and Foreign Tongues is proof. It's credits list includes the Cure’s Robert Smith and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Bruno Mars, and more. It’s quite the cast list.

Foreign Tongues is out today via Polydor Records.

As an original member of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, bassist Ron Blair supplied distinctive basslines for the band’s classic first four albums – Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, You’re Gonna Get It!, Damn the Torpedoes, and Hard Promises.

But global success came at a cost: Blair learned quickly that rock-star life was anything but glamorous, being earmarked by a mind-numbing succession of one night stands, and exhaustive recording and touring commitments.

Burnt out from the grind of an unrelenting schedule and disillusioned by the record business, Blair split from the group in 1982 and was replaced by Howie Epstein. Two decades later, he came full circle and rejoined, as Epstein’s long battles with substance abuse tragically claimed his life.

Throughout his tenure, Blair powered such quintessential Petty tracks as Breakdown, American Girl, I Need to Know, Listen to Her Heart, Refugee, Here Comes My Girl, Shadow of a Doubt, Even the Losers, and many others.

Asked to revisit his beginnings as a bass player and, like so many others before him, Blair revealed that he switched from six strings to four out of necessity rather than choice.

Speaking to Bass Player in 2013, he explained: “When I was in high school in Jacksonville, my dad went on a tour of Japan with the Navy, and because I wanted to be a drummer, he was going to bring me back a set of drums.

“But he ran out of money buying everything from lamps to rosewood furniture, so he came back with a Guyatone guitar and a little amp. I figured I was going to be a guitar player, and learned all the surf music.

“I had some friends in a band, two brothers who didn’t get along, and one of the brothers had to go. So my friend asked me, ‘Would you be into playing bass?’

“I went down to Lipham’s Music Store – where we used to hang out – and I borrowed a bass guitar. Then I got a hold of a little psychedelic substance and tripped out all night. By morning, I said, ‘I’m a bass player!’

“Back in those days the bass wasn’t a romantic instrument. You really had to talk someone into playing bass.”

Pressed about his early years as a musician, Blair reveals an unusual starting point: “I was a military brat; my dad worked for the Navy. I lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and surf music was the big thing – this was pre-Beatles. Then my dad got stationed overseas. Next thing I knew, we were on a boat headed for Japan.

“When I got there it was like going back in time; it took a long time for music to get over to Japan, so they were somewhat behind.

“Around 1968, my dad got stationed in Hong Kong, but I needed to go to university, so I chose the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. There was such a good music scene there.”

Were you familiar at that time with Tom Petty’s band, Mudcrutch?

No, not then. A couple years later, I got into a band that did gigs at places where Mudcrutch would play. Around that time I met a great girl who turned out to be Tom’s wife’s best friend. We used to go over to his little apartment above a laundromat, so I became acquainted with Tom then.

How did you reconnect?

Sometime in 1974, drummer Stan Lynch called me and said, ‘I’ve got a session with the remnants of the Mudcrutch guys, but it’s for a songwriting demo.’ I said, ‘Sure I’ll come.’

It was going really well, and at some point Tom showed up in the control room and never left. Shortly after, we were asked to do some sessions for Tom.

At A&M Studio we were cutting the song Mystery Man, which appears on our first album. We ran through it, and producer Denny Cordell went, ‘Fucking ace!’ – we had cut a track before we even knew what we were doing.

I felt really home at home playing with the band. It must have something to do with our Florida roots. Maybe it’s the lifestyle, but if you grew up playing there with so many good bands, you were soulful whether you tried or not.

When did you realize the band had broken through?

We had our breakthrough first in England, and then America came a little later. Before we were in the position of being a headliner, we opened up for a lot of groups back then, everyone from the J. Geils Band to Kiss.

Breakdown did well in the U.S., but it was our second album, You’re Gonna Get It!, that pushed us over the top. It’s the first album of ours that went gold. When that happened, I was like, ‘Holy crap, I’m in a real band!’

Is there a Petty song that was particularly challenging for you to nail?

On Mojo, I Should Have Known It was really trippy. The demo had a bunch of stops in it and wasn’t to an exact meter. I was like, ‘Shit, I’m gonna have to take some notes.’ Somehow we deciphered that tune, but it was tricky just to make it through and nail one good take.

Another signature bassline of yours is the melodic figure introducing American Girl.

I don’t remember exactly how I came up with that part, but it’s a good one. Every time I pick up a bass and start noodling around, I always go to some kind of an open A string with a high 3rd or an open D string. I’m proud of that bass figure – it’s super-cool. We started off our halftime show at Super Bowl XLII with that.

How would you define your approach to playing bass?

I’ve always loved melody. In the early days of the band, I was consumed with jumping out with those melodies whenever I could. On one of our anthologies, there’s a live version of The Best of Everything, and every time it’s going to a transition I’m playing way up high, and then I come back down. You really need to be prudent with that kind of stuff.

A song of ours that conveys that sparseness is Fooled Again, from our first album. It’s got a pretty neat groove. Same goes for Mystery Man, which has this slow Bo Diddley beat that we hit before we even knew it.

When we started headlining and doing shows on our own, we had to be reminded: ‘Everybody’s paid their money to see you, so just slow down and give them what they want. Don’t overplay.’

A lot of bass players have a certain sound that’s great by itself, but that doesn’t mean much. How it blends with the song, how it’s sitting against the rhythm guitar, is more important.

How do you approach bass parts so you don’t step on the guitars’ frequencies?

A lot of times, you overplay a riff and execute the attack with more intensity than you need. If you’re playing high up the neck, you’ve already got it going on, so play a little easier and lay back, and those notes will ring a little better.

Can you offer any guidance in terms of sounding better as a player?

A lot of the gadgets you see on amps, the graphic EQs and strange boosts that sound really good when you push them in or crank them up – ditch all of that stuff, and just dial up your sound.

You’ve got three ways to dial it up: bass, mid, and treble. Keep it way simple. Try, with all the power you can muster up, to blend with all your bandmates and not get in the way of the frequencies.

What’s the most useful tip you ever received as a bass player?

There’s a great Phil Lesh quote that goes, ‘You’ve gotta have a damn good reason to play an open string on a bass.’ That’s good advice. I have one of my own: remain in contact with the neck at all times! Do not drop your left arm down to your side or point or do anything – don’t showboat.

From Pantera to Kill Devil Hill, bassist Rex Brown has come to personify the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, and he's got the stories, the surgeries, and the scars – as well as the hard-won sobriety – to prove it.

“All I’ve ever known in life is bass,” Brown told Bass Player in 2017. “There’s not a lot else that l care to do, or be as good at, but I know the bass guitar. I know how to play them, how to fix them, how to build them, and how to break them.”

Standing toe to toe with Pantera guitarist Darrell “Dimebag” Abbott, wielder of one of rock’s most massive guitar tones, Brown asserted his own sonic identity while also keeping pace with drummer Vinnie Abbott’s jackhammer beats.

“With Pantera it was so hard because that guitar sound was so big, the reverb on the snare was so loud. Dime would hit at like, 3.5 to 4 kilohertz, and that's where I would try to get my bass attack.

“If it were up to Dime, he would have had me to play everything in unison. But being a bass player, I felt that there were certain variations I could play within the riff – and within the context of the riff – that made it unique.

“It would have been very easy for Dime to just pick up a bass and play along with his guitar tracks, but as a bass player who knows composition and how things fit together, I didn't want to do that all the time.

“I wanted to have a huge, monstrous sound underneath Dime, but we were flying at 188 beats a minute. I had to be articulate, and sometimes, you can't do that when you have a huge sound.”

What's the secret behind your distinctive tone?

I don't think I got my SVT until the first official Pantera record. But once I got my SVT stacks, that changed everything. For so many years, I had to play so hard to be overheard above the reverb of Vinnie’s snare and over Dime’s crazy guitars. That's probably where it culminated.

I also downstroke a lot, and I can play incredibly tight. I attack the bass; I don't just sit there and stumble around. When you hit a note, you gotta fucking hit it. That's your note – go get it, and don't pussyfoot around with it.

Has your bass playing changed over the years?

I still get up every morning and play the bass for 30 minutes. And if someone asked me to get onstage any open night, I would get up there and unleash it.

I’m not a Billy Sheehan type of player. I love Billy and he’s a good friend, but my mentality is more to push that bottom as much as I can and incorporate the riff into what I’m doing to lock it all down. However, at a point I got sick of being just the pocket guy, so l started stepping out and playing in different ranges, too.

What were the biggest things that sculpted you from your time in Pantera?

I don't have enough breath, and you don't have enough tape, for me to explain that even remotely. You have to all strive for a common goal, and eat, sleep, and breathe it until you reach that shit.

I was 17 when I joined the band in 1981, and it's been my life ever since. Vulgar Display of Power came out in 1992, which is probably my favorite record, and I remember finishing that album like it was yesterday.

How important are chops?

It's all about the song. It's not about ego or who's playing where. It's about knowing when to play, when not to play, and what's going to hold down that fort.

I can sit and play guitar all day long, but when it comes to bass playing, it's a totally different game. I have to keep that low-end so everything else can breathe and so that the vocals paint the picture.

But ‘The Riff’ is sacred, right?

When you're talking about very specific riffs – something like I'm Broken – you'd better believe it. But there's a certain way you can instil that main riff while still putting your mark on it.

It's all about knowing when to shine and knowing when not to. I definitely tried different things during the lead section, but not all over the song.

Some bass players these days play and play even when the vocalist is singing, and it just clouds everything up.

Did you guys work out how you'd support Darrell’s guitar solos?

Some of the Pantera basslines I'm proudest of happened underneath Dime’s solos. Sometimes l'd say, ‘Let me try a part for the solo,’ and we would just jam it; if it worked, it worked. Pretty much any time he’d go to the upper register, I'd keep it real solid on the bottom, down with the kick.

So if you notice in Rise, for example, it's me just playing straight 16ths or eighth-notes. And a lot of those times when he went in the upper register I would play eighth-notes or 16ths under him, and then when Dime came down, we would play everything in unison. But you know, we didn't even think about it back then. It was just second nature. It was magic.

In 1968, Jeff Beck released Truth, a pumped-up blues-rock album featuring Rod Stewart's grainy vocals, Mickey Waller on drums, and a recently “demoted” Ron Wood on bass guitar.

Originally the band's second guitarist, Wood took over the bass duties when original member Dave Ambrose missed a rehearsal.

As it turned out, Wood actually preferred letting Beck take the spotlight on guitar, and for two albums (the band put out Beck-Ola the following year), he laid the foundation for the future of hard-rock bass playing.

When you consider that Truth pre-dates Led Zeppelin's arrival on the scene by a year, Wood's bass playing takes on even greater significance.

In addition to a 1968 Telecaster Bass, he played a Fender Jazz Bass he “obtained” from a store near their rehearsal studio. In a 1975 interview, he told Guitar Player, “I had no money... I couldn't pay for it, so I borrowed it and never took it back. About five years later I paid for it, after they tracked me down.”

As a guitarist coming to the bass, Wood brought a melodic voice to the instrument (later exemplified by his playing on Rod Stewart's Maggie May), along with a rhythmic ferocity born of his well-honed chops, as heard on Let Me Love You, a straight-ahead 12-bar blues penned by blues legend Willie Dixon.

Let Me Love You is played here in F# with a swinging 16th-note rock feel. The blues scale (1-b3-4-#4-5-b7) in that key offers use of the open E and A strings, and Wood’s bassline takes full advantage of the position.

The first of nine choruses features an authoritative instrumental statement from Beck over the alternating I-IV progression for the first four bars of the blues form, and the bassline comes in blasting a prototypical riff with an accent off the ‘e’ of beat four that gets repeated throughout the tune.

At 00:32, Rod Stewart's vocals take the lead, and the alternating I-IV movement gives way to a standard ‘long I’ progression for the rest of the song.

At 00:41 Wood introduces a variation of the Shortening Bread lick (1-6-5), which is a recurring theme throughout. The answer phrase at 00:48 goes up an octave, with the slide up from the last F# causing the following lick (which sounds like Mountain's Mississippi Queen) to get hacked up.

This lick reappears many times, but this one has an unexpected visit from the open E string. It's a quick blip that doesn't cause any real problems, but it's typical of Wood's relaxed approach to the bass. Although he misses the intended destination note (F#), Wood nails it every other time.

Beck starts to solo at 01:33, and Wood calms it down with steady eighth-notes and a descending octave jump that serves as a motif for the next four bars.

The Shortening Bread lick at 02:19 gets transmuted into a blues riff that has a strong resemblance to the pre-chorus guitar riff from the Rolling Stones’ 19th Nervous Breakdown.

The solo ends with a short ‘three-against-four’ rhythm that creates adequate tension for the release into the next chorus where Stewart’s vocals return.

This time, Wood sets up the Mississippi Queen lick with a slide from the low F# and nails it at 02:42. On the IV, he ventures up to the G string and plays in the higher octave, bringing out a melodic vibe with the C# at 02:48.

The energy chills out again and Wood opens chorus seven with a quote from Duck Dunn's riff on Hip Hug-Her by Booker T. & the M.G.’s. It could be a simply happy accident, but most important is to notice how he uses space to work with the dynamic level of the arrangement.

Wood pokes his head up above the fray again by sliding up to the high C# at 03:17, but gets in a little trouble on the way down the lick by letting an open D and A slip through. Not a big problem really, but it was probably not intentional.

Just when it feels as if the energy is petering out a bit, the drums set up a fill at 04:00, and Wood unleashes a furious rapid-fire lick with a bluesy bend that brings back the fire for the final chorus.

Wood keeps up the dynamics, using the mid-register F# to give the line a lift. The song stops abruptly at 04:27, and Wood sets up the end with an unaccompanied descending blues scale that lets you hear the true tone of the bass.

Running it through a Marshall 100-watt stack and playing roundwound strings with a pick, dig the amp breakup on the E string!

Victor Wooten's incredible performances as a member of the Grammy-winning Béla Fleck and the Flecktones have long earned him the admiration of bass players and music fans worldwide.

In 1999 he won the Nashville Music Award for Bassist of the Year (his second), and in 1998 he received his third Bass Player of the Year award from Bass Player magazine, making him the only bassist to win the honor more than once. He was also ranked No. 14 on our list of the 100 greatest bass players of all time.

And yet, according to Wooten, one of his most remarkable achievements was the release of his groundbreaking debut album, A Show of Hands.

Originally recorded in 1993 and ’94, the project soon attained cult status through word-of-mouth and bootlegging before it was finally released. Wooten's concept was to perform all of his bass parts live, without any overdubs.

“I wanted to make a statement – more to myself than to the public – not to prove what I could do, but to show it could be done,” said Wooten in the Feb 2002 issue of Bass Player.

“I just didn’t quite know how to make the record listenable for the duration. It was kind of a challenge to myself, and I was quite happy with the outcome.”

“Back then, all I had were cassette tapes. I happened to be at Fodera Guitars in Brooklyn the day they were shipping a fretless bass to Marcus Miller, and so I grabbed a cassette of the album, slipped it into the case, and sent it off.

“I did the same thing with Stanley Clarke, and somehow managed to get cassettes into the hands of Chick Corea and Anthony Jackson, too. The coolest part is that every one of them got back to me. Somewhere I still have the voicemail Marcus left me.

“Anthony's reaction really stuck with me the most. For years, he'd been pretty vocal about not being a fan of tapping or thumbstyle playing. Then he called and gave me one of the highest compliments I've ever received.

“He said I was the first bassist who made him think about learning to tap himself because there was something on my record he couldn't figure out. Coming from Anthony Jackson, that was about as meaningful as it gets.”

Wooten describes his “open hammer pluck” technique as hitting an open string with your right thumb, hammering a note with your left hand, and then plucking a note with your right index finger, typically creating a triplet.

“My approach has always been to turn whatever I was working on into a piece of music. If I was developing a new technique, I'd write a song that forced me to use it. That way I wasn't just practicing exercises – I was making music.”

“The song Classical Thump is a great example of that because it started out as nothing more than a thumb exercise. It was a way to work through different thumb techniques. If you listen to the song from that perspective, you can actually hear the technique evolve as the piece progresses.”

Another example of how much music can be made with just four strings can be heard on Justice, Wooten's thought-provoking homage to life on the streets.

“I'd been messing with that bass groove for quite a while; it had a cool sound, which inspired the lyrics and the other sections. Don't ask me why I chose to solo over the chorus – it just seemed to work!”

As for the track’s wide-ranging vocals, Wooten revealed, “It’s all my voice overdubbed. Instead of singing in various ranges, I slowed down or sped up the tape so my actual voice quality would change. Prince does that.”

In keeping with the album's solo bass concept, Wooten performed all of his bass parts live, without overdubs. “Whenever I play – whether I'm by myself or not – always hear the rest of the band in my head. So I try to emulate the sound of a band, with all the rhythmic motion that occurs between the melody notes.”

On the bass side, Wooten played his Fodera 4-string in standard tuning; he used new strings and recorded direct through Demeter and ADA preamps into the board. “I also placed a live mic right in front of my bass to get the string attack.”

Few tracks from the album illustrate Wooten’s bass playing philosophy more than U Can’t Hold No Groove. “That’s still one of the songs that I get asked how to play the most.”

“The whole CD had been recorded for months when I decided to add the vocals to that song. I called Will Lee and he agreed to sing with me. I was not going to sing at all but he talked me into it. We did our best imitation of Larry Graham.”

Another standout track that has become a benchmark for bassists, and a crowd favourite at clinics and concerts, is the title track, A Show of Hands.

“A friend of mine named Steve Lowrey drew a picture of me that he titled A Show of Hands. I decided it would make a good title for the album. Once this song was recorded I found the title appropriate for it, too.

“I used my stereo bass guitar for this one – a four-string Fodera that has individual Piezo pickups for each string, along with magnetic pickups made by Bill Bartolini. The Piezo’s allow each string to be recorded on separate tracks. I then panned each string in a different place during mix down.

“Over the years, I have had to play this song repeatedly to prove to people that it can be played all at once!”

Since emerging alongside singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett in the 1990s, Viktor Krauss has forged a formidable reputation as a modern-day session player on both the electric and acoustic bass.

His intuitive bass work can be heard on Bill Frisell’s Gone, Just Like A Train and James Taylor’s American Standard, while his talent pool as a gifted multi-instrumentalist has been tapped by Alison Krauss in support of her collaborative work with Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant.

“Stuart Duncan and I became the utility players in that band,” says Krauss. “I played electric guitar, acoustic guitar, six-string Danelectro bass, tic-tac bass, keyboards – whatever was needed. Stuart was doing the same thing with banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and a whole range of instruments. It was a lot of fun.”

High points of his career are many, but working alongside Plant ranks among the highest. “The thing that struck me most is that he's exactly the person you'd hope he'd be. He's incredibly smart, gracious, and makes eye contact with everyone. Nobody feels left out of the conversation when he's around.

“Every now and then I’d see footage of Led Zeppelin from 1973 and suddenly remember, ‘Oh right – he actually lived all of that.’”

“Sometimes he'll instinctively create a little extra tension before a phrase resolves, and everybody has to react in real time. His intuition is incredible, and you have to stay on your toes because he's constantly improvising.

“As someone who grew up as a huge Led Zep fan, there were moments where he'd play a phrase that sounded like something straight out of a Zeppelin record.

“I remember one rehearsal Robert asked, ‘Do you know a Led Zeppelin song called The Ocean?’ I just casually answered, ‘Yeah, I think I know that song.’ Those moments were all pretty amazing.”

How did you get the gig with Lyle Lovett?

Even before I moved to Nashville, I'd heard The Large Band record and started thinking seriously about where I wanted my career to go.

I'd spent a lot of time playing big band music, but what Lyle was doing felt unique. He was blending swing, country, and a lot of other influences, and I remember thinking as early as 1989 that I'd like to play with him someday.

When I moved to Nashville in 1992, I started trying to figure out who was on his team. Through various connections, I eventually got to know some people around his management.

At the time, I was playing with Peter Rowan, who was connected to both the bluegrass world through Bill Monroe and the West Coast scene through Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. Peter was this fascinating combination of influences, and through that network I met people who knew Lyle's camp.

Eventually I called, and introduced myself. The response was, ‘Lyle doesn't need anybody now, but I'll keep you in mind.’ So every once in a while I'd check in.

I had a really lean summer in 1994. Peter wasn't working much, and I just thought, ‘Let me call and see if there's anything going on.’ Before I could even finish my sentence, the manager said, ‘Oh yeah, Lyle might need a bass player.’

I didn't know if it was actually going to happen, but about ten days before the tour started, I got the call: ‘You've got the gig.’

This was around the I Love Everybody record, which had come out in 1994. It was a huge amount of material to learn. The band was essentially a trio with occasional horns, and the bass parts were pretty demanding. Fortunately, a lot of it featured upright bass, which played to my strengths.

