BassGuitar 130 May 2016

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ESSENTIAL PRS, STONEFIELD, BREEDLOVE, PEAVEY AND AGUILAR BASS GEAR ON TEST!

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JEFF AMENT

PEARL JAM

HARLEY FLANAGAN

CRO-MAGS

JERRY SCHEFF

ELVIS PRESLEY

HORSE LATITUDES

DARKGLASS

JONATHAN NOYCE

CHUCK GARRIC

ALICE COOPER

CHRIS FLINT

BLOODY HEELS

CHRIS BEATTIE

HATEBREED

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eavy metal just ain’t what it used to be – that is to say tinny, silly and preoccupied rather too much with loincloths. No, your modern metal is a serious form of musical expression, and it doesn’t get more serious than Slipknot, masked harbingers of doom from Iowa whose new bass player Alex ‘V-Man’ Venturella gets his ﬁrst solo magazine cover this

month. If you thought playing ﬁendishly twisty pick lines in front of stadiums packed with shrieking crowds was tough, try doing it wearing a mask that barely reveals your eyes. Somehow, Alex manages to deliver the goods on his Status Graphite bass, night after night: read and learn. Elsewhere in this frankly killer issue ofBGM _{we meet a record number}

of bass players, from Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam and Chuck Garric of Alice Cooper to Jerry Scheff of up-and-coming rock’n’roll hopeful Elvis Presley and beyond. We turn our attention to a range of new and exciting bass gear from PRS, Stoneﬁeld, Breedlove, Peavey and Aguilar, meet a host of new bass players in Bassically Speaking, debut a new Luthier column from Eve Guitars’ head honcho Douglas Mullen and take a look at life in the bass trenches with our acclaimed Front Line section. And that’s before we even get to the tuition section, a world-beating eight-lesson virtual school of bass that has just one aim: to make you the bass player you’ve always wanted to be. Get to it, and we’ll see you in June!

Joel McIver, editor EDITORJoel McIver,

[email protected]

SUB-EDITORSKate Puttick, Nick Robbins

TECHNICAL CONSULTANTStuart Clayton

CONTRIBUTORSAngus Batey, Bob

Battersby, Duff Battye, Andy Baxter, Nick Beggs, Jeff Berlin, Jamie Blaine, Silvia Bluejay, Mike Brooks, Joe Burcaw, Dave Clarke, Stuart Clayton, Ben Cooper, Joe Daly, Hywel Davies, Jon D’Auria, Daryl Easlea, David Etheridge, Mike Flynn, Paul Geary, Ian Glasper, Joel Graham, Ruth Goller, Spencer Grady, Paolo Gregoletto, Hugh Gulland, Chris Hanby, Andy Hughes, Ken Hunt, Kevin Johnson, Steve Lawson, Phil Mann, Lee Marlow, George Martin, Michael McKeegan, Stewart McKinsey, Greg Mofﬁtt, Chris Mugan, Douglas Mullen, Ellen O'Reilly, Franc O’Shea, Harry Paterson, Raz Rauf, Alison Richter, Steven Rosen, Kevin Sanders, Amit Sharma, Joe Shooman, Rob Statham, Scott Surine, Jon Thorne, Freddy Villano, Ray Walker, Alex Webster, Sam Wise

ADVERTISING SALESGuy Meredith

GRAPHIC DESIGNSteve Dawson

COVER PHOTOGRAPH Tina K

STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHYEckie

OPERATIONS DIRECTORJames Folkard

ASSISTANT PUBLISHERRuth Burgess

PUBLISHERWes Stanton

SUBSCRIPTIONS01926 339808,

[email protected]

SUBSCRIPTION RATE UK £69

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All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system or integrated into any other publication, database or commercial program without the express permission of the publishers in writing. Under no circumstances should this publication and its contents be sold, loaned out or used by way of trade, or stored or transmitted as an electronic ﬁle without the publishers prior written approval.

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While Blaze Publishing Ltd prides itself on the quality of the information its publications provide, the company reserves the right not to be held legally responsible for any mistakes or inaccuracies found within the text of this publication.

Bass Guitar Magazine is an independent publication and as such does not necessarily reﬂect the views or opinions of manufacturers or distributors of the products contained within. All trademarks are acknowledged.

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Gear

48 PRS Gary Grainger 4 and 5

Nick Robbins gets stuck into two tone monsters from the PRS stable

52 Stonefield 5

Mike Brooks road-tests a technological wonder, all the way from New Zealand

56 Breedlove Solo acoustic

Joel McIver unplugs – aaaaaaand relaxes

60 Peavey Minimega and

Minimax heads

Brooksy gets to grips with Peavey’s eagerly awaited new heads...

64 Aguilar SL410X cab

...before plugging into Aguilar’s latest lightweight cabinet

I S S U E 1 3 0 M A Y 2 0 1 6

48 PRS

Gary Grainger 4 and 5

52 Stoneﬁeld

1-5S

Slimline

56 Breedlove

Solo Acoustic

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Tuition

70 Frontline

Four pro bassists offer you their collective wisdom. Get smart here

72 Ellen O’Reilly

Beginner’s guide Ellen tangles with the triads. Yikes

7 4

Paul Geary

Our boy Geary shakes his rear end, Latino style

76 Stuart Clayton

Looking Locrian with intermediate theory guru Stu

78 Rob Statham

Alternating ﬁngers with bass warlock Statham

80 Franc O’Shea

Building melodic music with Big Franc

84 Philip Mann

Divisions and subdivisions, explored by the fearless Mann

86 David Etheridge

Continued soloing studies on double bass with Maestro Etheridge

88 Steve Lawson

To compute or not to compute, with experimentalist extraordinaire Steve

BEGINNER

Bassists

22 Alex ‘V-Man’ Venturella, Slipknot

In his ﬁrst ever solo magazine cover, Alex of the mighty Slipknot reveals how he got the hottest (literally: have you seen that mask?) gig in metal