I learned all the material, and from that point on I stayed with Lyle for most of the next 10 or 12 years. There were a few breaks when we were raising kids, but I worked with him regularly until 2022, when I started working more with Robert Plant and Alison. It was an incredible run. I still occasionally do shows with him. I played a couple this year, and every time it's just fun.

Can you share some insights on your recordings with Bill Frisell?

Working with Bill was amazing. It's funny – if people know me for anything, it often seems to be those records, especially Gone, Just Like A Train. That's the one that comes up most often.

I didn't know Bill before working with him. When he was making the Nashville record, a few people recommended me because I had experience in both jazz and bluegrass circles. They thought I might be a good fit.

I remember talking to him on the phone, then meeting in the studio in September 1995. We started playing together and I immediately thought, ‘Wow. What is this?’ We seemed to hit it off right away.

We made several records: Nashville, Gone, Just Like A Train, Good Dog, Happy Man, The Sweetest Punch, which was a collaboration involving Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello. That's the most overtly jazz-oriented thing I did with Bill.

That record featured Brian Blade, Curtis Fowlkes, and Billy Drewes. I remember feeling like I was part of a very special group of musicians. We also did projects like Disfarmer and some soundtrack work.

Those records were all wonderful experiences because everything made sense to me. I had enough experience in the different musical worlds he was drawing from that I felt very comfortable in that environment.

What was your goal on Gone, Just Like A Train?

On that album, it was just Bill, Jim Keltner, and me. Jim could go way out, Bill could go way out, and I was perfectly happy being the thing that held it all together. That role was more enjoyable to me than playing lots of solos.

Some of the bass parts he wrote out very specifically, almost like piano music, with split staves showing melody and bass movement, but what I really enjoyed was being the anchor.

How about James Taylor?

I initially overdubbed on one or two songs for his American Standard album, but it eventually turned into nine tracks. Some of those overdubs were even recorded from a hotel room while I was out on the road.

I only spent one day with him in person, but he was everything you'd hope he'd be – kind, thoughtful, and easy to work with. He was another one of those people who completely lived up to the image you have of them.

I'd listened to him so much growing up that when I started playing on those tracks, I realized all I really needed to do was listen to the lowest note of his guitar part and support that. It was a really fun way to fit into the music.

Do you have a go-to bass tone?

My favorite bass sound is actually the live bass tone on No Quarter by Led Zeppelin. John Paul Jones was using those Fender bass pedals, and I have a set myself. They're organ-style pedals, which give you a huge, thick fundamental low-end. That's what I'm often chasing on upright bass.

For bass guitar, a lot depends on right-hand placement and how much attack you want. I tend to like flatwound strings with a strong lower-mid-range presence. Something warm and substantial that can be shaped easily in a mix.

How do you setup in the studio?

For upright bass, I have a default microphone position that I like, and I always run a direct signal at the same time. Then I leave it up to the engineer to decide how much of each source they want in the final mix.

I use a Fishman BP-100 pickup. It has a lot of upper-mids and top-end, which helps me hear the pitch more clearly. It's an insurance policy for playing in tune.

Electric bass is more variable. It depends on the project. Is it a modern record? Something vintage-sounding? Does it call for a short-scale bass? A Precision Bass? A Jazz Bass? Something active? Usually the song dictates the choice.

What skills do musicians need to be successful?

It's interesting because when you look at successful musicians versus incredibly talented musicians who never quite get the break they're hoping for, talent alone isn't usually the deciding factor.

In places like Nashville, it's almost assumed that you're a good musician. That's the minimum requirement. A lot of success comes down to professionalism. Being prepared. Being on time. Being pleasant to work with. Showing genuine enthusiasm for what other people are doing. People want to be around people who seem excited to be there.

Networking matters too. Years ago, I would regularly go through my address book and call people I hadn't spoken to in a while. I'd reconnect, catch up, and maintain those relationships. Today that often happens through texts and emails, but the principle is the same.

How about from a playing perspective?

From a playing perspective, I think it's important to stay open and listen to lots of different music. I don't really have a strict practice routine. I just enjoy playing.

Even if I'm playing guitar instead of bass, it's all connected. The more you're playing, the more alert and responsive you become musically.

I always felt my best after a long tour. It's like exercising a muscle. If you're in shape, you're always going to play better.

The Jam bassist, Bruce Foxton, has revealed he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, following show cancellations and recent speculation about his health.

“It’s no secret that I’ve undergone treatment for cancer and am still having scans on a regular basis to keep an eye on that,” Foxton wrote on social media.

“However, what you don’t know is that the cancer treatment in itself caused some significant issues for me and investigations into all of that uncovered the fact that I’m now facing a future living with Parkinson’s Disease… and I’m determined to do that as well as I possibly can.”

Parkinson's Disease is a disorder of the nervous system that impacts movement and gets worse over time. Symptoms include problems with balance, uncontrollable shaking of the hands and fingers, and stiffness.

Foxton describes the diagnosis as “a huge shock” and it's “taking a long time to let that sink in and for me to accept that my body and mind are dealing with something completely out of my control.”

He says that he now has to face the mental and physical repercussions of the diagnosis daily and is taking the right medication in order to “carry on doing what I love and what I live for in a relaxed and supportive environment.”

While he’s been active for over 40 years, Foxton had to call off touring with From The Jam in May 2025 due to health issues, but is still touring under his own name, where the conditions are more under his control.

“With your help, I’m going to keep going and playing live for as long as I’m able to do it,” he concludes. “It’s good for me, my future health, and hopefully good for all of you.”

Back in 2023, Foxton spoke to Bass Player about writing with Paul Weller (and why the Beatles can't sue him for the Start! bassline).

A genuinely unique character, whose taste for Jack Daniel’s is only equalled by his love for classic rock ’n’ roll, Michael Anthony has earned a reputation as one of the most hard-rocking bassists of his generation.

He’s played in several now-legendary bands, with Van Halen alone selling upwards of 80 million albums worldwide, snagging a Grammy and entering the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.

But long before the arena tours and platinum-selling albums, Anthony was just another Southern California kid hauling gear into backyards, playing fraternity parties and dreaming of making a living through music.

“Snake was the first power trio I ever played in,” said Anthony in the November ’95 issue of Bass Player. “I played bass guitar and sang lead; we did a lot of ZZ Top, Cream, Allman Brothers, and Doobie Brothers covers. We were playing backyard parties when I first became aware of the Van Halen brothers.

“I was going to Arcadia High School California, and we had a carnival on our field, and they played. Back then they were called Mammoth – it was Ed on guitar, Al on drums, and some bass player. Ed was singing lead.”

Anthony later attended Pasadena City College, where the Van Halen brothers and David Lee Roth were also enrolled.

“My father wouldn't let me major in music, so I was majoring in psychology – but I took a couple of music classes, like jazz improvisation, theory, and piano to learn how to read bass clef. After about a year, my father finally let me major in music, so I switched all my classes.

“Around that time, Snake opened up for Van Halen – Roth had just joined the band, and they asked me if they could borrow our PA. Theirs had blown up.

“I'd see Alex coming from his Jazz Improv class, and I remember Roth coming over to me; he was wearing this little vest, had a cane, and his hair was dyed like a skunk. He said, ‘How do you like my boys?’ I stepped back and thought, ‘Get the fuck away from me!’ Little did I know what it would lead up to!

"A while later, Ed told a friend of mine that the band was going to be getting rid of their bass player. My friend told Ed, ‘Hey, Mike might be interested in joining.’

“I had never played with musicians like Eddie and Al before, because Snake was straightforward 4/4 rock. I mean, these guys had played Gazzarri's in Hollywood, and the biggest thing I had done was a backyard party. They ran me through beat changes and different time signatures, and we just jammed.

“Afterwards, Ed and Al asked me if I wanted to join. I thought about it for half a second and said, ‘I'm in!’ I learned five cover tunes a day so we could play parties. We eventually started playing clubs, and we also did weddings.

“We played everything from the Ohio Players to K.C. & the Sunshine Band. You would love the sight of Van Halen doing Get Down Tonight! But by the third set, when everybody was good and tanked up – boy, we'd be blazin’!

“I soon realized that my two Acoustic 150 amps weren't cutting it, because by this time, Ed had found his 100-watt Marshall. So I bought my first SVT stack and retaliated. I remember thinking, ‘I'm in the big leagues now!’”

Anthony and the boys weren't in the big leagues yet, but they were close. In 1976, Kiss bassist Gene Simmons took the foursome under his wing and produced a five-song demo, but all it yielded, said Anthony, was “a good tape.”

One year later, at a Monday-night gig at Hollywood's Starwood Club, Warner Bros. chairman Mo Ostin and producer Ted Templeman saw the band and offered them a deal. In February 1978, Van Halen hit the stores; globe-circling tours, platinum records, and the usual rock ’n’ roll excesses followed, until the negative effects of stardom started taking their toll in 1984.

“During our '84 tour, there was a lot of tension – Ed had written Jump, and it turned out to be the biggest single Van Halen ever did. Dave never liked Ed playing keyboards, but Ed finally said, ‘Fuck you!’ Then he met Valerie Bertinelli, and I think that pissed Dave off more.

“At the end of that tour, we fired our tour manager because of some skeletons we found in his closet. So Ed, Al, and I were in the studio starting to work up some music, and Dave decided he wanted to record a solo EP with California Girls. We knew he was testing the water to see how he'd do on his own. All of a sudden, the dream was over and Dave had left.

“At that point, we didn't know if the band would continue, but we eventually realized that the music was coming from us, not Dave. A lot of people thought he was Van Halen – even our record company wanted us to change our name. When Dave left the rest of us hanging, we thought, ‘What do we do now?’”

What they did was hook up with ex-Montrose singer Sammy Hagar via a recommendation from Eddie Van Halen's car mechanic (as fate would have it, he was Hager’s mechanic, too).

Their first collaboration, 5150, became Van Halen's first #1 album, and it has since sold over six million copies.

Call it luck or serendipity, but growing up in Southwest Detroit alongside Jack White led Dominic Davis to an illustrious career playing bass on records by the crème de la crème of the pop world, including Pharrell Williams, Adele, and Beyoncé.

And, in what can only be described as a full-circle moment, over a decade ago, White invited his long-time friend to be the bassist for his solo band.

“I’d go to Jack’s house when we were 9 or 10, and we’d play in his attic with his brother Eddie,” Davis tells Bass Player.

“One day, since my guitar wouldn’t stay in tune, Eddie said, ‘You know what? I bet you’re a bass player.’ He put a bass in my hands, and that was the beginning of it all. I still play guitar, but I’ve always felt like a bass player.”

Growing up with White also came with a couple of, well, quirks. “He was into some things that kids our age weren’t. He was always making things, like cutting up Dr. Pepper cans and making trains, planes, or whatever.

He continues, “One time, he was listening to one of those big Lifetime classical music box sets. No one else was really listening to that. But when I moved to college, it took me forever to find people to play with, and that’s when it dawned on me that Jack had something special; he was motivated in a way that other people weren’t.”

All these decades later, White and Davis have a mutual understanding of how the other works and fits into the puzzle.

“In high school, Jack would call and say, ‘Hey, come over – I wanna record!’ and that’s how it still goes now. He’s pretty fearless in the studio. He doesn’t necessarily need a plan; he kind of chases it a lot. You just gotta trust him and know it’s gonna work, ’cause there’s a lot of experimentation.”

Bass Player’s full interview with Dominic Davis will be published in the coming weeks.

In more recent news, White spoke about why he always shied away from your typical Les Pauls and Strats – and how he found his own voice by seeking out a different kind of guitar.

• Correction July 8, 2026: an earlier version of this article and headline stated that it was Jack White, not Eddie, that suggested Davis should take up bass. Davis has since been in contact to clarify that it was indeed Eddie who offered this advice.

In the late 1980s, bass guitar player Martyn LeNoble moved from the Netherlands to Los Angeles, where he spent time cutting his teeth playing for the likes of Thelonius Monster before eventually co-founding Porno for Pyros.

The move presented some insurmountable logistical problems concerning his bass gear, and when he arrived in the US he found himself without a bass amp. That proved to be a problem, since the gigs were coming thick and fast – and the bass shop LeNoble sought out couldn't supply him one in time.

Fortunately, as the bassist recalled in an interview with Guitar World, he was once rescued by an unexpected savior: John Entwistle of The Who.

Regarding his relocation and the problems it posed to his rig, LeNoble explains, “I ended up switching to Trace Elliott amps in the '80s. That's what I played when I first moved to the United States.

“The one I had in the Netherlands was too much to ship here, so I went to buy another at a place called The Bass Center in Los Angeles. I don't think it exists anymore. I walked in and had a gig that weekend, but they didn't have an amp in stock. They said, 'We can't get one before your gig.'

“Then, this gentleman walked up behind me and said, 'You can use mine for the gig if you want.' It was John Entwistle from The Who.”

True to his word, Entwistle had one of his techs deliver his personal Trace Elliott amp to LeNoble’s place, so the new-in-town bassist could continue with his gig.

“He asked me for my address, and he had one of his techs come and bring it to my place,” LeNoble goes on. “So, the first two gigs I played here were with John Entwistle's Trace Elliott amp. He was a complete stranger to me; I was a stranger to him.

“But he did say, 'If you blow it up, I'm going to take the one that's yours that's coming next week.' So, there was really no risk for him.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, LeNoble discussed his ill-fated stint in Jane’s Addiction, which he said came to an end after a clash with Perry Farrell.

Marla Kether's Congolese heritage and a musical upbringing in the University of Bristol's Jazz, Funk and Soul Society has given her a unique feel for blending Afro-Brazilian rhythms with dancefloor-inspired grooves.

“My approach is instinct-driven,” says Kether. “I play whatever feels right in the moment. Most of the time, consciously or not, my goal is to emulate James Jamerson. I truly prioritise feel and placement over all else.”

Kether found the outlet she was looking for when she was invited to play with rapper Little Simz, beginning an ongoing collaboration that has taken her on a world tour and to a standout performance at the 2024 Glastonbury Festival.

Asked how she got the gig with Little Simz, Kether tells us: “I used to play bass for a singer called Obongjayar, and there were a few London shows where Simz would come onstage. I think that's how she became aware of me.

“She asked if I could play some shows with her, but the dates clashed with a family holiday. Luckily, she asked again a few months later, and I ended up playing the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival.

“Of the hour-plus set, the live band featured on five songs. So it was a combination of playing to the biggest crowd I'd ever performed for, only appearing on five songs, and feeling incredibly exposed – there's not much to hide behind on at Glastonbury!”

Do you enjoy that level of crowd interaction?

I actually feel there’s a weird phenomenon where the more people there are, the fewer interactions you end up having. With bigger crowds, it just looks like a sea of indistinguishable figures, so it’s sometimes easier to play to.

I prefer playing to smaller rooms where you can really interact with people – although seeing the audience that close can also be more nerve-wracking. If you’re playing your heart out to a 100 capacity room and you see someone yawn, you just take it to heart, even though it’s really not that deep.

What’s been the period of greatest growth for you as a bass player?

I’d say there’s been a noticeable development since I started playing for Little Simz in 2024. Something shifted for me in the run-up to that first show, and since then I’ve been pushing myself more than ever.

I also use a wireless setup onstage, so my performance has had to evolve. That includes my stage presence during solos, deciding which songs to roam on or stay put for, and what energy to bring to each moment.

These are all things I’ve carried through into my solo project. My confidence as a band leader and bass player is continuing to grow, and I’m constantly looking for ways to improve my live shows.

What drove you to start writing your own music?

It was a natural progression from being a session musician to wanting to establish my own musical identity and explore my own ideas. I’d been playing for other artists for just under two years when lockdown started.

I had developed my craft and suddenly had enough time to start experimenting with Logic, and to revisit a growing collection of voice note ideas, turning them into properly recorded tracks.

Has your career as a bass player influenced your DJ Set?

Absolutely. I’m drawn to bass-driven and percussion-led genres like batida, gqom, bubbling and UK funky. I’ve even developed a DJ/bass hybrid setup, which is what I used when supporting W.I.T.C.H around the UK, so my bass playing directly informs my sets in that sense too.

What was your biggest takeaway once you entered the gigging scene?

Be personable. There’s no point grinding to reach a standard you consider acceptable if you’re not pleasant to be around. When you’re on the road for weeks at a time, it’s important to be in the company of great people.

How have different cultures influenced your music?

My music is primarily influenced by Brazilian and West African music. A track like In My Corner ft. K.O.G has elements of soukous, a genre I grew up listening to through my Congolese parents. I also make Afro house tracks.

The African continent is so rich in music that it’s hard not to draw inspiration from it, and I’ve not encountered a Brazilian genre I dislike: baile funk, brega, baião, MPB, forró, samba, maracatu – I love them all. That love naturally feeds into my music.

Who were your early musical influences?

I was learning basslines from Nikolai Fraiture of The Strokes, Chris Baio of Vampire Weekend and Esperanza Spalding. I started uploading bass covers to YouTube about a year after I began, and they’re still up.

When I first started making my own music, I was heavily influenced by Deborah Scroggins of ESG. I’ve always been taken by how her basslines can say so little while saying so much.

Tracks like Step Off and Dance are prime examples of the power of a great riff: it doesn’t need to be overly complex. It’s an ethos I still carry into my production now, including on tracks like BTR2, which layers three different bass riffs.

What was the first bassline you ever learned?

I’m not sure if this was truly the first, but once I started bass lessons I remember being taught Money by Pink Floyd. It’s quite a bold choice for a beginner, giving them a tune in 7/4, but it definitely expanded my musical horizons.

Do you have a go-to bass or do you like to experiment?

My go-to is my Fender Squier 5-string Jazz Bass that I bought in 2017. The strings haven’t been changed since 2019!

What is your ideal bass tone?

I love the rich tone provided by flatwound strings; I use D’Addario XL Chromes.

Do you have any advice for aspiring bass players?

Be kind, be punctual, don’t get bogged down in comparing yourself to others and believe in the ubiquitous qualities that you bring!

• Blessing is out now.

From 1965 to 1972, Jack Casady stretched the art and technology of the electric bass faster and farther than anyone ever had before. Casady revolutionized the instrument and helped to create the ‘San Francisco sound’ with Jefferson Airplane, before forming Hot Tuna with guitarist Jorma Kaukonen.

“Jack had this roaring, growling thing that would start at the bottom and twine all the way up,” said singer Grace Slick, answering a question about why she joined Jefferson Airplane in 1966. (The quotation appears in the booklet for Jefferson Airplane Loves You). “I’d never heard bass like it.”

Casady began his career with an early-‘60s Fender Jazz Bass, which was soon stolen. By the time of Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, he was using another Jazz Bass, generally through a Fender Bassman amp.

Speaking to Bass Player in 2022, Casady explained: “I played the first three albums with that Jazz Bass with a P-pickup in it, so it was really a three-pickup instrument.”

Casady’s first bass amp was a 50-watt Fender Bassman. His dad built a 4x10 extension cabinet that was “loud as hell and looked like a coffin!” According to Casady, it was designed to fit precisely into the back seat of his 1950 Pontiac.

In 1967, during the sessions for After Bathing at Baxter's, amp designer Bob Hall came down to the RCA Studios with an amplifier he'd designed for acoustic bassists: a 40-watts-per-channel stereo tube amp called the Versatone. The outputs from the two channels were combined into one custom-made 12-inch Utah speaker.

Casady was quickly impressed by the Versatone's potential. “Jack turned the thing all the way up!” Hall told Bass Player in 1993. “I didn't know why you'd want to do that – but as long as he bought the amp, it was his business.”

Casady’s high-flying tone was complete with the addition of the Versatone. He soon discovered a more subtle approach to the volume control, and the Versatone turned up halfway – so it distorted only when he played harder – became a crucial part of his sound.

The Jazz Bass was still Casady’s main instrument on After Bathing at Baxter's, though towards the end of the sessions he tried his first Guild Starfire Bass.

This instrument began to evolve when Augustus Stanley Owsley and Ron Wickersham made some modifications to the electronics. Their circuit was a variable-Q resonance filter, with Darlington emitter-followers at the pickup to lower output impedance before the filter.

The modified Starfire – dubbed ‘Mission Control’ (not to be confused with Phil Lesh's Alembic) – was refinished by luthier Roy Noble and received an ornate headstock inlay, designed by Jorma Kaukonen’s wife and executed by luthier and inlay artist Chuck Erikson.

Casady used this bass for the next three Airplane albums. It was stolen shortly after Woodstock, leading to the purchase of another Guild, a sunburst 1968 or 1969. Casady shipped it back to Wickersham immediately.

There was no time for woodworking, so Wickersham sawed out the top around the lower f-hole and installed three magnesium channels for the controls.

“Back in those days we were chasing a hi-fi sound – we were trying to get better fidelity all the time. I learned all that from my father, who was a dentist, but as a hobby he was an audiophile. He loved to make amplifiers and put sound systems together to listen to records and get better fidelity. So, I was kind of trained in that – to always get something that sounded a little better.”

Casady used this bass until early 1972, when he got his first Alembic.

Casady's new bass was the first all-Alembic instrument. Built by Rick Turner, with pickups of his design, it had elaborate electronics by Wickersham. It featured different sets of pickups on sliding rails and interchangeable bridge saddles of different materials.

At some point during the next three years, the bass was dropped onto a concrete floor and returned to Alembic for repair of body cracks. According to Casady, “It never sounded the same after that.”

Casady replaced the Alembic with a Flying-V bass made from a mahogany body by luthier Glenn Quan, a short-scale Guild neck, and ’60s Guild pickups. He used this instrument during Hot Tuna's hard-rocking period.

During his tenure with SVT, Casady moved to a couple of Modulus Graphite P-style instruments, as well as a Stars Guitars P that was stolen after a show in West Hollywood.

With the downsizing of the reformed Hot Tuna in 1985, Casady opted for a Guild B-30 acoustic bass guitar with piezo pickups in the bridge. Then, while living in New York City in 1986, he found a 1971 Gibson Les Paul Signature bass at Chelsea Music. This long scale, semi-hollow instrument with a single low impedance pickup quickly became his main bass.

Casady’s admiration for semi-hollow basses culminated in the launch of an Epiphone signature model in 1997, which resembles his Gibson Les Paul from the ‘70s and has enjoyed consistent acclaim since.

“I love electric instruments with acoustic properties. And with the Les Paul, I finally found a bass that's responsive enough to capture all the subtleties of my sound and style, from the high-end to the low-end.

“I approached Gibson about reissuing that bass, and they turned me over to Jim Rosenberg at Epiphone. We duplicated the pickups as they were on the old Gibson model, but then I took the pickup and added more Alnico power to it – another three-quarters of an Alnico magnet on the other side.

“I also wanted a long-scale f-hole bass out there. The Guild f-hole guitar wasn't a true hollow body; it had a block down the centre. But this instrument still has an acoustic quality, and that's why I think it sounds so good along with the pickup.”

Metallica's third proper bass player after Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted deserves all of our praise. First, he's been in the world's biggest metal band since 2003, making him their longest-serving bassist.

Second, he's an absolute monster bass player, powering through funk, rock and metal styles with ease and panache. Third, he produced a documentary, Jaco, in 2012, telling the tragic story of Jaco Pastorius. Finally, he bought Jaco's famous ‘Bass Of Doom’ and restored it to the Pastorius family.

Robert Trujillo's story is one that began not long before the arrival of Metallica's self-titled 1991 album – in the very same city, in fact – when he joined skate-thrash mob Suicidal Tendencies near the end of the '80s.

In 1996, came an even bigger break – and quite possibly the ultimate dream for anyone who grew up listening to Black Sabbath. While Suicidal Tendencies certainly brought him success, joining Ozzy Osbourne's band was the move that enabled him to perform at the top level.

All of these influences and experiences brought Trujillo to the moment famously documented on Metallica's Some Kind Of Monster film, where he auditioned for the band, annihilated the competition and was given a cool million-dollar advance as a “welcome to the family.”

“One thing about being in Metallica is I've always felt challenged,” Trujillo told Bass Player. “It's a lot easier now than it used to be: when I first joined Metallica, I was kinda struggling! I had to learn over 20 years of catalog, plus the 12 songs from St. Anger which had never really been performed as a unit.

“Then there was that magnitude of press and everything else that goes with being in Metallica. I was juggling all of it.”

In this clip from the Beneath the Bassline documentary, Trujillo spoke about his 2003 audition to replace bassist Jason Newsted, as captured in the 2004 band documentary Some Kind of Monster.

“It was a two-day audition, but the first day was more fly-on-the-wall,” says Trujillo. “Bob Rock had already recorded bass guitar and he was also producing St Anger, so I’m just there at the studio watching guitar tracks go down.

“The evening rolls around and Lars says, ‘Hey, let’s go get a drink.’ I could hold my own with a few beers, but we end up drinking until 5 in the morning. I wake up with the worst hangover of my life, and now I’ve got to play with Metallica.”

“James is sober. He’s gone through rehab. So I decided I would connect with my bass tech and decide what bass I was going to use, and what amp.

“What I was really trying to do was get away from Hetfield because I didn’t want him to smell the alcohol on me. Lars was probably just testing me to see how much I could handle, but I just felt like a loser.”

Bassists Pepper Keenan, Jeordie White, Scott Reeder, Eric Avery, Danny Lohner and Chris Wyse – among others – also tried out for the role, but after three months of auditions, Trujillo was officially declared the new bassist.

Instead of squandering his advance on a blur of decadence, as – let's face it – many of us would be tempted to do, Trujillo chose to lock himself in a room, armed to the teeth with nothing but Metallica tablature books. He was the new guy, and in his eyes, he had everything to prove.

“Everyone else had the music figured out because they wrote or recorded it, but the new guy needs to do his homework. Any time a band has an archive, it's almost guaranteed that at some point they're going to play an obscure song. The fans are going to call for it, so once I was caught up, it felt easier to adapt.”

Ask any bass-playing great of the last 50 years who their heroes are, and you can bet that Jack Bruce will feature high up the list.

The driving force behind ’60s supergroup Cream – not to mention his stints with Alexis Korner, Graham Bond and the Bluesbreakers – Bruce was one of a very short list of pioneers who were challenging the traditional concept of what a bass guitarist could, and should, play, creating lines that linked the jazz-inspired drumming of Ginger Baker with the blues-inflected guitar of Eric Clapton.

“Clapton isn’t God. Jack Bruce is,” wrote Jeff Berlin in the October 2003 issue of Bass Player. “When I was 14, I sprayed his name on my bedroom wall with luminous paint to remind me who was the greatest bass player in the world.”

Bruce’s innovations – first with his Fender VI and then with his Gibson EB-3 – provided a cornerstone in the instrument's development. His playing in the trio’s legendary live jams liberated the bass for generations of players who followed.

“Jack's playing on these songs might be the first recorded example of an electric bass player with chops,” said Berlin. “I'm So Glad (Goodbye) is perhaps the most intense of the live jams, but for me the definitive Jack is on Sweet Wine from Live Cream. Jack's playing on that cut changed me forever.”

“For pure composition, listen to As You Said on Wheels of Fire, which features Jack on cello, acoustic guitar, and vocals accompanied only by Ginger Baker's hi-hat. Who else in all of rock could have come up with that priceless tune?”

As well known for his outspoken views on music, bass playing and… er… metronomes as he is for his unquestionable command of the bass guitar, Berlin remembered meeting his hero at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London.

“We were introduced by the fine English drummer Jon Hiseman. I quickly discovered that Jack is one of the funniest guys l've ever met. He gave me a lift back to my hotel, and he had me laughing so hard I was crying.

“The next time we met, I was performing at the Music Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, and I was playing really well. It was one of those special nights that happens only once in a while for musicians. Then Jack walked in.

“My hands developed rheumatism in three seconds. I couldn't play a thing. I got nervous because I know that if Jack can do anything, he can hear everything that's going on – and that's why I played bass like Rocky Balboa when Jack sat down in the front row.

“Another time, Jack did a clinic at the Musicians Institute in L.A. Bruce Gary was on drums and I played guitar. I can't remember how we got into it, but Jack and I suddenly found ourselves singing White Room like Jerry Lewis would sing it.

“Through the laughter, I found myself thinking, ‘Here I am playing Cream tunes with the same guy whose name was spray-painted on the wall of my mother's home, the same guy who influenced me to buy a bass and spend the better part of 25 years trying to learn how to play it.’”

After Bruce's passing in 2014, Berlin released the tribute album Jack Songs, featuring contributions from a stellar line-up of guest musicians, including Alex Lifeson, Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal and Eric Johnson.

“When he died, I immediately set out to choose some of my favourite songs of his and record them via my own musical vision. I wanted this record to be brilliant to honour his spirit. He really means this much to me.”

A former member of groups such as Blue Mink and Sky, the late Herbie Flowers toured with David Bowie and T. Rex, while his basslines, like the distinctive sliding line on Lou Reed's Walk On the Wild Side, are nothing short of legendary.

A veteran musician who started out playing the tuba and double bass in the Royal Air Force during the 1950s, Flowers recorded over 20,000 sessions, but, as he once told Bass Player, he wasn't always sure who the sessions were for.

“The rate was about £6 for a three-hour session, recording about 20 minutes of music. In those days, I spent more time with session drummer Barry Morgan than I did in bed with my wife! But you wouldn't necessarily know who it was for and the booker wouldn't give a shit who the band was.”

With two tracks simultaneously played on a bass guitar and a double bass, Flowers’ iconic bassline on Walk On the Wild Side is known the world over, adding a touch of class to one of the darkest pop songs ever written.

“I played that on my old English pine double bass and my Fender Jazz. There was no inspiration, just a bar of C and a bar of F going round and round. I'd put double bass on the bottom end, playing the bottom note, and then I asked to put bass guitar above because I wanted to try something else.

“But I'm sick of people saying, ‘Walk On The Wild Side is a classic, you must be rolling in it!’ I got paid £12, and Bowie – who was voted Producer of the Year – didn't even show up until all the tracks were down. That's good production, isn't it? Phone some clever people up, stay out of the way, then collect the award! It was just a lucky thing. I got paid £12 for the session, end of story.”

The following interview was first published in the October 2006 issue of Bass Player.

What are the golden rules for studio musicians?

“The first thing is that you can't ever be late. They play you the song or sling you a chord chart, and you come up with what you think are fancy basslines. You hang on to the click track, get your job done as quickly as you can, and as soon as they say, ‘Thanks very much’, get the hell out of there. Studio work is expensive. The producer doesn't want you hanging around, being in the way.”

Did you ever feel like you were in a band?

“A little bit. I was in T. Rex in the latter years, but T. Rex was Marc Bolan. Marc was the writer, performer, co-producer and publisher, and we were paid wages. It was all his, and I was perfectly comfortable with that.”

Did it bother you that you didn't own any part of a recording?

“I wouldn't want to own it. I don't want to own any part of Diamond Dogs or Transformer, because it could have been anybody. I had no involvement in the composition of Walk On The Wild Side, despite the fact that it's a pretty well-known bassline. It's only a bassline!”

What was the story behind Blue Mink?

“That began at Morgan Studios where six of us were booked for a two day session for a band called Family Dog. We finished in one day, so there was a day free. We decided to lay down some tracks as Roger Cook had this song called Melting Pot, and before we knew it, it was No. 2 in the charts. Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris stopped it getting to number one and I was playing on that too!”

And Sky?

“A hybrid band that sprang out of drummer Tristan Fry, Francis Monkman on keys and myself doing things for John Williams’ Travelling album. John was looking for another musical area so we put Sky together, made a few albums, did a few concerts, and were fortunate enough to get a hit with Toccata.

“Our diverse backgrounds gave us an advantage. We added Kevin Peek, who's really good at electric rock guitar. Francis was the original keyboard player with Curved Air and an early user of sequencers.”

What equipment did you take to sessions?

“If I was booked on bass guitar, I'd take my Jazz Bass and my little Wallace amp. The amp was only for my benefit as a monitor, and the engineer would say, ‘Can you turn your amp off for the take?’, so there’d be no spill. The speaker had wheels on it and if I played loud enough the speaker used to move across the floor! But we never played that loud in studios.

“I’ve also got a beautiful old English pine double bass that I bought in 1959 for £40, and an old tuba that I bought when I came out the Air Force for about £25. They're the only instruments I've ever had.”

Tell us about your Jazz Bass.

“I bought it in Manny's Music Store in New York, for $70 in 1959! To this day, it's got the same frets, pickups and dual pots, in Electric Blue sprayed over red, over the top of a white primer. I know because the paint's worn off the back.

“It's completely and utterly original, but it's never had a transfer on it, just the Fender 'F' on the bridge cover plate. I had to take the covers off because there was no room to play with a plectrum, but I've still got them in a drawer.”

So what else can you remember playing on?

“War Of The Worlds with Jeff Wayne, Brotherhood of Man, The Fortunes, every other Eurovision song, Love Affair, Sports Night and that Tony Hatch Crossroads theme, one of the hardest sessions I've ever done.

“A lot of the Pink Panther stuff, Dusty Springfield, Rock On by David Essex, a lot of the Nilsson Schmillson stuff. Elton John's early things, like Burn Down The Mission and Tumbleweed Connection. Eloise for the Ryan Brothers – that's got the longest bass gliss in the world.”

If you've never heard Scott Thunes play the bass guitar, you can’t appreciate how far the instrument can be taken. Thunes will dispute that notion, of course – he takes issue with the idea he’s a great bassist.

The former Frank Zappa sideman is a contrarian of the highest order. He disagrees with almost any statement of a declarative nature, at least when it concerns his role in music and his approach to the bass.

Thunes is of the opinion that much of the brilliant live work he recorded with Zappa is riddled with mistakes, each of which he’s apt to point out in detail.

Regardless of whether he concedes that he’s a great bassist, Thunes played an integral role in music that recognised few limitations.

In an interview with Thomas Wictor for his book In Cold Sweat: Interviews With Really Scary Musicians, which also appeared in the March ’97 issue of Bass Player, Thunes revealed the highs and lows of his seven-year tenure with Zappa.

“I’m a good bass player, fine. I’m a great bass player, great,” said Thunes. “Think whatever you want, but it’s unfair I should be given even slight credit for something I don’t feel pushed the boundaries of the instrument.”

Thunes first contacted Frank Zappa in 1981 at the behest of his brother, who had himself tried unsuccessfully to audition for Zappa’s group. Having recorded some tracks in L.A., he was summoned back for the formal audition a week later.

This session included improvising to arrhythmic tracks played on a drum machine, as well as performing the same song with two other auditioning bassists, the three of them competing face-to-face.

Once hired, Thunes played with Zappa up until the group’s notorious 1988 tour, the demise of which he is reputed to have caused.

“Once in Barcelona, someone in the band came up to me and screamed, ‘Don’t you know what a privilege it is to play with Frank? How can you ruin his music?’

“So at that particular moment I put my headphones on, and I started listening to classical music while this guy’s mouth was flapping. It was delicious.”

So what, in particular, caused tension between Thunes and the rest of the band?

“Onstage, stuff was turned into a negative only by those who didn’t want people to step out of their pre-determined roles. I play a lot of lines; I pick chunks out of the air, and instead of playing bass, I play my part in the orchestration. And of course the whole idea of being a bass player is not to overplay.

“But I dig tension in my music. For the people who perform it, music very rarely releases tension; it almost always increases tension, but I know from modern classical music that tension can coexist with normality. Frank was a fan of that.”

Thunes was put in the untenable position that the band wouldn’t tour unless he left. And yet Zappa loved how he played, allowed him the freedom to put his improvisational mark on the music, and even made him a ‘Clonemeister’, which essentially meant he was in charge of band rehearsals in Zappa’s absence.

Thunes offered to leave but Zappa didn’t want to begin the audition process all over again, and this coincided with his decision to quit touring altogether.

“At the end of the ’88 tour, Frank decided he wasn’t going to play anymore, because the rest of the band had told him they wouldn’t go out with me again.

“When he told me that, I said, ‘I’ll gladly quit.’ He said, ‘That’s not the answer. I like you, and I like what you do, except for all the mistakes you’ve been making.’

“Every night onstage, I was surrounded by daggers and would completely lose my concentration. I was a wreck, and the music suffered because of my mistakes. Frank’s only enjoyment was playing guitar solos, and those fell apart.”

“We also ended up not doing any more three-hour soundchecks. We’d play just two songs, and then he’d get out of there. He could not stand being in the same room with us. It was the worst possible combination of events for him.”

For Thunes, the musical experience of a lifetime became forever associated with extreme personal doubt and loneliness. It might have all been different had Thunes played for some less iconic figure, or some minor music star, but this was Frank Zappa, a true 20th-century icon.

Five years later, in December 1993, Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer, closing the door on a unique chapter of musical history.

Astral Weeks, the legendary album by Van Morrison seemed like just another day in the studio for the late jazz bassist Richard Davis. “I was having fun, just trying to put my stamp on it,” he told Bass Player back in 2015.

Producer Lewis Merenstein was charged with hiring a studio band for Morrison's debut recording on the Warner Bros. label. Being a jazz fan, he asked Davis to find the musicians.

“He asked me if I could get a group together to record with this guy coming over from Ireland,” said Davis. “I got drummer Connie Kay, who I always called the ‘Security Officer’ because he gave me that secure feeling whenever he played. Jay Berliner was on guitar and Warren Smith was on vibes.

“We went to the studio and started jamming on the lead sheets. Then the singer showed up. Van Morrison didn't speak to us, and we didn't speak to him. We just started playing through the charts. That's how the album came together.”

At the time, Davis was supplementing his creative projects with a rotation of studio work, playing jingles and backing up pop, rock, and folk acts. “I was in the studios every day, doing jingles, recording sessions, broadcasts – you name it.”

He was also playing every Monday night at the fabled Village Vanguard with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.

In his biography, The View From the Back of the Band, Mel Lewis recalls the styles that were covered by the studio musicians of the day. “Richard and I spent days together. We’d start with a Dixieland jingle, go on to a Jimmy Dean country date, and wind up playing something far out – from one extreme to the other.”

And so Davis brought his jazz sensibility to the Van Morrison date, turning some of the singer's simple folk tunes into freewheeling jazz jams.

The Way Young Lovers Do is a prime example. It begins with a four-bar guitar-and-vibes intro in a waltz-like 6/4 meter. When Davis enters, he avoids a typical waltz bassline, and immediately develops a 4-against-3 rhythm.

Notice how Davis plays several rhythmic variations in bars 5-8. He also adds some nice harmonic twists. Check the line at 00:25 and hear how he uses the high F to create harmonic variation and imply an E79 chord.

At 01:16, he uses the A harmonic minor scale over the E7 to add tension and return to the Am at 01:19. Under the trombone solo at 01:44, Davis begins his line conservatively, but then he can't resist reaching into the stratosphere at 01:52 to bring the solo section to its thrilling climax.

Morrison enters again at 02:08, and Davis and the band coast out through the tune's last chorus.

Astral Weeks failed to make the charts when it was first released in 1968. Now, 58 years later, the tracks have achieved mythical status among folk-rock fans.

Davis’ advice for young bass players was wise: “I suggest they learn everything – what they're comfortable playing and what they’re not. Learn everything to the note. Everything becomes part of your musical makeup.”

Davis died on September 6, 2023, at the age of 93.

In 2023, Hollywood superstar and everyone’s favorite nice guy Keanu Reeves made a musical comeback with his band Dogstar’s reunion album, Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees – plus a tour that spanned nearly 100 dates.

Fast forward three years, and Dogstar is back with their second-phase sophomore album, All In Now. The record continues to position Reeves as a bona fide bass player rather than a Hollywood A-lister turned musician – thanks to its melodic basslines and low-end-driven songs that earned him the nickname “Chordal Reeves.”

“[It’s] because he plays so many chords on the bass,” singer-guitarist Brett Domrose tells the Los Angeles Times.

“That’s actually how we started when I met Keanu,” drummer Ribert Mailhouse adds. “At first there was no guitar player – it was just him on bass and me on drums.”

And while Reeves’ acting and music worlds rarely collide, he did have the privilege of a one-to-one lesson with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea while filming Gus Van Sant’s 1991 adventure drama My Own Private Idaho.

“He’s such an amazing artist and person, and he didn’t give me a technical lesson; he gave me a philosophical lesson,” Reeves told Bass Player in a 2024 interview, “which reminds me of surfing. It’s like you’ve just got to go do it and you’ve got to feel it.

“You know, I could give you technique – ‘Here’s your balance, here’s a way to duck, here’s a way to get on the board, here’s how to pop up.’ But eventually, you’ve got to be in the water, and you have to learn about the water and learn about a wave, and you learn by doing it.

“He wasn’t giving me, like, ‘OK, when you’re slapping, try not to use too much of your arm and just stay with your hand,’ you know? It was just like, ‘Play it, feel it.’ I thought that was profound.”

As for what he took from that impromptu lesson, Reeves replied, “I’m still trying to learn how to ‘play it, feel it’. That’s a never-ending journey, isn’t it?”

Elsewhere in the 2024 interview, Reeves admits that he doesn’t see himself as worthy of a signature bass – and reveals which basses his most popular on-screen characters would play.

Black Sabbath had their fair share of on-stage antics, internal turmoil, and adventures – and misadventures – throughout their decades-long lifespan. For Geezer Butler, one story that stands out in particular involves his old P-Bass, an angry customs officer, and a hammer.

“[This is] the second P-Bass [a 1968 Precision] that I ever had, and this one did the Paranoid album and the Master of Reality album – so Paranoid, War Pigs, Iron Man, Sweet Leaf, second Sabbath album, the third Sabbath album…” Butler tells Nate Mendel on an episode of Fender’s Lowdown on the Low End.

However, its original ’68 neck had to be replaced because of a particularly gnarly incident.

“This got wrecked,” Butler explains. “We were in Canada, and one of the customs guys in Canada decided he hated Black Sabbath, [and] smashed the neck with a hammer.”

Once Butler got to the venue and opened the case, he was met with a couple of unwanted surprises…

“There [were] hammer marks all the way down the neck, so obviously it was unplayable,” he adds. “It was a Sunday afternoon, so the promoter knew a guy that owned a guitar shop. The only bass he had was one of the plexiglass ones. So I got lumbered with that.”

Butler’s beat-up bass neck was quickly replaced with a ’70s neck – and the Sabbath bassist could continue using his workhorse, albeit with a modified neck. And while he used a plethora of different basses throughout his career – including Lakland basses, a Rickenbacker 4001, and custom Martin Birch and JayDee ones – the no-frills ’68 P-bass would forever define his tone.

In a 2024 interview with Bass Player, Butler revealed how he achieved his sought-after tone and why he struggled to find a producer who understood his vision.

Before he became Jake E. Lee’s trusted confidant in Badlands and Red Dragon Cartel, Greg Chaisson nearly joined Ratt and Ozzy Osbourne – but music had never been part of his plan. “I really had no musical aspirations at all,” he says. “I was a baseball jock.”

But he has no hard feelings about that long-lost sports career; and it’s easy to see why, as albums like 1989’s Badlands and 1991’s Voodoo Highway testify. “The records speak for themselves,” Chaisson says. “They stand up. I would stand on stage while Badlands were playing and think to myself, ‘Wow, I’m in the best band in the world!’”

After that band crashed out in the early ‘90s, Chaisson picked up session work before hooking back up with Lee in Red Dragon Cartel. Then cancer stopped him in his tracks – but all is well now, and Chaisson is making music with his new band, Atomic Kings.

“I wish I hadn’t had cancer and had to leave Red Dragon Cartel, but it is what it is,” he laments. “At least I’m still here to bitch about it. I’m proud of the music that we make in Atomic Kings. Short of playing with Jake, I can’t see myself anywhere else.”

Your first proper band was Surgical Steel, where you befriended Rob Halford.

Our guitarist ran into Rob at a club in Phoenix. It was a very popular music club with a country bar upstairs and a rock bar downstairs. Rob and our guitarist came over to my house to watch a boxing match the next night. He came to see us play, got up on stage, and did some vintage Priest with us. We became good friends.

Before Screaming for Vengeance was released, he sent us an advance copy. Without telling him, we learned Electric Eye, Screaming for Vengeance, and You Got Another Thing Coming for a show we knew he’d be at. We were going to play them before Priest ever played them!

Rob was standing at the side of the stage when we launched into Screaming for Vengeance. The look on his face was priceless! When we played You Got Another Thing Coming, we did the call-and-response thing the way they’d eventually do it.

Rob was very impressed, and the crowd was absolutely crazy about hearing new Judas Priest songs from somebody other than Judas Priest. It was probably bad form on our part; but we didn’t realize it at the time, and Rob never did say anything negative about it.

He ended up singing some of the classic Priest stuff with us. He knew we didn’t know anything about the music business, so he gave us a very gracious pass over it.

After stints with Legs Diamond and Steeler, and near misses with Ratt and Michael Schenker, you auditioned for Ozzy.

I auditioned for The Ultimate Sin record. But Ozzy didn’t think I had the right look for MTV. He was probably correct. I do know he liked my bass playing – he told me I was the best of everyone who auditioned. The audition took place in Scotland, near Inverness. They were staying at a manor house with a studio in an outbuilding.

When I got there, we didn’t play any material from Sabbath or any of Ozzy’s solo stuff. We just worked on the songs that eventually ended up on The Ultimate Sin record. They had them all written, except Shot in the Dark; Phil Soussan brought that in with him.

I was there for 21 days and recorded almost every day or night. I honestly don’t know if anything I recorded ended up on the record, but I do know they liked my bass lines. I was disappointed not to get the gig for the reason Ozzy stated. If they’d said I wasn’t good enough, I could have gone home and got better.

But there’s nothing I could do about my image – or lack thereof at the time. It was such a trip just to be up there auditioning. Jake and I became really good friends while I was there and we’ve maintained that friendship ever since.

What did you think of Jake as a player?

One of the reasons I wanted to audition for Ozzy was that I’d seen Jake play in Rough Cutt. I thought he was the best guitar player I’d ever seen – he had great chops, great image, and he was great on stage.

One of the reasons I became a musician was that I wanted to play with the best musicians, and I consider Jake to be one. After I didn’t get the Ozzy gig, he and I stayed in touch. He’d call in the middle of the night when he was on the road, and we’d talk about all kinds of stuff.

But your entry into Jake’s post-Ozzy group, Bandlands, wasn’t a sure thing, right?

He asked me if I wanted to audition – which kind of threw me for a loop because I always assumed I would just get the gig. All my friends knew I was good friends with Jake. I thought that if I auditioned and didn’t get the gig, I’d look like an idiot.

I told him to go ahead and audition as many people as he wanted, and if he couldn’t find anyone, I’d audition. He said, “You didn’t expect me to just give you the gig, did you?” I said, “Well, yeah!” He said he knew a lot of other people, and he had to give them an opportunity.

I’m sure he thought I was a pain, but he went along with it. He’d call every week and say, “We still haven’t found anyone. Do you want to come down?” I’d reply, “Not until you’ve seen everyone.” After they auditioned around 40 guys, he said, “Are you gonna come down or not?”

I auditioned three times, as I wasn’t Ray [Gillen, the band's vocalist] or Eric [Singer, the band's drummer]'s first choice. They wanted a friend of theirs who was a great bass player. For whatever reason, Jake really wanted me in the band, but he didn’t want people saying I just got in because we were friends. I’m sure some people out there still think that’s why I got it – but that’s on them.

What gear did you use on Badlands’ debut?

I used a vintage Ampeg SVT head through a vintage Ampeg 8x10 cabinet. The producer, Paul O’Neill, made me use a vintage Fender P Bass from the early ‘60s that wouldn’t stay in tune. It was so screwed up that you could never intonate it correctly. I hated it; I wanted to use my B.C. Rich, but O’Neill wouldn’t let me.

When we went to New York to do the second half of the record, I brought my B.C. Rich, and that’s what I used. I told O’Neil he could shove it – I was using my own bass, which played better and sounded better. I used the same amp setup in New York.

What was the making of Badlands’ second record, Voodoo Highway, like?

Jake was going to produce the second album, which I was thrilled about. We went to a studio called Rumbo Recorders. I thought we had some really great songs – still do.

I used my Seymour Duncan 800 heads through a Seymour Duncan 8x10 cabinet. I also used a vintage Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer as part of my signal chain. It was on the whole time; it added a little bit of grit to my tone. I’ve used a Tube Screamer on every album I’ve done since then.

By then I’d changed to ESP basses. They made me a couple of vintage Fender-style P Basses that I still have and record with to this day. I think both of those records have stood the test of time.

What led to the end of Badlands?

It could be any number of things. The musical climate was changing. The whole Seattle thing was happening when our second record came out, and I’m pretty sure we could see the writing on the wall from that aspect.

I think we picked the wrong manager. We were going to sign with Larry Mazer, but we ended up with Paul O’Neill. At one point, when we were recording our first record, O’Neill said to me, “We’re thinking of firing Jake; we want to know if you’d go along with it.”

They wanted to get a different guitar player because Jake wouldn’t go along with everything O’Neill was trying to do. I looked at him like he had two heads and said, “Let me get this straight – you’re going to fire Jake E. Lee from his own band?”

I said, “You must be out of your mind. You guys do whatever you want, but I’m staying with Jake.” I wouldn’t have even been in the band if it wasn’t for Jake. Besides that, I had the highest regard for his writing and playing. Eventually, O’Neill backed off from his stupid idea.

Did you keep in touch with Jake after Badlands broke up?

We stayed in contact for a while. The plan was to start a new band with a new singer and drummer, but I was planning to move back to Arizona; and unfortunately, the new band never happened.

What led Jake to ask you to join Red Dragon Cartel?

When he first started the band, he didn’t ask me to be involved, mainly because he’d made a deal that meant the guy who owned the studio could play bass on the record and go on tour with the band.

I would’ve loved to play on the record – but at that time, it just couldn’t happen. When they went out on tour, Jake called and said they had a show in Tempe, Arizona. He wanted to know if I wanted to play bass.

I said, “Sure! Send me over a setlist.” The band came out to Phoenix about four days before the show and we started to rehearse. Jake and I hadn’t played together since the end of Badlands. He walked into the studio and went right into a jam that lasted about 45 minutes.

We did the show and I had an awesome time – the band was just great. The audience response was fantastic, and of course, playing with Jake again was fantastic. Just like old times. Jake asked me to join after that.

But it didn’t last…

The weird thing is, I was sick the whole time. I passed out coming off stage twice. I don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs; I’m kind of a fitness nut, so I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.

After the tour, we had some time off before another tour. I was feeling pretty bad; I had a feeling I was very sick, but my insurance was dragging its feet in letting me see an actual specialist.

I called Jake and told him I was quitting, but I was very vague about why. He was not happy; but I needed to find out what was wrong. I finally made an appointment with a specialist. He diagnosed stage four tongue cancer and gave me 10 months to live.

I called Jake and told him, “I have cancer.” I told him I hadn’t wanted to let him know until I was sure. It was hard to quit because I really liked the band, and Jake’s my brother from another mother.

But there’s no way I could’ve done the tour because the treatment was absolutely brutal. When I started the treatment, I weighed 195 pounds; five months later, I weighed 121.

Have you stayed in touch with Jake since?

Yeah – mostly through texting. Whenever I’m in Vegas we make sure to get together; same thing when he’s here in Phoenix. Normally, we don’t even talk about music. He and I would be friends even if we weren’t musicians.

Having said that, I’d love to do a band with him again. I think he would agree. You never know what the future holds. Hopefully someday.

What are you doing now?

My band Kings of Dust changed its name to Atomic Kings. Our first record came out a couple of years ago, and we’re currently recording the second. The music is very ‘70s. I think we’re a really great band.

We don’t really make any money, but we play a half-dozen shows a year. The response has been excellent. As long as we’re having a good time, we’ll keep doing it.

• Atomic Kings’ self-titled debut album is on sale now.

No bassist in the past 30 years has prompted more bare-chested youngsters to pick up the bass guitar than Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. His aggressive, slap-heavy style lit up the mid-’80s L.A. scene, exemplified by their cover of Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground.

On the group’s first four albums – Red Hot Chili Peppers, Freaky Styley, Uplift Mofo Party Plan and Mother’s Milk, Flea mixed the thumping innovations of Larry Graham and Louis Johnson with his own style, built on punk rock abandon.

“Understand that my roots are in punk, which was all about playing hard, fast, and loud,” said Flea in a Bass Player interview from January 1992.

It all started in high school, when guitarist Hillel Slovak asked Flea to play in his band. He bought a Fender Mustang and played his first gig two weeks later.

“Hillel and Anthony and I were living together at that time, and a friend of ours needed an opening act, so we put a band together without rehearsing. We were billed as Tony Flow & the Miraculously Majestic Masters Of Mayhem.

“When we got onstage, I started some funk-bass thing, Anthony read a poem, and we just played. At the next show, we were the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”

At the time, no-one could have imagined the extraordinary success that awaited. Yet things could have turned out very differently.

Just as this early incarnation of the Chili Peppers was beginning to gain momentum, Flea auditioned for the notorious L.A. punk outfit Fear.

“By 1982, I had shaved my head and got into taking acid and acting crazy, and the next thing you know I had quit Hillel’s band and joined Fear. It was a complete turn – all of a sudden I was playing bare-bones, raw-energy punk rock.”

Flea’s involvement in Fear came at a pivotal moment in the development of the Southern California punk scene, exposing one of the bass world’s future stars to a band whose abrasive sound, controversial reputation, and fierce live performances helped define a turbulent chapter in underground music history.

“The musicians in Fear were great. The drummer, Spit Stix, was a big influence on my musicianship. I had never warmed up before I played; he taught me how to get my blood going before a show, how to be physical, and how to push the music. I really enjoyed being in Fear.”

Drawn to funkier feels, however, it wasn’t long before Flea was looking to leave the group.

“I discovered that what I was listening to was different from what they were into; they wanted the band to go in a metal direction, and I liked the funky feel. It became more obvious I wasn't going to have the freedom to be creative.”

The Chili Peppers themselves were also gaining fans with a signature brand of punk-funk and over-the-top antics. By this point, the lineup had shifted to include Flea, Anthony Kiedis, guitarist Jack Sherman, and drummer Cliff Martinez.

“As a band, the Chilli Peppers was really starting to happen. I wanted to leave Fear, but I didn't have the guts to quit. I was sitting there trying to get up the nerve to call, and just as I reached for the phone, it rang. ‘Hi, Flea, you're fired.’ It was great! From then on, it was just the Chili Peppers for me.”

Though his tenure with Fear was relatively short, it sharpened Flea's skills as a performer and exposed him to the raw energy that would later become a defining characteristic of his slap bass technique.

“When I got into punk, the way I slapped wasn't really funky; I was just hitting it as hard as I could, just abusing the bass. I was really into the punk ethic: play every note like it's your last! You could be dead tomorrow! Play for today! And when you perform, give every ounce of energy you have, but it’s not because you're better than anyone else – it's just what you have to do.

“You do it because you mean it: you're pissed, because things are twisted. And that's beautiful – the punk thing is so honest and sincere. Even though the genre was finished a long time ago, the intensity is still important to me.”

Leland Sklar is one of the most recorded musicians in the history of popular music. After more than 30 years as a first-call session bassist, the artists who have benefited from his melodic yet rock-solid approach include James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Phil Collins, Billy Cobham, Lee Ritenour, Barbra Streisand, Hall & Oates, and many others.

Sklar has reportedly played on over 2,500 albums – not bad for someone who claims, “I never had any intention of becoming a studio player” – and is still doing sessions with a huge roster of artists.

“I find it fascinating that I get to do so many different things,” Sklar told Bass Player in 2014. “Every time I turn around, I get to play with a whole new group of people. I feel very lucky, and I wouldn't give it up for anything.”

Sklar was born in Milwaukee in 1947; his family moved to Los Angeles when he was four. At the age of five, he began studying piano after watching Liberace's variety show on TV and proceeded to win the Outstanding Musician Of The Year award at the Hollywood Bowl.

Upon entering junior high school, Sklar found there were too many piano players in the music program and switched to upright bass.

“I fell in love with the whole attitude of the bass. I liked the timbre of it and the potential for musical anonymity. Bass is a background instrument, but it's so fundamentally important that music is very shallow without it.”

Sklar’s preference for time and tone over speed and virtuosity has resulted in an identifiable bass sound that’s almost instantly recognisable.

“Content has to come first – it's fine to become a technical monster, but if you can't come up with one good bassline, it's useless. Anything that enhances your playing or allows you to express yourself in different ways is good, but a lot of times I hear players who have sacrificed musical substance for technique.”

What bass players inspired or influenced you?

Paul McCartney, Jack Bruce, Bob Mosley from Moby Grape, Tim Bogert with Vanilla Fudge, Larry Graham – those were the people I liked.

I was influenced by the whole music scene in the ’60s; I'd go to see Cold Blood, the Sons Of Champlin, Tower Of Power, Chicago; all those guys were monsters! I also loved the old Elton John stuff with Dee Murray.

What kinds of things did you practice when you first started?

What I enjoyed doing the most was playing along with records: the Beatles, James Brown, the Righteous Brothers. I would take 33⅓ RPM albums and learn the changes, and then play them at 45. When I had mastered them at that tempo, I would go back to 33⅓ – and there would be all this space in the music. That's how most of my practicing was done.

Do you remember the first studio session you did?

The first legit thing I got called for was a session for Brian Hyland; he was the guy who did Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini. Del Shannon was the producer. That was around 1970. Other than that, I have no memory of any of it; I was pretty much in awe of everything that was going on around me. Before that, I had done some demos with a band called Wolfgang.

How did you meet James Taylor?

When I was in Wolfgang, James used to come and hang out at our rehearsals. One time he played us some of his songs, and we did a Zeppelin version of Country Road (which Taylor later recorded on Sweet Baby James). Later on, he called me up and asked if I would do a gig with him.

Your basslines on Taylor's early records sound almost like lead bass. How did you develop that style?

It wasn't a conscious effort. There were no parts dictated, so I just did what I did. James's songs are so lyrical and the structures are so well defined that the bass parts were almost there; it was a question of finding something else to do. He allowed me to express myself the way I wanted to, especially on the early stuff. It's amazing how much I got away with!

Are there any sessions that stand out as particularly memorable or creative?

Recording Spectrum with Billy Cobham was memorable. For the most part, we did one take of each song; we were in and out in two days.

And I'm still somewhat starstruck when I do a session with someone I've only heard about. I did a Barbra Streisand record called Butterfly with an 80-piece-orchestra. I put on the headphones, and there was this big voice and this big orchestra sound – it was mind-boggling to hear that much music at one time.

Of course, there have been some great moments working with James – especially making Flag, which is one of my favorite records of his.

Running on Empty with Jackson Browne was enjoyable because it was really a live album; Jackson didn't doctor it to death with overdubs. Same thing with Phil Collins' Serious Hits... Live. It's pretty much a record of the way the performance went down, mistakes and all. I like that because it's human.

How did you come to work for Phil Collins?

Phil called me in '81 to do his first solo tour. I said yes, but I explained it was contingent on not conflicting with James, who was my first priority.

As it turned out, James did have a tour coming up, so I couldn't go – but I asked Phil not to forget about me in the future. Later, he and I both worked on a Lee Ritenour album; that was the first time we played together.

Phil called again in '84 and asked if I could do the No Jacket Required album, so I made time for that and the tour that followed.

If there's one downside, it's that he doesn't play drums often enough in his live performances. I love his energy, the way he approaches things, and also his pop sensibility – he understands the medium, and he uses it to his best advantage.

Phil also works harder than anyone I've ever seen: there are long days of rehearsing for the tours, an extensive soundcheck every night, and lots of interviews. He's very diligent about his career.

What do you look for in a drummer?

I look for players who feel the center of the beat where I do. I'm not exactly sure where that is, but I can tell when the drummer and I are feeling it in the same place.

I love drummers who come up with great fills and go for it every step of the way – they're the most fun and usually the most creative. The drums can do more than anything else to create the mood of the song.

How do you record your bass?

It depends on the engineer, but I would say 90 percent of the time it's straight into the board. If it's something more rock 'n' roll oriented, I like to use an amp; my basses are so clean, it's nice to be able to get a little distortion happening. One thing I always ask is that they don't compress or limit me to death – I want to take care of the dynamics myself.

Has anyone ever asked you to edit your part?

Sure, it happens all the time. I always tell people to speak up if there's something they want me to do – or not to do. Nothing I've ever played is etched in granite. When you're working with writers and singers, they have to be happy. I do a record and move on, but the artist has to live with it for a long time.

Do you get nervous before sessions and shows?

Before a session, I get nervous; before a show, I get anxious. There's a big difference. When I'm out on the road, I know the music well, so it's more a feeling of excitement. Before sessions, I often don't have any idea what I'm going to be doing, and that makes me nervous.

Do you have any advice for players starting out?

The most important thing is to enjoy music as much as possible. I can't be too optimistic about the business end, due to all the computers and machinery, but I wouldn't want that to discourage anyone from becoming involved in music.

I would also advise a young musician to play in a band rather than pursue studio work; there simply isn't the volume of work there once was. Ultimately, though, playing music is the best thing in the world.

In the wake of John Entwistle’s thunderous breaks on the Who’s 1965 hit My Generation, bass solos on pop singles have remained rare. That didn't stop Texas rock icon Steve Miller from featuring bassist Gerald Johnson, on Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma, from Miller's platinum-selling 1973 album, The Joker.

Johnson, born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1949, found his way to bass at age 13, while attending a Louisiana boarding school. There, at the behest of his piano-playing classmate Antoine – the son of Fats Domino – he borrowed a Fender P-Bass, turned it upside down to accommodate his being left-handed, learned Wading in the Water by Ramsey Lewis, and was hooked.

Directing his ear toward James Jamerson, Carol Kaye, and Bob Babbitt, Johnson returned to his family's Washington, D.C. home upon graduating and soon landed his first big gig with vocal group the Sweet Inspirations.

While the band was opening for Elvis Presley in Lake Tahoe, Johnson met Steve Miller, who called him eight months later to come to Hollywood to play on his 1972 LP, Recall the Beginning: A Journey From Eden.

The connection led the lefty low-ender to decades of touring and recording work with Miller, Dave Mason, Stephen Stills, CSN, and many others.

In the summer of 1973, Johnson, Miller, drummer John King, and keyboardist Dickie Smith headed north to Creedence Clearwater Revival's warehouse studio in Berkeley, California to record The Joker – with Shu Ba Da eventually becoming the third of four singles from the now-classic album.

“Steve wrote Shu Ba Da from one of our rehearsal jams,” Johnson told Bass Player back in October 2014. “He thought it would be a good live feature for me, because it was in the key of E.

“We had three weeks off between tour legs, so, not wanting to leave my solo to chance each night, I sat on my bed and came up with various lines to use.”

The solo culminates in some dramatic string bends (from B, to B and back) before settling into a recognisable lick for the final four bars.

“I borrowed that lick from Willie Weeks. He played it on Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything). By the time we hit my hometown of D.C., I had the entire solo under my fingers, and that's what I played when we went into the studio.”

The band recorded live with scratch vocals, opting for the third or fourth take. Johnson used two fingers to pluck his custom ’73 Fender P-Bass, which was ordered by Miller's management, and featured a blonde lefty body, right-handed maple neck (resulting in an upside-down head-stock) with the dot markers placed on the G-string side, and La Bella flatwounds.

The track begins with drums, adding Miller's rhythm guitar and his singing of the song's title, before the bass and organ unison riff enters. Johnson answers the riff with bluesy upper-register fills, immediately establishing his dominant role.

For the first verse, Johnson moves to issue a funky ostinato. He continues the line for the first chorus, where he also had the idea to vary beat four by landing on the root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th in successive measures.

At 02:13, Johnson’s 16-bar solo unfolds via four different four-bar ideas. He begins with a chromatic-infused, blues-based statement. In the ensuing four bars he embellishes it, while applying vibrato to the high G# by subtly bending the string up and down. How Johnson slid into the high E's, he's not sure, as his P-Bass has only 20 frets!

Continuing the momentum, Miller has Johnson double his guitar riff at 02:50, with Johnson spontaneously harmonizing the line in the last five measures by playing a high B-A-G over Miller's G-F#-E on guitar.

At 03:09 Miller spins a written guitar line (with guitar overdubs), for which Johnson first plays two bars of a melodic figure before settling into a 7th-fret centered boogie groove.

As the section moves along, two concepts stand out: Johnson’s periodic use of the flatted 3rd (G instead of the G#, which pulls his hand out of position), and his decision, eight bars in, to alternately play the pattern an octave higher.

Johnson continues his boogie variations through Miller's guitar solo, before returning to the intro riff, the final verse, and the final chorus. Capping the track nicely is the outro, at 05:20.

“I was experimenting with 10th and 7th intervals at the time, and Steve heard it and said, ‘Let's use that for the ending.’ He came up with the closing lick, too.”

Consider that the numerous descending runs – which are easier to play righty, due to string-raking as the hand moves toward the lower strings – are actually the more difficult-to-play ascending runs for the lefty Johnson. Conversely, strings bent upward for righties are pulled downward in Johnson’s case.

“The key is to have your fingerings in order, and to play on top and drive the track. As we used to say, it definitely leans into the wind!”

If you're one of the few who hasn't seen one of Dirty Loops’ hugely popular YouTube videos, check out their cover of Justin Bieber's Baby. Yes, Justin Bieber.

Anchoring and propelling this stunningly original take on pop is one of the bass guitar world's most impressive players, Henrik Linder.

The average Dirty Loops song is an awe-inspiring display of technique, harmonic sophistication, and lock-step rhythmic accuracy. Yet it's the sheer musicality of Linder's concept that elevates him above mere shredder status.

“We always start from the simplest place possible,” said Linder in the October 2014 issue of Bass Player. “The melody is the most important thing, and we'll prioritize that over everything else. Then, when we're happy with the song in its basic form, we'll go back and make it crazy.”

Linder took to music early on, starting on piano at age four. He found the bass guitar for the same reason many of us do, whether we care to admit it or not: romance. When he was about 12, his first big crush told him, “Bass is the sexiest instrument.” That's all he had to hear.

By the time Linder was 16, he was a busy Stockholm session musician. He was also friends with two other local up-and-comers, keyboardist/vocalist Jonah Nilsson and drummer Aron Mellergardh, and soon the three were full-time students at Stockholm's prestigious Royal College of Music.

As music students, the trio dived deep into their instruments and musicianship in general. To make ends meet, Linder and his buddies would play as many gigs and sessions as possible, with little concern for the profile or pay.

“I remember playing for a group of older people during their water aerobics class. I thought, ‘Whew, this career isn't going anywhere.’ Basically, I was broke, so I said yes to everything. I took whatever I could get. I just knew I could never have a normal job.”

Overwhelmed and exhausted by the intense academics, Linder and his good friend from childhood, Mellergardh, would let loose and jam as much as possible. Yet, rather than self-indulgent noodling, their early jams were often subject to the same discipline that is now so evident in Dirty Loops’ music.

“When I failed at something, it just pushed me to practice harder. When I had a gig I hated, it pushed me to do better. You have to constantly push to achieve the things you want, and stay true to the vision that first got you started.”

At some point Linder and company needed some gigs. As longtime sidemen, self-promotion and marketing were not among their strongest skills. Nevertheless, they decided to make a YouTube video to show bookers, a loopified version of Lady Gaga’s Just Dance, shot in their rehearsal studio.

Within two months, the video had 100,000 views and over 10,000 Facebook shares. The band didn't even have a Facebook page. Dirty Loops had officially gone viral with zero marketing effort and no gigs.

Recognizing that something special was in the offing, the group continued to produce videos in the same vein: simple and straightforward clips of the band playing one of their outrageously tricky versions of hit pop songs.

The videos garnered the attention of a few significant folks in the music industry, chiefly producer Andreas Carlsson, who signed the band to a management deal, and the songwriter David Foster, who signed Dirty Loops to Verve Records.

How did Dirty Loops develop its concept?

We were all music students and session players in Stockholm. I've known the guys in the band a long time. When you're doing sessions in Sweden, you don't get to play out as much as you'd like, so we decided to start a regular jam session and play whatever we felt like.

It was a lot of fun from the start, so we just kept at it. We never talked about a concept or direction. Everything kind of happened by itself. It probably helped that we had all grown up listening to a lot of the same music.

Who were some of your early musical influences?

I have a sister who's 10 years older, so I listened to whatever she was into. I was about five when the grunge scene got big, so I pretty much grew up on that. Soundgarden was my favorite band from that era.

It's clear from your harmonic awareness that you were also turned on to jazz.

My introduction to jazz was The Brecker Brothers Live. It's my favorite concert ever, just because it means so much to me personally. When I first heard it, I was like, ‘Huh?!' I had heard some fusion and jazz, but the Brecker Brothers were so in your face. It was like everything in music happening all at once.

James Genus is incredible on it, and Michael Brecker is probably my favorite player of all time – not just with the Brothers, but on his solo records, too.

At some point, though, you must have heard some funk.

Honestly, my first exposure to funk was via the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Flea is basically the reason I play bass. I got into Primus, too, but really it was the Chili Peppers' One Hot Minute that set me on the path.

What pushed you to develop such a large technical vocabulary?

With Dirty Loops, a lot of it comes from the way some of the tunes are written. When Jonah writes a song, sometimes there are lines that I'm barely able to play on bass, just because he's writing from a piano player's perspective. I would have to switch around techniques all the time, just because I would often need at least three fingers available on my right hand. So, most of the reason the basslines sometimes turn out weird are because they start on keyboard.

On much of Dirty Loops' material, you're playing chords. How did you develop that ability?

First, I learned the basic root-3rd-7th voicings for major, minor, dominant, and m7b5 chords. Then you start to develop the inversions. In Dirty Loops, Jonah plays a lot of notes in the bass register, so I can use more rootless voicings. Also being a trio without a guitar player, there's a lot of sonic space for me to fill.

When you practice, what's your routine?

I try to come up with new harmonic concepts. Beyond that, I'm trying to get to the point where I actually nail my bass parts. I also have some technique exercises. There's so much I want to get better at, especially in harmony and my understanding of chords and polytonality.

I was also really into Jerry Bergonzi's Inside Improvisation books. There's some heavy stuff in there, like how to use pentatonics in interesting ways.

What do you look for in a bass?

I'm always after clarity and a bass that accommodates a wide range of techniques – everything from fingerstyle to slap. I love neck-through basses with swamp ash bodies and maple fingerboard, and I dig EMG pickups. But it all starts with my Mattissonbass instruments. Working with Anders Mattisson has been an extraordinary collaboration.

It's funny, because I'm known for all of these extended-range high-end basses, but I love the sound of good old Jazz Basses – when other people play them. Whenever I pick one up I feel a little awkward, just because I can't do all my stuff. They're awesome instruments in the right hands, just not these hands.

Having so recently been a struggling music student and session musician, what would you say to aspiring players who admire your success?

Try to get an idea of where you want to be in the very far future, and direct your efforts to that goal. I want to be as harmonically free as Brad Mehldau. I'm never going to get there, but that's a goal and it keeps me focused on pushing myself.

You can experience a lot of self-blame, especially when you're always seeing players who are better than you. That's a real de-motivator. Try to avoid the temptation, and have your own journey. Have a path, and stick to it.

When Paul McCartney picked Lagos, Nigeria, as the location to record Wings’ third album, Band on the Run, he envisioned an extended sun-drenched holiday – interspersed with studio sessions, of course.

However, the sessions were marred by a series of less-than-ideal events: drummer Denny Seiwell and guitarist Henry McCullough left the group, the political situation in Nigeria was tense following the end of a civil war, and the McCartneys were robbed at knifepoint.

Macca also suffered a bronchial spasm, which was brought about by too much smoking.

The silver lining of it all, however, was the beginning of his friendship with Afrobeat progenitor and Nigerian music legend Fela Kuti. Admittedly, it got off to a rocky start after Kuti and his entourage headed to EMI Studios, where McCartney was recording, to question him about his intentions in Nigeria.

“The first thing [that] happened to me was, I was accused of stealing the Black man's music,” McCartney said in an interview published on the official Fela Kuti YouTube channel.

“[They said] ‘He's come here to steal the music,’ so I said, ‘Who's doing that? It’s in the newspaper.’ It was Fela, of course.

“So I got his number, I rang him up, [and said], ‘Hey, man, come on. I'm not here to do that. I love African music. I just want the kind of atmosphere, but I'm certainly not stealing any of your music.’

“He came around to the studio, and I played him all my stuff, and he said, ‘Nothing like African Music.’ So we became good friends.”

Soon after this encounter, McCartney ended up frequenting the Afrika Shrine, the legendary club in Lagos that Kuti set up in 1970.

“I wasn't gonna get wasted,” the Beatle recalls in a recent interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music, “but because it was very much the thing to do with Fela – I was with Ginger Baker, too – I was trying to resist. The guys were coming up, offering joints out. I said ‘Okay, I'm good, thank you.’”

McCartney was successfully resisting the temptation until a pivotal moment

“The guy went up to Ginger, and Ginger takes a smoke. Fela comes over to him, claps an arm around him, he said, ‘Ginger Baker, the only man I know never refuse a smoke.’ So I go, ‘Well, yeah, okay….’ and I got wrecked, paranoid, the whole thing.

“And so I was in a state until his band came on,” he admits, “and then they just hit this riff that I still remember, and it was incredible, and I just wept. That was an experience I could never forget. I still know the riff.”

In more recent news, McCartney explained how his new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, was inspired by his songwriting partnership with John Lennon.

“I always liked Jaco, and I felt that if I'd known him better, I could have helped him out. I recorded him once, but he was sideways.”

One of the many prophetic and profound statements made by Bill Laswell, renowned bassist for the renegade groups Material, Deadline, and Painkiller, and producer of such cutting-edge bands as Public Image Ltd, Motörhead, Iggy Pop, and the Lambomaniacs

Channelling jazz, dub, punk, and hip hop influences, Laswell remains an enigma of bass-playing history and has blazed a trail in creating his own unique style.

“All I ever wanted was for a good drummer to say, ‘He’s bad. I wanna play with him,’” said Laswell in a rare Bass Player interview from January 1992. “There are guys beating up the bass and getting a bunch of notes out of it, but no one really plays great basslines anymore.

“What I value about the bass is the way the sound and the feel relate to an environment. There's an incredible amount of technique involved in just touching the strings, and very few people are aware of that.”

Laswell scored his first commercial triumph as bassist and producer with Herbie Hancock's 1983 album, Future Shock, which included the hit single Rockit.

After that, offers started to pour in, including Mick Jagger's She's the Boss and Laurie Anderson's Mister Heartbreak, as well as projects for Iggy Pop, Féla Kuti, Sly & Robbie, Motörhead and many others.

When asked about his aforementioned encounter with Jaco Pastorius, Laswell replied: “I was making a record with Deadline, Phillip Wilson's project for Celluloid Records in 1984, and Phillip ran over to the old Lone Star to get Paul Butterfield. Jaco was there, and he tagged along. We let him play for about three minutes at the end of Makossa Rock, but it wasn't happening.

“I saw Jaco play live in his early days, when he first came out. He had a voice – it wasn't even bass guitar, it was just this unique voice. The stuff he did with Joni Mitchell was great, but then he lost it.

“He made a great contribution, but what came after him was all these idiots trying to sound like him. That's why bass players today are so fucking lame. To me, bass is some serious shit. It's like a religion or a good Western; it's beyond music – it's about character.”

Is there anything you're especially proud of in your work as a bass player?

What I'm sort of happy about is the way I sound like a lot of different people – it doesn't sound as if I'm just rescheduling the same events. Also, the way I use a lot of different instruments implies a different approach, but it's got more to do with playing than it does equipment.

I don't talk much about instruments, and I don’t have huge respect for them. They're just tools; you use them to get ideas across and put music together.

What's your attitude toward the bass?

As a bass player, I'm more influenced by religious writers like Gurdjieff or Aleister Crowley than I am by some jerks who play fusion music. And the magazines that glorify these people are just a total waste. I'm not talking about one person in particular, I’m talking about 99.9% of that shit.

There are very few bass players I can listen to; I hear a lot of people with incredible technique doing exercises on the instrument. But as far as playing great lines, playing with a great sound, incorporating it into the music, knowing how to make music really work – I hear very little of that. People are getting around more on the instrument, but that's not interesting to me at all.

Are there any exceptions to that?

Jonas Hellborg is an exception. And Bootsy Collins is a great bassist; he has a limited style, but it's real. What he plays is coming from great experience and a real devotion to a certain style, but these people doing all these acrobatics, tapping and whatever, don't play what I value: good lines and creative ideas about how to juxtapose rhythms with drummers. The feel is what's important.

You must admire James Jamerson.

Everybody likes Jamerson. He played with a natural feel, he had a sound, he had a style. I admired Jamerson when I was a teenager; I heard a lot of great bass players when I was growing up in Detroit.

Do you use both your fingers and a pick?

Yeah, but I stopped playing with my thumb because I felt that style was being exploited without being understood. When Larry Graham did it, it sounded good. And Bootsy has his own style, which is not like Larry's at all.

There was a guy named Doug Rauch who played with Santana; he had a real original style of playing with his thumb. Outside of those three people, I don't think there's anyone else I would bother listening to in that style.

As far as playing with a pick, I'm not really an authority, but it's another technique that works for different kinds of music. It's good if you're going for some kind of conviction and intensity.

Guitarist Bob Quine once said you were the best bass player he ever played with, because you listen and react so well.

Well, Quine never could stand people just dicking around on their instruments. To be honest, I'm not a fan of Quine, but I'd rather hear his stuff than some of this other shit that people are passing off as guitar playing. It sounds like typing.

Have you seen any bands live that impressed you?

I don't go to concerts; I can't concentrate for more than a few minutes on one style of music. That's why I liked what John Zorn is doing with his band, because he jumps from one thing to the next. All the events are squashed down to precise statements – shorter and shorter. I think that's really clever.

You also worked with Motörhead?

They're not that versatile, but they had a commitment to what they do, probably more than most bands. Lemmy’s really into the shit that he's doing. He’s really committed to being in a band. I’m sort of the opposite of that; I have no interest in it, but I can see why it really suited him.

What do you think of thrash bands like Slayer?

I guess in principle I like them. I'm not real excited about that music, but I don't have a problem with it. I'd rather hear that than 90% of the shit that's selling.

Has your interest in Middle Eastern, Asian, and Indian music affected your approach to the bass?

It has, but in a gradual, indirect way; I can't really pinpoint it. I've been working on a kind of North African music called gnawa music. There's a three-stringed instrument called a sintir, which has a very low register – it sounds a lot like a bass. To hear that instrument played is really an experience, and I suppose that has influenced me – to some degree.

What did you think of Paul Simon using Olodum on The Rhythm of the Saints album?

I thought the sound was nice, but I'm not a Paul Simon fan ever, under any circumstances, at all. Neither is Olodum. All the rhythm stuff on his album was well played and everything; it's just that when he put his voice and the rest of that shit on top of it, it's like, ‘Why?’

Do you feel that people at record companies are opening up to more challenging music?

I don't think the people at most record companies would know challenging music if it was right in their faces. I've been hearing challenging music since I started listening; I've heard it in the streets, in the Middle East, in Africa, in India, in Asia. The shit's been there the whole time.

Is there a particular bass you're using these days?

It depends on what I'm doing. I've got a lot of different instruments, and I use them for different areas of music.

All these magazines that talk about equipment – I think it's a waste of paper. All it does is promote equipment; it doesn't explain why people are interested in music or how they got to where they are.

Do you favor a particular method for recording your bass?

The question is: what's the music and how does the bass fit in? Sometimes I'll use a really close delay just to project the thing. Sometimes tons of pedals; other times, straight into the amp.

I use a lot of different amps: Marshalls, mostly, but sometimes SVTs for warmer stuff or a combination of different amps. You should leave yourself open to random things occurring – a blown speaker might be exactly what you need.

Currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of their landmark 2006 album, Death of a Dead Day, Sikth are an extraordinary band.

Having grown up listening to the likes of Joe Satriani, Iron Maiden and, er, Level 42, the band's front line (guitarists Dan Weller and Pin, and bassist James Leach) shared a collective passion for full-on virtuoso musicianship.

When interviewed for Total Guitar back in 2004, Weller explained: “We like to create music that makes people go, ‘Fuck, where did that come from?’ There's no guaranteeing that we'll be successful, but if we do catch on we could start a whole new wave of more technical music.”

Confounding casual listeners with its scope, Death of a Dead Day was a scattershot fusion of metal, prog, punk, emo and performance poetry, all of which helped establish a fiercely loyal underground fanbase.

For one fan in particular, the album, along with their extravagantly titled debut, The Trees Are Dead And Dried Out – Wait For Something Wild, set in motion a chain of events that would lead to a burgeoning career as bassist and producer for contemporary metal outfit Periphery, working alongside guitarist Misha Mansoor.

“Sikth is a band that was very influential in terms of getting into a more mathy style of metal,” says Adam ‘Nolly’ Getood. “Even though I didn't have much of an interest in bass guitar at the time, I immediately noticed the bass that James Leach had played on both albums.

“Straight away I could hear he was doing something interesting, really bridging the gap between these guitars that were going off, and the drums, which are playing incredibly technical drum grooves.

“He found neat ways of bridging that gap using slap-and-pop, tapping, or just plucking interesting melodic lines. That was hugely influential for me.”

An expert producer for bands such as Animals as Leaders, Devin Townsend Project, and Sleep Token, Getgood is well versed in the speed, dynamics, sonic textures, and polyrhythmic complexity that progressive metal demands.

So when Leach became unavailable for the current run of anniversary shows, he was the natural choice to step in.

“I last played with Sikth for three songs at a festival called ArcTanGent back in 2023, but playing this album live is a completely different thing.

“It’s hard to overstate how influential this album was. It’s the connecting glue between me, Misha, and Periphery. I know it’s an overused term, but for me and the other guys in Periphery, it really was a game changer.”

How have you approached the gig with Sikth?

With Sikth, I’m emulating James’ bass style. On the early albums, he incorporated plenty of slapping and popping. There’s a bit of slap bass in the set, but it’s still mostly pick playing.

That all feels very natural to me, but I’m consciously aiming for a cleaner sound and not digging in as hard. It’s a deliberate choice to keep things more rounded.

Can you achieve that with a lighter pick or a change in technique?

I always use a light pick. I’m actually still using the original picks I had made when I was touring with Periphery. I don’t go through them that quickly, so it’s the same picks – more of a technique change than anything else.

I’m always very aware of my technique – especially on guitar, picking just from the wrist and keeping things consistent. A lot of people will practice slow, but they'll use completely different technique when they speed up. They're not really preparing themselves for speed.

You’re also using the latest version of your signature bass – what’s new?

I think the biggest change in feel is the addition of the neck binding. It also has a new bridge that’s really comfortable, and adds a little more solidity to the sound. Then there are other details like the matte black hardware and the smaller toggle switch.

Each iteration feels a little more solid, while still feeling very much like my bass. I love how it’s evolved over time.

Do you have a go-to pickup setting?

I spend most of the time using the bridge pickup, because it helps the bass blend better with distorted guitars. If you play distorted electric guitar, you’ll know most players stick to the bridge pickup – it just produces a different set of overtones in that position.

You do lose some low-end, but through heavy distortion it still sounds really tight, and you can always add more low-end after. So for me, it’s about giving the bass a character that sits closer to the guitars.

More recently, I’ve also been experimenting with the bridge and neck pickups wired in parallel. That gives a really nice balance as well.

How do you set the EQ?

In a live situation, I tend to leave the EQ flat, just because if it gets knocked, I don’t want to suddenly end up with loads of low-end or anything like that.

Are you using the Darkglass preamp?

An active preamp isn’t really part of the equation when I play with Sikth. The last thing I want is to rely heavily on the EQ, step onstage, and find the battery’s flat, especially given how infrequently I play live.

In the studio, I use the preamp all the time, but for live shows, the most foolproof option is to keep things in passive mode – which still sounds amazing.

What first drew you to this bass?

The Dingwall really filled a need and gave metal bassists an instrument they could rally around. For the first time, it was possible to tune low and still have a sound that remained coherent across all the different strings.

How does it feel to have solved that problem?

It was a problem Sheldon Dingwall had already solved with the Novax fanned-fret system he was using, so I don’t think I can take too much credit for it – though I may have helped popularise it. I think this model in particular has become something of an industry standard, and that’s a great feeling.

It's hard to think of another band that has had as monumental an impact on the heavier end of the rock spectrum as Led Zeppelin. One major component of their success was the solid, funky and bluesy rhythm section of John Paul Jones and the late drummer John Bonham.

Though his onstage persona was perhaps less flamboyant than his bandmates, Jones was never a bass player to sit in the shadows. From his tight riffing on tracks such as Black Dog to the funky grooves of Trampled Under Foot, Jones doled out high-quality basslines on every cut.

Although Jones gets more attention for his bass playing these days, he was also Zeppelin’s go-to keyboardist, often switching between bass guitar and keys during live shows. In fact, it was a standing joke in Led Zeppelin that if there was an exotic instrument needed for a track, John Paul Jones would take care of it. Organ, mandolin, recorders? No problem.

As he told Bass Player in 2008, “I’d be there with a triple-neck guitar, bass pedals, and keyboards, and Robert would ask, ‘Can you sing, as well?’”

The following interview from the Bass Player archives took place in May 2008.

What was your contribution to Led Zeppelin's overall sound?

“I was a sort of Motown and Stax specialist when I was a studio musician, and I brought that groove into Led Zeppelin. Bonzo was also a big R&B fan, so there's a lot of it in the Zeppelin rhythm section. In addition to keyboard, mandolin, and other things like that, I just brought my musical experience.

“I've always said that Zeppelin was the space between four individual musicians, and it was bigger than the sum of its parts. We all had different musical tastes, and we didn't try to emulate any other band. Soul, jazz, country, folk, Arabic, Indian – we all had these different influences, and we weren't ashamed to whip them out at any time. The way those influences mixed became Zeppelin.”

What was the first Zeppelin rehearsal like?

“We met up in a tiny room in London and all looked at each other, working out what we were going to play. It was kind of like, ‘Well, what do you know?’ ‘I don't know, what do you know?’

“Page said, ‘Do you know The Train Kept Rolling?’ I said no, and he said, ‘Its in E, but there's a riff that starts on G.’ He showed me the riff and counted it in, and the room just exploded. We all knew we had something special.”

Bonham's drum phrasing was unusual.

“Absolutely. He was like that – a very imaginative drummer. He could pick out the interesting parts of a riff and come up with a really cool part.”

How would you go about matching up with his drums?

“Since Bonzo's kick-drum playing was so complex, it was much more effective to synchronize and play with the kick rather than just boom right across it. That was part of our style; I would leave out notes in order to let a kick or a snare come through. That's especially effective with a really good drummer – it makes the rhythm come alive when you leave holes for the drums to pop out.”

When and why would you switch from playing fingerstyle to playing pickstyle?

“My preference is fingerstyle, but l often had to play with a pick in the session days, so I got quite used to it. I can play Immigrant Song with my fingers, but it just sounds better with a pick. Same with Black Dog. It just gives you different phrasing, and a more metallic, guitar-y sound. I didn't see any reason not to swap one for another if the occasion demanded it.”

How did Zeppelin communicate onstage?

“There was eye and ear contact. Robert always used to tell me to stand up in the front. I used to play the first song up front, then I'd gradually edge my way back to my favorite position: just under the ride cymbal off the corner of the drums, where I could feel the kick.

“For improvised parts we would group around center stage with a lot of eye contact, and a lot of focus. That concentration is what made it successful. Anybody could take anything anywhere, and we'd all follow.”

What was your keyboard setup?

“It changed over time. I used to use a Mellotron, which was the only way you could get a string or flute sound in those days. But you'd never know whether it was going to be in tune, so I replaced that with a Yamaha GX1, the big green machine. In the end, I think I used a Fairlight, an early 8-bit sampler.”

What was the band's approach to recording and touring?

“To me, Led Zeppelin was a live performance band. We would make a record and that would be the blueprint. Then we'd go off and play the record live, and it would move on from there. I'm pretty used to recording studios, so it was no big thing to be in the studio. Playing live was the most fun for me; I think that was the best of Zeppelin.”

Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Deep Purple formed the holy trinity that would ultimately induce heavy metal. Yet while the band has always pinned the meters in terms of popularity, sales, and volume, critical acclaim has been less than royal – especially when viewed in the context of Zeppelin and Sabbath.

Consider Roger Glover's snarling bass guitar on Purple's 1972 classic, Machine Head – a record that would set the tone for decades of ensuing music – and it's clear his contribution to the canon of rock bass has been largely overlooked.

The Machine Head sessions were cut with what was effectively Deep Purple Mark II, the classic lineup of Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Ian Gillan vocals, Roger Glover bass, Jon Lord keyboards and a thundering lan Paice on drums.

Glover's thunderously clanky Rickenbacker/P-Bass tones were formidable, though Glover himself admitted to being very unsettled by his sound at the time: “Too much clank and not enough thump”, he told Bass Player in 2013.

“By the time I got to Purple, I felt my tone was too distorted, with not enough bottom. I used a Rick on Machine Head and I wasn't happy with the sound.

“When we did the 25th Anniversary remix, my engineer (Peter Denenberg) isolated it and said, ‘People would kill for a sound like that’, but I always felt my tone was too distorted, especially with the Rickenbacker. Having had a P-Bass and a Fender Mustang previously, I guess I didn't realize what I had.”

Born November 30, 1945, in Brecon, Wales, and raised in London, Glover began his musical journey with piano lessons at age seven. Gravitating toward rock & roll, he picked up guitar at 13. Bass entered the picture soon after, when Glover saw his first live band, the Lightnings, rehearsing in a local gym.

“Upon seeing them, my two friends and I decided to start a band; they were both better guitarists than I was, so I said, I'll be the bass player, and I removed the top two strings on my Spanish guitar.”

Glover moved to North London in 1961 and formed the Madisons. A year later, the Madisons merged with the Lightnings to become Episode Six. Six released over a dozen singles, never quite breaking through, but that would all change for Glover when Deep Purple came calling in the summer of ’69.

How did you come to join Deep Purple?

Ian Gillan and I were in a band called Episode Six, where we were writing together. Purple was looking for a singer, and Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore came to see us and offered Ian the gig, which he took.

Soon after, Ian called me and said, ‘The band is looking for songs – come in and play them our songs.’ So I met Lord and he listened and passed on what we had, but he played me Hallelujah and asked me to record it with them that night.

After the session he offered me the gig and I turned him down. I said, ‘You already took our singer, if I leave Episode Six it kills everyone else's hopes and dreams, and I can't live with that.’ So he said, ‘Well, think about it.’

I went home and thought about it all night and called him the next morning to take the gig. It still amazes me how close I came to not following this path.

What about original bassist Nick Simper?

Well, the band politics were horrible. Nick didn't know he'd been replaced until someone told him, and on the Hallelujah session I used his bass and amp. I felt bad; both (original vocalist) Rod Evans and Nick were let go without notice, which must have hurt terribly.

I've never met Nick, but his bass playing definitely had an impact on me because I had to play his parts. I thought he had a great plucking sound; you can really hear it on Hush – I could never get that sound.

People have noted that the bass is louder on Machine Head than other early Purple albums. Was there a reason?

I really don't know why that was, but it surprises me, as well. I very rarely listen to our own stuff, and so you forget what the recordings actually sound like; but every time I hear the original on the radio I go, ‘Jesus, the bass is loud!’

How did you come up with those bass parts?

Do you know the theory of the zen archer? The zen archer draws his bow back and as soon as he eyes the target he lets his arrow go. The reason is, the longer he hesitates and tries to make sure he hits the target, the more off he's going to be because his hands will start to shake. In other words, your first instinct is always your best bet.

But at the basic level, the bass has to anchor and groove at all costs. I mean, you can get a little complicated on the bass, but it doesn't really help the song.

What’s your role as a songwriter?

There's no formula for it, other than we're aware we're a hard rock band, and that's what the music is going to be. So it's within those confines, except hard rock is unconfined in that it has elements of blues, folk, classical, and jazz.

Someone might come in with a riff or a chord sequence, something fairly basic that everyone can chew on for a while, and the song kind of evolves. It's always been the same with Purple. We don't write Purple songs; we just write songs that become Purple songs because we're playing them.

Who were your key bass influences?

The first bass player I heard who was totally different from everyone else was Jack Bruce. Then I got into John Entwistle – My Generation blew me away – and Tim Bogert with Vanilla Fudge. But they were all virtuoso players.

I think the bassist who had the most impact on me was Paul McCartney, because he was both a great songwriter and a great player. He had the lyrical sensibility to say something profound on bass that didn't get in the way of anything else.

Even though I don't want to emulate them, I admire technical players. Two of my heroes are Jaco Pastorius and Victor Wooten. They're just brilliant musicians. Occasionally I'll go on YouTube and check out Victor or Abraham Laboriel.

What advice would you offer to young bassists?

If you want to be a bass player, study and borrow from the best and learn how to really enjoy playing the instrument. You can have just as much fun gigging in a little band at your local pub every Saturday evening as you'll ever get from being a celebrity bass player.

A big reason Purple made it is that we didn't follow any trends; hard rock wasn't in vogue at the time, and we had no hope in hell of getting on the radio. We just did what we wanted to do, and it happened to become successful. That's really the truest kind of success you can achieve.

Regardless of misinformation, Bob Daisley played bass on, wrote the lyrics for, and was bandleader during the recording of Ozzy’s first two post-Sabbath solo albums, 1980’s The Blizzard of Ozz, and 1981’s Diary of a Madman.

Though his role as an “official member” of Ozzy’s band changed, his role didn’t. During the sessions for 1983’s Bark at the Moon, 1986’s The Ultimate Sin, 1988’s No Rest for the Wicked and 1991’s No More Tears, – aka the Prince of Darkness’ golden era – Daisley was pivotal.

But things didn’t remain the same between the leading musicians. “It felt like I was working for Blizzard of Ozz, the band I’d helped form,” Daisley says. “The dynamic had changed considerably.” Hit songs and setlist staples like Bark at the Moon, The Ultimate Sin, Magic Man and Mama, I’m Comin’ Home simply wouldn’t be the same without Daisley’s lyrics and basslines.

His writing and experience was integral for young guitarist Jake E. Lee, who replaced the deceased Randy Rhoads; and for Zakk Wylde, who joined after Lee was fired in 1987. Sadly, after No More Tears, a record that some fans believe exceeds the greatness of the Randy Rhoads era, Daisley and Ozzy’s partnership ended.

“As for No More Tears being ‘better’ than our first two Blizzard of Ozz albums with Randy – no way,” Daisley says. “No More Tears wouldn’t exist without our first albums. They were the foundation.”

After Diary of a Madman and prior to Bark at the Moon there was an issue with credits, right?

Just ask me what I thought of Rudy Sarzo being credited on Diary of a Madman! That was a travesty, a true crime against Lee Kerslake and me. I’d worked hard on that album – as I do with every album that I’ve been involved with – with the playing and writing aspects and the production.

To see all my hard work credited to someone who’d had nothing to do with any of it was heartbreaking; the same goes for Lee. I remember the day Lee and I saw the album and those erroneous credits for the first time. It was like a punch in the solar plexus. I would love to see proper accreditation on that album before I take the long dirt nap.

What was your role with Ozzy by the time of Bark at the Moon?

My role was always the same – co-write music, write all lyrics, arrange the songs, and inspire in general. Bark at the Moon was no different. When Ozzy and Sharon kept on at me, trying to get me to agree to replacing Lee with Tommy Aldridge during the 1980 UK tour, then again in 1981, I would never agree.

They asked time and time again. But it wasn’t out of blind loyalty to Lee that I wouldn’t agree; I just knew it was wrong because the chemistry was perfect and the formula was working well. Eventually they got rid of both of us and then, six weeks later, asked me back to do another album with Randy, Ozzy and Tommy. It was to be written and recorded in 1982, which I agreed to.

Then, in March of ’82, Randy was killed, and that album was put on the back burner. I was in Uriah Heep at the time with Lee, Micky Box, John Sinclair, and Pete Goalby, so my contributions and performances on the planned third album would have been as a ‘session’ player.

What led to your working with Jake E. Lee in a songwriting capacity?

When the time came to do that third album, Bark at the Moon, Ozzy asked me to play at the US Festival just before we were to commence the writing and rehearsals. That was my first encounter with Jake – an impressive guitarist whom I had no doubts about as far as his abilities.

The shoes Randy had left behind were not easy to fill. But Jake did an admirable job and made those songs his, and retained the essence of Randy at the same time. After the US Festival, we all flew to New York and began writing for the album, which went very well.

One day Ozzy came into the studio and watched as Jake and I were putting ideas together, and he just blurted out, “I’d forgotten how much you had to do with the writing.” I said nothing; how quickly his “convenient amnesia” had kicked in.

What was Ozzy’s state of mind as far as his substance abuse and emotional state after Randy passed?

Ozzy was a bit messed up on booze and drugs, but Sharon kept an eye on him; so he was mostly kept under control, to a point. The loss of Randy was felt by us all. But I wasn’t there when the plane crashed, so I’m not an eyewitness – thankfully.

Why do you think Ozzy chose Jake to replace Randy?

Jake was a good replacement for Randy. I mean, no one could really replace him, but Jake was a good guitarist, and he could come up with good song ideas and riffs. He certainly fit the bill.

Tell us about playing bass on Bark at the Moon and Rock ‘n’ Roll Rebel.

I played on all of the album. I co-wrote the whole album, including extra tracks such as Slow Down and Spiders.

Which songs would you call out?

On So Tired, I used a Fender Hybrid bass, – a rare 1966 slab body that was non-contoured, with the split Precision pickup. On Spiders, I used a Guild fretless bass through the same rig [an Ampeg SVT with an 8x10 cab]. Tommy Aldridge came up with the initial drum pattern that inspired Spiders.

He wasn’t credited, was he?

I would have given him a writing credit, but no one got a writing credit on that album – all songs were credited to Ozzy for reasons that I won’t go into here. But during an interview with International Musician magazine, Ozzy was asked how he, as a non-musician and non-lyricist, achieved such a miracle. His answer was, ‘With one finger on a piano.’ Oh dear!

What were your thoughts about Jake not being paid properly for Bark at the Moon, let alone no one being credited?

I didn’t get involved in other people’s business affairs; my own were complicated enough! But considering how much Jake and I had done, how we were treated was unfair, disrespectful, and unforgivable; I’ll say that much.

Ozzy had you help with songwriting again for The Ultimate Sin, but you didn’t play bass. Why is that?

Jake and I put the music together in Palm Springs while Ozzy was in the Betty Ford Clinic; so yes, I wrote all of the basslines while we were co-writing the music. After we’d demoed four of the songs in London, Ozzy and I had a clash because he hadn’t been turning up to rehearsals.

When we had to record those four songs in just two days, he began drinking and smoking pot and wanting to change parts. I told him that he should have come to rehearsals and that it was too late to start changing things now.

The next day I got the phone call – I was out. Then a couple of weeks later, he phoned and asked me to write the lyrics for the whole album. Because I’d already put so much into it, I agreed. I wrote the lyrics at home in the garden and took them to Ozzy in London.

What did you think of Phil Soussan’s playing, and how different would the album have been with you on bass?

Phil’s playing was okay; a sort of simplified version of what I’d done. As for me being there, of course it would have made a difference; I was an integral part of what the Ozzy sound and direction. Ozzy and I were the nucleus, and Jake and I were the machine behind it.

Why do you think Ozzy let Jake go?

I don’t know the full circumstances; I wasn’t working with Ozzy then. But the band wasn’t as good as it could have been rhythm-section-wise. Jake and Ozzy had had their issues, but I can’t be accurate or definite about a situation I didn’t experience.

What did you think of Zakk Wylde?

He was only 20 or 21 when he joined, but he was already a good writer; well, he and I wrote well together. He was a bit young and green, but he soon matured!

You played bass again on No Rest for the Wicked. What was making that album like?

I had fun writing the lyrics and co-writing music or that album. Particularly Miracle Man – which was about Jimmy Swaggart – and Demon Alcohol. I really liked what I did on fretless bass, and lyric-wise on The Liar. I thought John Sinclair did a great job on keyboards; he and I always had a great laugh together.

Did your overall rig change much for No Rest for the Wicked and the album that came next, No More Tears?

No. I used an Ampeg SVT and an 8x10 cab again. Nowadays I use Markbass amps – they’re brilliant! The bass that I used for most of No More Tears was a 1955 Fender Precision, including the title track.

Zakk seemed to come into his own on No More Tears. Where was your relationship with Ozzy and Zakk at by then?

I was called in at the last minute to record that album. Michael Inez had been on bass up until then. I was meant to be writing lyrics as well, but after we finished recording I got my marching orders. There were no problems or issues – just a change of plan, I guess.

It was during the recording of that album in early 1991 at A&M Studios in Hollywood that Ozzy told me, “You were right, you know, about Lee Kerslake,” which I wasn’t expecting and which I didn’t even comment on. It was 12 years too late.

Was there any friction with Mike Inez?

I have to say Michael Inez was a true gentleman about me playing on the album. He’d sometimes pop into the studio and watch me record, and he was always pleasant, complimentary and respectful – a nice chap.

What do you remember about putting together No More Tears, Mama, I’m Coming Home and Hellraiser?

No More Tears was finished writing-wise in the studio, although the basics had been established before that, before I’d come in. The opening bass riff was Michael Inez’s, although I turned it around by changing where the “one” fell, musically speaking.

I used a fretless bass on Mama I’m Coming Home and I think that it was ideal for a song like that; it helped to give it its mood and emotion. Hellraiser always brings back memories of having a laugh with John Sinclair in the car on the way to the studio. He and I used to sing the chorus together in an exaggerated French accent for a laugh, “hell razzairrr!”

How do you view your role within all Ozzy’s “best” albums, and that, debatably, his music’s quality declined after you stopped working with him?

As I’ve already said, Ozzy and I were the nucleus of that music, regardless of which guitarist was involved. None of it would have happened if The Blizzard of Ozz hadn’t happened. Obviously it was meant to happen – it was fated, destined – and I’m glad and honored to have been a part of it. When Ozzy’s and my relationship ended, that music ended; it was never the same again.

The spirit that guided Suzi Quatro through her trailblazing ‘70s heyday guides her now. “It will never burn out. Never, never, never!” she proclaims. Passion is the name of her game; not just with songwriting, but with her bass playing, which she takes as seriously as a heart attack.

“I am not a failed guitar player turning to bass,” Quatro states. “I am a real bassist. I do a six-minute bass solo on stage – and, I might add, not an easy one!”

Asked how she gravitated toward bass in the ‘60s when most young girls weren’t encouraged to do such things, she recalls: “When we started the band, all the other girls shouted down the phone which instrument they wanted. I didn't speak up quickly enough! So I was ‘given’ the bass. As the universe dictates… perfect! From the time I strapped it on, it was my instrument. I was born to play it.”

In the years since, Quatro’s hits like Can the Can and 48 Crash impacted everyone from Debbie Harry to Chrissie Hynde to Courtney Love. Quatro didn’t realize it then; in fact, she didn’t grasp it until documentary Suzi Q dropped in 2019.

Now, as she prepares to release her 18th studio album, the aptly-titled Freedom, she’s aware of her impact and also reveling in it. “I kicked down the door because I didn't see the door! And that's the truth.”

What inspires you to keep making new music?

I’m always inspired. I am a communicator, a creator, and an entertainer. With this album, we wanted to return to my rock ‘n’ roll roots. We have accomplished that. It’s a nod to 1973, without being retro.

Do you still feel like you fit in with today’s music scene – or does that not matter?

I’ve always felt like I fit in this industry since 1964, when I began. Nothing has changed for me personally. I rock and I roll, and I do what God put me on this earth for. The only way the music scene has changed is that it’s gone digital.

I preferred the golden age of albums and CDs, when you could physically buy the product rather than stream it. But that’s the way it is, and there’s nothing any of us artists can do about it. So I’ve embraced it.

Your music was a precursor to artists like Pat Benatar, The Runaways, and Courtney Love.

If you watch the documentary you’ll see many, many women throughout citing me as an influence. Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, KT Tunstall, Tina Weymouth, Joan Jett, Cherie Curie, Kathy Valentine, Donita Sparks, and more.

They all say basically the same thing: “I would not have done what I did if Suzi Quatro had not done it first.” To be honest, I never realized it whatsoever. I was in an all-girl band at age 14, yet I never did gender.

When did your impact hit you?

I didn’t get it until I went to the documentary premiere at the Regent Theatre in London. I snuck in and watched the film, wanting to get the audience’s reaction firsthand. In the end I was crying – at age 69, the penny finally dropped that I had indeed changed the world for women in this business.

Like your last two records, Freedom is a bit different from the old days in that it’s a collaboration with your son, Richard Leonard Tuckey.

My son is very talented and very humble. Our partnership has grown since our first outing together in 2019. What he gave to me was the ability to see myself fresh again through his eyes. I gave birth to him, but he gave rebirth to me. He gets me!

How did songs like Little Miss Lovely, Nobody Held My Hand, and Hanging Over Me come together? They seem autobiographical.

Little Miss Lovely and Nobody Held My Hand were both Richard’s titles. He doesn't usually come up with titles; it's my area, but this time he did. Little Miss Lovely is a tongue-in-cheek story of me. You could say it's a Gemini song, which I am. Richard wanted Nobody Held My Hand to be about my life in this business and how I was truly on my own. He also contributed some lyrics.

And with Hanging Over Me, the title came first, along with the bass line. Then I had the entire scenario in front of me. I lived it in a previous relationship – I don’t write fiction.

What led to your cover of Kick Out the Jams with Alice Cooper?

I’ve done two covers on every album since 1973. Richard had been pushing for that track since 2019. On our first album together, No Control, I kept resisting; I have no idea why! On Freedom he was determined.

He finally said, “Mom, Kick Out the Jams. Call Alice!” Then I saw it, then I heard it, and it made perfect sense – two old buddies from Detroit, going back to Detroit to record live. It’s a tribute to a Detroit band, the MC5. We captured the spirit of Detroit, the spirit of the MC5, and our friendship. Richard was right.

Did you know MC5’s Wayne Kramer back in the day?

I knew all of them very well, though they were a little older than me. My brother used to book them for all his festivals. I interviewed Wayne for one of my BBC radio specials. He was an excellent guitarist. The MC5 were one of the best live bands ever.

How about Alice – when did you first meet him?

I was 15, he was 17, both in bands, which is how we met. We got along from the get-go and we’ve been able to keep our friendship alive and kicking all these years. He always calls me his little sister. We were and always will be close; I have a deep respect and love for the man.

When you pick up the bass guitar, what goes through your mind, and where do your sensibilities gravitate toward?

I read, write, and play percussion and classical piano – which is also a percussion instrument. I’m also a conga and bongo player. My style is a cross between stand-up bass, walking the changes, boogie and ‘60s Motown.

When I do the band intros, I always say that bass and drums are the two most important instruments in any band because you can’t drive a car without an engine, and we are the engine.

Do you have any limitations on bass? And on the flipside, what’s your greatest strength?

I don’t use a pick, but I don’t consider it a problem. Since I didn’t go from guitar to bass, I never learned how to pick. I’m a finger player through and through, hence the original standup bass sound.

I can also make my fingers sound like a picked bass if it’s required. I don’t do the modern style of slapping, which started with disco. I prefer the old-fashioned stand-up style. My greatest strength is – to quote one of my musicians – “Whatever you play is correct.” Amen to that!

The house is burning down. You can only grab one bass and one amp. Which are you going for and why?

Oh my God! Has to be my original 1957 Fender Precision that my father gave to me when I began. And the amp; I guess my Orange practice amp, ‘cause I can use it anywhere.

Is that the gear you used on Freedom?

We stripped everything back in the studio for this album. I used some old equipment, including my original drummer Dave Neal’s drums. He played on every hit and passed away in 2021. I bought his kit, and it’s set up permanently in my home studio. It’s magic, and it feels like he’s still here.

Do you ever think about retirement?

I don’t see retirement yet. I’m at the top of my game performance-wise – why should I give that up? I have three famous quotes. The first I said at age 35: “I will retire when I go onstage, turn my back on the audience, shake my ass, and there’s silence.” At age 65 I said, “I will retire when I go onstage, turn my back on the audience, and my ass shakes by itself.”

Now, at age 75 – and this is my serious one – I say, “I will retire when I go onstage and I don’t deliver to my standard.”

• Freedom is on sale now.

In his 1995 Bass Player cover story, Paul McCartney said his prize period on bass guitar was around Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper, where he could put all his energy into the song and bassline, as opposed to his “okay” bass playing in Wings, due to his having numerous hats to wear, ranging from bandleader to business manager.

Guitarist Laurence Juber, whose career as a London and then Los Angeles session musician is separated by his two-year stint with Wings, begged to differ.

“Paul wrote a lot of great music and played a lot of terrific bass with Wings that is still under-appreciated,” said Juber in the October 2013 issue of Bass Player. “Some of it I don't think he even recognizes himself, yet.”

McCartney’s bassline for Silly Love Songs, which spent five weeks at No. 1 on the U.S. charts, is a case in point.

The track, from the album Wings at the Speed of Sound, was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in January and February 1976. Criticized and taunted by the music press and John Lennon alike for writing “lightweight” songs, McCartney wrote it as a biting response, later cutting a more techno-oriented version featuring Louis Johnson on bass for the 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street.

Based on his later studio experience with Wings, Juber confirmed that Paul played his flatwound-strung Rickenbacker 4001S with a heavy-gauge pick, likely both direct and through a miked Fender Bassman, with a Fairchild Compressor on all bass tracks.

Denny Laine and Jimmy McCulloch on guitars, and drummer Joe English on drums rounded out the rhythm section, with keyboards, vocals, a four-piece horn section, and strings all added later.

What stands out about Silly Love Songs as compared to McCartney's Beatle bass anthem, Come Together, where the one-bar bass figure snakes around the vocals, or his 1979 Wings bass tour de force, Goodnight Tonight, where the busy bassline answers and fills in between the sparse vocal line, is that the vocal and bassline run together in counterpoint.

That's a key aspect to Juber, who covered Silly Love Songs on solo guitar for his 2005 album, One Wing.

“Paul's gift for singing and playing a bassline in counterpoint is remarkable. One of my favorite Paul McCartney bass parts is on his first solo single, Another Day, where at times the bass and vocals move in parallel sevenths. When counterpoint is done well like that it can drift outside of strict church harmony, and that's where the personality really emerges.”

Silly Love Songs begins with eight bars of a simulated assembly line, perhaps a symbolic precursor to the driving, repetitive bassline and four-on-the-floor drum pulse that lie ahead. Four more bars of intro allude to the bassline shape, which takes its full four-bar form at the first verse.

Interestingly, McCartney’s vocal is a three-bar phrase, leaving the fourth bar open for bass; however, the bar 4 bassline is actually finishing a two-bar phrase that begins under the Fmaj 7 chord in bar 3.

Two key elements are McCartney's use of chromatic passing notes, which help the melodic flow of the line (a device he has always employed, as a fan of Tin Pan Alley songs), and his interesting application of short and long notes.

“Paul plays with a very hard touch onstage, but he has a real sensitivity to dynamics and note duration in the studio. Even though the basic sequence of C Em7 Fmaj7 repeats in both the verses and choruses, the ear doesn't tire of it because he doesn't use a heavier, final-sounding, dominant V chord cadence.”

For the first chorus, at 01:02, McCartney keeps the same driving bassline, while the vocals pare down to whole notes. His use of up-and-down strokes with a pick is revealed via his 16th-note pickup at 01:32.

The bridge arrives with a unison riff that answers the vocal before building over the last five bars. The horn soli gives way to the breakdown at 03:12. As the vocals get more contrapuntal, the bass builds to a root-5th-octave pattern.

The horn soli reprises at 03:42, leading into a more minimal breakdown at 04:13, without bass for a bit (listen around 04:43 for bass panned way left and in the distance). The buildup involves McCartney's Latin bass figure again and a trick horn soli that lasts only four bars.

Finally, the song returns to a verse at 05:22, ending exotically on the III minor chord – “the most bittersweet chord in the C major scale,” noted Juber.

Victor Wooten says he has lots of bass heroes, and he has just as many bass guitars, so it’s fitting that one of his most prized possessions is a bass he got from a player he grew up idolizing.

The journeyman bassist and multiple Grammy winner has long since established himself as one of the best bassists in the world. He's worked with everyone from Bootsy Collins to Cory Wong, Marcus Miller, and Tommy Emmanuel, but he still looks up to those who inspired him to start playing in the first place. One man sits atop the rest: Stanley Clarke.

“Part of my, I don't know what the word is, infatuation with Stanley is that I got to meet him when I was nine,” Wooten tells Reverb. “I had this booklet with bios and photos [of bass players], and Stanley took my booklet, wrote an address on it, and said, ‘Send me a letter here, and I'll send you something.’ And I did, and he did that. It solidified that he was my idol.”

Late in life, he'd form a ground-rumbling trio with Clarke and Marcus Miller, releasing the album Thunder as SMV in 2008. That shows how far Wooten has come. Then came something even more unexpected.

When a friend called him to say that Clarke was selling some of his gear, he couldn’t believe it. His eyes lit up.

“I called Stanley, and I made some small small talk,” Wooten remembers. “I didn't want to say, ‘What are you selling?’ I couldn't go straight there, but finally I said it, and he said, ‘Well, I've got the Alembic I played School Days on,' and I just knew I had to have it.”

Clarke's signature Alembic was introduced in the 1980s and featured a 30.75-inch scale, 24 frets, and an active circuit by Ron Wickersham. But it was part of a huge fire sale as Clarke looked to clear house. Wooten was in luck.

“It has ‘S.C’ inlaid in the bottom below the bridge, and he actually signed it for me on the back of the headstock,” he smiles. “That's the most magical bass.”

Then things got expensive.

“I found out he was selling an upright bass,” he adds. “It's a 5/8 size, which is a small size. I really needed an upright. He said that it's from the 1700s, and I found out what he was selling for is way out of my range. But when I went to my wife, Holly, with puppy dog tears, she said, ‘You have to have those basses.’ I married the right person!”

Clarke's decision to sell a substantial portion of his guitar collection came as a surprise, but he told Bass Player he had his reasons.

More recently, Wooten has been telling Bass Player what it takes to get to the top of bass mountain. It's a journey he has to take all over again after a recent health condition has turned him back into a beginner.

An iconic figure in the world of gospel bass guitar, Andrew Gouche’s reputation as an A-list sideman is founded on decades of exceptional bass work with the likes of Gladys Knight, Andrae Crouch, Destiny’s Child, Michael Jackson, Prince and Chaka Khan.

Like most gospel musicians, Gouche grew up in church, but his roots stretch further than most. As a boy, he sang in the choir of Rev. James Cleveland, who revolutionized African-American praise music in the ’50s and ’60s by using soul, R&B, and jazz in church, creating the template for today's gospel/secular fusions.

Within a year of receiving his first bass at age 14, Gouche began training at the left-hand of Cleveland and his pianists. “James always had the greatest piano players,” said Gouche in the September 2001 issue of Bass Player.

“There was a time when I was playing with James Cleveland, the Jazz Crusaders, the Winans, the Hawkins Family, and Andraé Crouch all at the same time.

“I was working a lot with James, visiting cities around the country four or five times a year, and I got to know a lot of people. That was a great time for me – I was doing everything, paying dues by playing in church on Sundays for $40.”

While Gouche admits that his bass playing favours busy lines over simplistic ones, that's exactly what his fans have grown to expect.

“Some people think I play too many notes, but I did what I had to do to change how people thought about gospel bass,” Gouche told Bass Player in 2013.

“Most people thought the bass guitar was nothing but the keyboard player's left hand, and that it was all about paying attention to the kick drum. People didn’t look at the bass as an instrument that could set the tone.

“So it took a while for me to understand that not everyone’s ready for me. And that’s cool. I've been fired off more gigs than anyone I know!”

It was in December 2011, having served as musical director for Chaka Khan, that Gouche got the call to play for one of the world’s most celebrated stars, Prince.

“I was Chaka Khan's musical director for six years, and in 2011 we opened for Prince on a tour. Shortly after that, Chaka decided to fire the whole band – I don’t know why. But the week after she fired us, Prince called me and said he was doing some things and asked if I wanted to be a part of it.

“It reminded me that you can't be bitter about anything that happens to you, man. I mean, if I hadn't met Chaka, I would have never met Prince.”

Gouche went on to contribute to several studio tracks during Prince’s HITnRUN Phase Two era, including Black Muse, Baltimore, and Stare.

The following Bass Player interview took place in October 2013.

What is it like to work with Prince?

This guy has more energy than anybody I've ever seen. He has so many things going on at once. He may have one band rehearsing in one studio, another band rehearsing in another studio, and be mixing a record in a different studio, and he'll just jump back and forth between them all.

It's hard for anyone to sit around and talk about how they're overworked, because he never gets tired. But the shows are incredible, and the music is like no other. For me to land a gig like this is truly a blessing.

What have been the most challenging elements of this gig?

I have my own style and I do my thing, so the biggest challenge is to play these songs exactly as they are on the records. It's been a huge area of growth for me.

There's no embellishment at all; I have to play through every song with no improvisation, so I can't put a lick at the end of eight bars with that music. I played the two shows this weekend and never played a bass fill once. That is a gigantic achievement for me – anyone who knows my playing style knows that!

Did you have to change your tone at all to fit his vibe?

My tone is my tone, and that is one of the main reasons why he called me. He told me he never heard bass as deep as mine. I use my MTD signature basses on that gig, and they fit in with the music perfectly.

Was this a difficult gig to prepare for?

He has so many songs; as soon as you think you've learned them all, you find more to learn. And besides, Prince has no problem picking up a bass and showing you exactly how he wants it to be played.

How is Prince on bass?

He's funky, man! Super-funky. Prince can play everything well. He definitely has his own style on bass; nobody can top him at what he does. There's griminess in the way he plays. You know it when you hear it.

How would you say you've evolved to this point in your playing?

The thing I try to do is just keep growing as a player; I'm always evolving. I see these kids coming up doing things that are really impressive, and I want to try to learn how to do that, too. My ego isn't too big to learn from them. So I just keep up on whatever is current, but while always being myself.

You never get to the point where you've fully arrived. I give every situation the same level of respect. There are no big gigs and there are no little gigs for me. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to put my whole heart into it or not do it at all.

Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, titled “Paul McCartney and Wings,” is supposed to open in two days (May 15). However, it is now being alleged that the guitars that were supposed to be part of the exhibit haven’t yet made their way to Cleveland.

According to Page Six, seven of McCartney’s guitars have been stuck in customs in London, since they’re made out of Brazilian rosewood and therefore fall under the remit of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) – a multilateral treaty entered into force on July 1, 1975 that, as per UNESCO, ensures “international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.”

“They’ve been stuck in London customs for a month,” an unnamed source reportedly told Page Six. “The tree is endangered, so you can no longer use it, but it’s the best wood you can use for sound and acoustics.”

However, an insider also told the publication there has been some movement in order to ensure the guitars reach their destination in time for the opening.

The guitars are part of the Beatles bassist's personal collection, and therefore a crucial part of the upcoming exhibit, which marks the first time that a major museum exhibition will explore the story of McCartney and Wings.

According to Rock Hall, it’s set to feature “the most extensive collection of items from McCartney’s personal archives to ever be made accessible to the public, as well as donations from band members and associates.”

It will also include “instruments played in Wings’ recording sessions and in concert performances, clothing worn by the band, handwritten lyrics, original artwork, tour memorabilia, and previously unseen photography”, all presented within an immersive audio-visual experience.

Guitar World has reached out to McCartney's representatives and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for comment.

In more recent news, Macca has announced his first solo album in five years, The Boys of Dungeon Lane – inspired by a mysterious guitar chord and a cup of tea with Andrew Watt.

The 1970s is often considered the decade in which funk bass was conceived, and it’s an obvious conclusion given the invention of ‘thumping and plucking’ – later rebranded as slap bass – by Larry Graham of Sly & The Family Stone.

But by the end of the decade, fans of rock bass were also spoiled for choice, thanks to Garry Tallent of the E Street Band, Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick, Dee Murray of Elton John’s band, John McVie of Fleetwood Mac, Ross Valory of Journey, and Peter Cetera, a founding member of Chicago.

“There were so many great bassists out there,” said Cetera in the December 2007 issue of Bass Player. “But the two bass players who had the biggest impact on me in the ‘70s were Willie Weeks and Jaco Pastorius.

“Jaco actually came to hear Chicago in the mid ‘70s, and then we got together at my house, where he played this Guild acoustic bass guitar I had.

“He was totally straight then and just the nicest cat, but hearing him up close I was like, ‘I can't even call myself a bassist!’ Yet, he said to me, ‘If you ever need a sub, please call me! I’d kill to play with you guys.’”

Also on Cetera's hallowed list of essential listening is the finale of Donny Hathaway's classic 1972 Live album.

“When I first heard Willie's solo on Everything Is Everything, I was blown away; that's like the greatest bass solo ever! I got to meet Willie Weeks in L.A. and he would come and hang at my house and play that same Guild.

“Later, when I started recording in Nashville, I found out he was down there. He did my sessions and we hung out. He's the most humble guy you can imagine.”

By the time Cetera left Chicago to pursue a solo career in 1985, he had left an indelible mark not just as a bassist, but also as a lead-singing frontman and composer. That's his unmistakable high tenor on 25 or 6 to 4.

As a writer, he penned such hits as If You Leave Me Now, and he co-wrote the band's biggest singles, You're The Inspiration and Hard To Say I'm Sorry, with producer David Foster. The pair also combined for Cetera's own No. 1 hit, Glory of Love, although by that time the bass guitar had taken a backseat.

“When David Foster was brought in to produce our first album for Warner Bros., that really took bass out of the equation. He and I clicked immediately and started writing together, but the sound of pop music had changed.

“David was not only the best keyboard player I'd ever heard in my life, he was the best drum programmer and the best synth bass player. I would go to pick up my bass and then hear him play a killer Moog groove and I'd literally put the bass back in its case. It just didn't fit the music at that point.

“I also began to feel that during my time with the band, because I hadn't been able to fully focus on either singing or bass playing, both had suffered. So, when I went solo soon after, I decided to concentrate entirely on being a frontman.”

You went on to use many top players on your solo albums.

I used Pino Palladino on a couple of my albums, after hearing his amazing work with Paul Young. I've also gotten to know legends like Carol Kaye, Joe Osborn, Duck Dunn, and Chuck Rainey. I get as tickled meeting them as meeting stars like McCartney and Brian Wilson.

How about your vocal start and influences?

I had never sung in school, but when we got the band together it was just, ‘Who's going to sing this one?’ I remember the first song I sang was Mashed Potato. I got the obligatory shock when touching the mic and bass strings!

Were you given any advice at the time?

There were two key early lessons for me. The first was from a friend's father, a jazz saxophonist who took us to see people like Stan Kenton and the Four Freshman. He said, ‘Pay close attention to everyone you listen to. If you like them, you'll pick up something from them; if you don't like them, you'll learn what you don't want to do.’

The other was seeing James Brown in a mostly empty auditorium one afternoon. He could have taken it easy, given the setting, but he was jumping around, sweating and yelling at the band, just giving it his all.

What was your bass approach in Chicago?

My primary goal was to be melodic; McCartney was so in my head then that I'd try to think a little out of the box – like picking my spots for the upper-register stuff. Plus, Jamerson and my R&B roots were in my subconscious, so keeping a strong groove went without saying.

How would you get through the band's extended instrumental suites, which often had odd-meter figures?

That was a challenge because I've never been the most knowledgeable bass player; I don't really read music and if you're talking about chords, I don't go much past, ‘Is it major or minor?’

On the instrumentals, I would have chord charts to follow, and I'd just feel my way through the odd-time stuff. I also had a live bass solo in the early shows, but I can't remember the song. It was a one-chord vamp and my main inspiration at the time was Free's Andy Frasers work on Free Live.

How do you reflect on your career?

I'm very proud of my Chicago and solo careers, and I have no real regrets. At times, I wish I had become more of a formally trained musician, and that I’d learned other instruments and my way around a studio better. But l've heard Paul McCartney say the same thing – not that I'm putting myself in that class. To be told that I had an impact as a bass player all these years later is quite nice.

Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt is said to have got his stage name from his habit of playing air bass with a pick and muttering ‘dirnt, dirnt, dirnt’. Once up and running in the renowned power trio, he found a superb, scooped tone that cut clearly through guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong’s riffs.

Shedding the rock-opera theatrics and dramatic orchestration of their albums of the 2000s, Dirnt, alongside Armstrong and drummer Tré Cool, took it back to their punk-rock roots as a trio in 2016 and effectively created the band's best album since – dare we say it – 1994's Dookie.

Featuring 12 tracks that could each be radio singles, Revolution Radio showcased Dirnt's signature, rabid-picking bass tone, which holds up the foundation whether he's riff doubling, chugging along with Cool's manic kick, or stepping out into the forefront with his speedy counter-melodies.

“For Revolution Radio it was simple,” Dirnt told Bass Player back in 2016. “Use the right bass and design the right amp, and Fender delivered on both counts.

“I knew the sound I wanted, I had it in my head, and I worked with Fender until we got it. In that sense, I guess it wasn't simple. The amp part took a lot of work.”

Working with Fender to build a rig that would satisfy his taste for a gritty yet balanced sound, Dirnt helped introduce the Bassman 800 series of amps, which produced his ideal tone while allowing him to ditch distortion pedals altogether.

“I wanted a distortion that would go anywhere from Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky to Metallica’s Anesthesia Pulling Teeth, but I didn't want to use pedals because I'm sick of losing my signal through the chain. Fender built in vintage overdrive and preamp channels, and problem solved!

“The amp has a LOW pull-knob that drops my sound to a whole other world. It also has a clean top end that never gets muddy and enables you to hear the click from my pick. The results were so good I ended up using only the Bassman 800 and my signature Precision for that whole record.”

Some of your tone must come from your heavy picking style.

Absolutely; a lot of my sound comes from my wrists. It also has to do with Billie and I picking the same way together for so many years. He's a master of downstrokes, but I've come to be able to mimic his downstrokes perfectly using alternating up- and downstrokes. It prevents me from having pain in my wrists.

I see a lot of bass players trying to play our stuff using all downstrokes, and I think to myself, ‘You're going to ruin your arm.’

That actually happened to the first bass player in American Idiot on Broadway, He was playing all downstrokes because he thought I did, and he hurt his arm. I told him, ‘Naw, man, that's Dee Dee Ramone, not me!’

How is your bass playing different on Revolution Radio?

I caught myself wandering more and ending up somewhere new, from riff to riff. I deviated a lot throughout the album – more than ever before. I was taking a sort of John Entwistle approach – not that I could ever play like him.

At this point I don't question myself. When your arm and your wrist are bouncing along and you're not thinking about it, that's when the magic happens.

You went back to recording as a trio. Did that give you more freedom?

Playing in a trio is great for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it's easier to call band practices! What I like most about it is the opportunity to carry a full load and to be able to play a part that picks up the slack rhythmically and harmonically.

It doesn't matter if I'm playing an intricate run, or even the little eyebrow-raise I do on When I Come Around. Those are just my personal touches. And if those touches are hooks, that's all the better. Good songwriting to me is like sticking your hand into a tackle box: just hooks everywhere.

One of the most ambitious tracks is the near-seven-minute Forever Now.

That song comes from us knowing an album should have a journey. A lot of our favorite records throw the kitchen sink out of the bedroom window, and we wanted that. Recording a song like that in the studio, you have to let out the little kid in you and picture yourself doing cartwheels onstage.

It takes the band back to your early punk roots. Was that intentional?

It wasn't a conscious decision; I think getting together when we were inspired led to everything falling into place naturally, and the results were explosive.

It's the picking style; it's Tré riding on top of the beat, and all of us driving at full speed. We just plugged in and let it rip, which is what gives the album a punk-roots feel.

Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted has looked back on his exit from Metallica, revealing the role his addiction struggles played in his decision to leave.

The bassist was chosen as the heir to Cliff Burton's throne following his passing in 1986, and departed in 2001 after making significant contributions to the band's most commercially successful era. Appearing on Dean Delray's YouTube channel, he explained the circumstances that led to his departure from the group.

“The reason I left Metallica is because I was a horrible addict,” he admits (via the PRP). “I was way up against myself, and if I didn’t get some kind of help, I was going to die. And so I just said, ‘You guys, can I have a minute? Please give me a minute.’ And they said, ‘No.’”

There are small parallels here with the original Korn bassist, Fieldy, who has recently addressed his exit from the band. Bob Rock famously depped for Newsted on the much-maligned St. Anger album, with Robert Trujillo since filling the void, playing on their last three records.

Ultimately, Newsted says Metallica’s response prompted him to step away.

“I said, ‘I would rather live than be in your band,’” he recounts. “‘I love being in your band. I think it’s kind of obvious.’”

He then goes into a passionate tirade regarding his commitment to the Metallica cause, saying, “I wear your shirt every night. I meet every person who wants to meet and represent us for all the fans every night. Don’t tell me I’m not committed. Don’t tell me I’m not loyal. I’m always the first one in and last one out. I’m not saying the words. It’s fucking history.”

Returning to his request for time, he says, “[If] you can’t give me that minute to get my head straight again, then I have to go. [It’s] not that I don’t love you, and certainly not that I’m not committed to this band.”

In a 2001 interview, James Hetfield pinned Newsted's leaving on his side project, Echobrain, which he reportedly wanted to focus on during the hiatus he proposed the band take at the turn of the century. The guitarist did later play down those claims, saying he was “choking” his “brother” in doing so, but it's clear there were tensions at play either way. Newsted's latest comments lay some responsibility at his own feet.

Interestingly, Ozzy Osbourne, who has welcomed both Newsted and Trujillo into his band at different points, said Newsted had “the edge” over his counterpart. Newsted briefly toured with Ozzy after his Metallica days – ironically, replacing Trujillo – and says the band had a higher “respect factor” than the thrash metal giants.

Elsewhere, EMG is celebrating its 50th anniversary with special edition pickups for each of Metallica's string hitters.

Tony Garnier has been doling out basslines for chart-toppers since his early-'70s stint with Asleep at the Wheel. Most notably, he has become a keen interpreter of song for Bob Dylan. Indeed, 38 bassists appeared on Dylan albums before he came onboard; in the 37 years since, no others have.

In addition to multiple albums with Dylan, Garnier has recorded with Marshall Crenshaw and Tom Waits, manned the bass chair at legendary venues The Lone Star and Tramps, and anchored everyone from Dr. John to Chuck Berry.

“I asked Chuck how he liked to hear the bass,” Garnier told Bass Player back in May 2015. “He preferred broken eighth-notes on the root, as opposed to a moving pattern of steady eighths.”

Garnier also subbed for T-Bone Wolk on Saturday Night Live for three years, which is where he met guitarist G.E. Smith and drummer Chris Parker, who were in Bob Dylan's band.

In 1989, Dylan bassist Kenny Aaronson had to take a medical leave. Garnier was flown to Europe to fill in for six weeks, ended up finishing out the year, and has remained ever since.

When Smith departed two years later, Garnier stepped into the bandleader role – “making sure the songs start and end where they're supposed to.”

How would you describe the bass role in Bob's band?

Simplicity works best. Complicated basslines can be distracting. You don't want to disrupt the song; you want to help it along. I'm all about trying to add some movement in between the vocal or the verses, but not sound like I'm just filling.

I'm looking to provide subtle forward motion, as opposed to playing a fixed, steady groove. I'll come up with my own basslines, or versions of basslines from Bob's earlier songs, and if he wants it different he'll let me know.

What inspires you when creating parts?

The lyrics and the vocal, as well as what the rest of the band is playing. You have to learn the lyrics to the songs. That will tell you what and how to play, and it makes your job easier because you have a connection; you're not just playing notes and chords.

I've always told new guys in the band, “You're not playing guitar – you're playing a song.” I know what the songs are about, and that gives me an emotional attachment when I'm coming up with the basslines. And of course there's Bob's interpretation to draw from.

He seems to vary his renditions quite a bit.

Absolutely; the songs are different every night because he never sings them the same way, so we're not playing them the same way. If he's phrasing a little differently on a song like A Simple Twist of Fate, the bassline I played the night before might not work.

He may bunch up some words or draw them out, and it goes beyond that; sometimes he'll change the chords. Or he'll sing a different melody for a few nights, or change the lyrics – like on Tangled Up in Blue, the lyrics in the live show are different from the recorded version.

Ultimately, it's a conversation between everyone onstage. All I have to do is listen and react. It's actually a lot easier than having to play the same basslines every night, and it's much more creative and fun.

What would you say you've learned from Bob, playing-wise?

The concepts I've learned are like what you might learn from Duke Ellington or Miles Davis – ideas that you can use with other artists throughout your career.

For example, in Bob's book Chronicles: Volume One, he speaks about music in terms of numbers and how three and five are interesting choices. Maybe he'll write a song with three verses and a bridge, or create a melodic line in groupings of five, and the same can apply for basslines. If I'm stuck, I may apply that, or something like what Rick Danko did on Chest Fever, by The Band.

What advice would you offer to young bass players?

I'd advise getting a home studio and start writing and singing. Whatever it takes – just don't sacrifice your ideals. It's very challenging now in the music business, but music is a big part of people's lives all over the world, and the need for good musicians will always be there.

If my two kids want to become musicians, I won't discourage them if I see they have the passion for it. If that describes you, keep practicing and expanding your musical horizons.

Some bassists lie back, but not Gary Shea – as he tells Bass Player, “Always remember: no bass, no party!” And it’s been quite the party for Shea, who’s played in New England, Warrior and Alcatrazz with John Fannon, Vinnie Vincent, Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Stump.

“I always wanted to be the bass player on the jukebox original track as opposed to the bass player playing the song in a bar,” he says. At 74, he continues to do just that with New England and Alcatrazz. “I’m very fortunate to have played with some of the best of the best over the years.”

He admits that involved dealing with some tough customers: “I set out to find the music that inspired me and met some incredible musicians along the way. Not bad for a left-handed guy living in a right-handed world! All talented musicians can be difficult. That’s what makes them special – they stick to their guns and follow their vision.”

What sounds were you going for when you formed New England?

New England was a progressive rock band that played short songs. With Jimmy Waldo’s Mellotrons and an array of other keyboards, we had a huge palette of color that could take us from heavy orchestral rock to quiet ballads. It was a great opportunity to play some very creative basslines. New England is a great fit for my style.

What was your rig like then?

I used three Ampeg SVT heads with four 8x10 cabs and two Cerwin-Vega B48 MF 18'' reflex horns, each with a front-loaded 12'' speaker. I also had Moog Taurus bass pedals. I used my 1965 L Series Jazz Bass with a P neck and Tele pickguard.

I played with my fingers, using my fingernails for more clarity and attack. I also had a 10-string Explorer bass, a Hamer Blitz bass with a Kahler bar, and an 8-string Cruise bass, custom-built by Paul Hamer.

The 10 strings had a high B string and could be tuned to fifths for more chordal work. I had one of the last ’76 Bicentennial Gibson Thunderbird basses from the factory. I had the top painted white by a young Mike Pedulla, who lived nearby.

What was it like having Paul Stanley produce New England’s debut? Was he miscast in that role?

On the contrary – working with Paul was very comfortable. We were all the same age and had the same influences like Free, Terry Reid and The Move. Our goal was to re-record our 16-track demos to 24-track, and Paul was an excellent fifth voice in making it sparkle.

We also had ace engineer Mike Stone from the Queen camp, who got massive sounds for us with his expertise at the recording desk. Being part of The Kiss Army was nothing to sniff at; it got us on their 1979 Dynasty tour.

Despite strong material, New England fell short. What happened?

Our big problem was that our record company, Infinity/MCA, folded during its first year of business, just as we’d started tracking our second album. We had six major-label offers for our first album, and chose to go with Elektra for our second and third albums.

The transition took precious time. Although we were doing great musically, working with Todd Rundgren and touring, Elektra let us down on the promotion side of things. You can hear what would have been our fourth album on our Cherry Red boxset.

Is it true that New England’s management was focused on Kiss and neglected your band?

I have what I call the David-and-Goliath theory of management. You can have your cousin manage your band, who’ll lay his life down for you, but has no major contacts. Or you can go with Mr. Big, but he has big-name clients that you must compete with for attention.

We chose Bill Aucoin for his vision, experience and direction. It was up to us to be great and earn attention. We’re all still friends with Kiss. I recently played at a convention in Finland with Bruce Kulick.

How did you meet Vinnie Vincent and form Warrior?

As New England went into pre-production for its fourth album, guitarist John Fannon left the band for family reasons. We put the word out to replace him and got some great inquiries. The best one was from Gene Simmons, who told us of a guitarist named Vinnie Cusano who was writing with them for their new album in L.A. [Creatures of the Night].

They were looking for a replacement for Ace Frehley, but there was a concern that Vinnie was too short to be in their band. Gene suggested we contact each other. Vinnie sent us a demo tape that we really liked. It was in the Foreigner vein but a little heavier.

He flew to Boston to audition for us, and, unbeknownst to him, we learned his demo tape. He played our music very well, but we blew his mind when we played his music. He smiled and said he couldn't find anyone who sounded like us in LA. We decided to pool our resources and start a whole new band in Los Angeles.

Tell us about the recordings you did with Vinnie.

At the time, Vinnie was very together musically. As well as working with Kiss, he was working on the television show Happy Days. Prior to that he’d played with Dan Hartman and Edgar Winter.

His style was more like Jeff Beck, and the music was straight-ahead, radio-friendly rock. Vinnie has a cool voice, but didn't want to sing and play guitar. We auditioned Fergie Frederiksen, who would later join Toto.

I taped rehearsals on my Sony TCS 350 cassette deck for my own benefit. A few years ago, a CD was released of these sessions under the name Warrior that we were floating at the time. The tapes are bass-heavy because I wasn’t taping the whole band.

I had a great roaring midrange sound at the time, using my 1980 G&L 1000 bass, played with a pick. I was playing through a very beat-up Acoustic 360 bass amp rental at SIR Sunset. I offered to buy it on the spot, but they declined!

Is it true that Vinnie took some of Warrior’s material and used it for Kiss and The Vinnie Vincent Invasion?

Warrior only lasted two months when Vinnie was asked to join Kiss full-time. Great for him; not so great for us, but a deal hard to refuse. We kept in touch a bit as time went by. Vinnie had many songs, and we’d touched on some that showed up later down the line on his solo albums. His only shortcoming at the time was stressing over making final decisions on arrangements and mixes.

How did Alcatrazz form?

Jimmy Waldo and I decided to stay in LA rather than go back to Boston. I got a call one night from manager Andy Truman, who was a neighbor of Graham Bonnet.

Graham had just left the Michael Schenker Group and Rainbow. They were looking to start a new band as opposed to a solo artist band. Barrymore Barlow from Jethro Tull was to be on drums and Zal Cleminson on guitar. Andy asked if I knew a keyboard player, and I mentioned Jimmy.

Jimmy, Andy, Graham and I met at the Hyatt Hotel bar on Sunset and discussed forming a band with a European rock feel. We were offered a record deal with no demo on Rocshire/MCA through our freind Bob Sifkin, A&R for MCA.

How did the young Yngwie Malmsteen come into the picture?

Barry was asked to play on Robert Plant’s solo album so he stayed in England. Zal was not in the picture. We auditioned two guitarists that weekend – Laurence Juber from Wings and a young Yngwie.

Laurence is a great player; but obviously, Yngwie was what we were looking for to complement Graham's background with Ritchie Blackmore. I came up with the idea of using Alcatrazz as the band name. Later on, we added an extra Z like in “jazz” or “nazz.”

What was your rig like by then?

I had my three Ampeg SVTs and four 8x10 cabs that I’d brought out from Boston. Later on I switched to a Randall endorsement, using their RB 500 solid-state heads and eight 2x15 cabs.

I continued to play my G&L 1000 and later switched to Aria Pro SB Elites with EMG pickups and Badass bridges. Yngwie got me in with Aria basses, and I got him in with my D’Angelico endorsement for strings and picks. I later sold all of my Ampeg gear and cases to Yngwie’s band – I didn’t want to deal with tubes any longer.

Yngwie takes a lot of credit for the music he made with you. How accurate is that?

Yngwie actually has a great sense of humor in private. Of course, he didn’t write all the songs, vocals, keyboard parts and basslines. Island in the Sun was a New England song that Jimmy had written. Graham wrote new lyrics for it, and he wrote General Hospital.

We were a band, not a solo project. I put in a B minor ascending arpeggio at the intro of Hiroshima. Yngwie told me I was stepping on his solo, but the lick stayed. He did write a major part of the music but it was no-one’s solo album. Because of the band’s structure, he played some of his most memorable solos on No Parole.

What led to Yngwie leaving, and how did Steve Vai enter the picture?

Yngwie was replaced for becoming difficult to work with. We’d auditioned Chris Impelliteri and Steve Vai in secret. We chose Steve, but both are brilliant guitarists. This was prior to going a major tour with Ted Nugent in the summer of ’84. Our label agreed to the swap, but asked that we do it going into our next record. We all agreed to that.

Steve seems much easier to work with.

Yngwie is great, and Steve is awesome. They’re bookends. Steve was a joy to work with musically and brought a whole new bag of tricks from the Zappa camp. I’m very proud of the level of musicianship on Disturbing the Peace. Along with producer Eddie Kramer, I felt we’d come into our own sound and looked forward to more down the road.

What led to losing Steve, and Graham torpedoing the band?

Once again, a guitarist of ours was offered a deal you can’t refuse! This time it was from David Lee Roth. Of all the guys David could get to play with after Eddie Van Halen, he chose Steve Vai. We split amicably and are still good friends.

Graham refused to record some outside material Capitol Records A&R suggested to us, and they didn’t renew our contract for a third album. That’s life in the big city.

What led to New England and Alcatrazz both reforming?

New England got back together in 2003. We realized we had great chemistry and we’d been away for too long. Our first rehearsal produced two great songs, which led to some spot live appearances.

Eventually we took things further by playing over a dozen shows on the East and West Coasts as well as Tokyo. We’ve recorded an EP and a live album over the last 10 years on a part-time basis.

Alcatrazz reuniting morphed out of The Graham Bonnet Band. Jimmy was asked to play some keyboard tracks on an album, then joined as a touring member. Joe Stump was added as lead guitarist.

I went along on a Graham Bonnet Band tour doing an Alcatrazz set, testing the waters on a few gigs in the Southwest and Japan. It went very well and led to reforming Alcatrazz properly, signing a record deal with Silver Lining Records. We took drummer Mark Benquechea and guitarist Joe Stump with us.

Would you work with Yngwie or Graham again?

Over the years I’ve learned to never say never. Music is a very liquid gift. It ebbs and flows in sometimes strange ways. All of us have worked extremely hard making music together, and that strength shows when we get back together as if nothing happened. Life is mysterious, and I rule nothing out. Keep an open mind and a warm heart.

And you finally put out those long-lost Warrior recordings.

Yes – a combination of live rehearsal tapes and demos done at the Record Plant in LA. It’s a showcase for what might have been.

What are your thoughts on Vinnie charging hundreds of dollars per song?

I don’t know any more than everyone else knows! He’s welcome to sell his music however he wants. He seems to be in a rough spot, and I wish him well.

Out of John Fannon, Vinnie, Vai and Yngwie, who’s the best guitarist you ever worked with?

That’s the old question – which flavor of ice cream is best! Ther’s no definite answer. I love them all, each for a special reason. I must also add Joe Stump to the group. He’s a master shredder. He has also been an associate professor at Berklee for the last 20 years.

What’s next?

Most of our shows are fly dates. I recently played on Hirsh Gardner’s new solo album, Three Times the Charm. My latest endeavor is my new book, No Bass No Party – it’s about walking into a department store, buying an inexpensive guitar, and eventually playing Madison Square Garden. It’s a story of patience and persistence, navigating through the music business with its pitfalls of contracts, lawyers and record deals.

Alcatrazz has begun work on the band’s seventh studio album, due for release later this year. Touring will resume at that time.

• Warrior Featuring Vinnie Vincent: The Complete Sessions is out now via Cherry Red. Shea’s book No Bass No Party is available via BWL Publishing.