28 Jeff Ament, Pearl Jam

The future looks orange for Jeff and side-project RNDM

30 Harley Flanagan, Cro-Mags

Hardcore punk rocker plays Jaco Pastorius’s bass. Really, says Ian Glasper

32 Jerry Scheff, Elvis Presley

Joe Shooman meets the man who took care of business with the King

36 Horse Latitudes

Two bassists, one band... why the long face?

30 Harley Flanagan,

Cro-Mags

28 Jeff Ament,

Pearl Jam

38 Doug Castro, Darkglass Electronics

Doug announces his long-awaited bass head!

40 Chuck Garric, Alice Cooper

Back with a new side project, Beasto Blanco

42 Jonathan Noyce

The Archive bassist recalls Jethro Tull and Gary Moore with Mike Brooks

44 Chris Flint, Bloody Heels

Hywel Davies heads Latvia-side to meet glam rocker Chris

46 Chris Beattie, Hatebreed

New album, new danger, says our man Beattie

32 Jerry Scheff, Elvis Presley

40 Chuck Garric,

Alice Cooper

P i c : C h a d L e e

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NOW

DETAILS PAGE 82

90 Classic Bass Albums

Brooksy continues his new column with an appreciation of two classic Level 42 albums

INTERMEDIATE

ADVANCED

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LOW

News and views

from the bass world,

collated by BGM’s

team of intrepid

newshounds

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DARK MATTER

A band called D.A.R.K. has caught our att ention. Why should you care? Because the bass player is none other than Andy Rourke, sometime Smiths bass player and a man whose massive talents have been languishing in relative obscurity for far too long. The Freebass project, a three-bassist band in which Rourke joined Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield of the Stone Roses/Primal Scream and Peter Hook of New

Order, came and went back in the mid-noughti es without doing much, which makes it double ace that the great man is back and in bass business.

D.A.R.K., it says here, is “an unlikely collaboration between Dolores O’Riordan, Andy Rourke and Olé Koretsky. Dolores, k nown famously as the singer of the Cranberries, has sold over 40 million albums and

also worked with the likes of Angelo B adalamenti and Jah Wobble. Andy Rourke is best known as the inimitable bass player in one of the most important British bands ever, the Smiths; he has also worked with the Pretenders, Ian Brown, Sinead O’Connor and Badly Drawn Boy. The third and final member is Olé Koretsky, a little known songwrit er, producer and DJ based in New York.”

So that’s the PR blurb – the question is, what’s the music like? Well, that question will be answered on May 27 when the Cooking Vinyl label releasesScience Agrees, the band’s debut album. The band will also be touring Europe, with a date at London’s Bush Hall on May 18. We’ll be interviewing Rourke around that time, so keep your eyes peeled, and in the meantime check out ‘This Charming Man’ one more time on Youtube, there’s bound to be an isolated bass track on there somewhere.

Info: www.darkofficial.co.uk

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POLE DANCING

Primus bassist Les Claypool has formed a new band with Sean ‘Son of John’ Lennon, calling it the Claypool Lennon Delirium and recording a debut album calledMonolith Of Phobos. To be released on 3 June via ATO Records, the album takes listeners on a “stimulating psychedelic journey through the cosmos” says the press release, and based on the two protagonists’ previous work we’d say that’s likely to be a fair ass essment. “Sean is a musical mutant after my own heart,” says Claypool. “He deﬁnitely reﬂects his genetics, not just the sensibilities of his dad but also the abstract perspective and unique approach of his mother. It makes for a glorious freak stew.”

Info: http://theclaypoollennondelirium.com

JOHN THE UP AND UP

John Patitucci recently hosted an online premiere of a new ﬁlm,Back In Brooklyn,a documentary which covers the recording of his new album,Brooklyn. The doc includes

interviews with Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and others and features live and rehearsal footage as well as the recording studio. “Back In Brooklyn delivers what it promises: an incredible journey into the life of a legendary musician at the top of his craft,” said the ﬁlm-makers. “John Patitucci is as cool as his music, but more than that, he is a good guy who takes care of his responsibilities. John’s humility is completely incongruous with the enormous impact his music has had on jazz, the musicians around him and his worldwide fans.”

Info: www.augustskyfilms.com/back-in-brooklyn

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BLUE NOTES

Aguilar has announced a limited edition run of Blue Bossa SL112 cabinets, set for arrival in the UK as we speak via their exclusive UK distributors Barnes & Mullins. As you’ll know if you’ve skipped ahead and read our review of the SL 112 cab elsewhere in this issue, this nifty 250-watt unit is lightweight (25 lbs, or 11.34kg) and features a 12” neodymium driver, with a custom-designed crossover and phenolic tweeter with variable level control and frequency response ranging from 37Hz to 16kHz. The Blue Bossa variant comes in a blue finish and has a ‘Limited Edition 2016’ label on it to prove its elite status. Barnes & Mullins tells us, “The Blue Bossa received huge interest when previewed at the London Bass Guitar Show at the beginning of March, with retailers and customers particularly excited by its alternative colour scheme and now-famous lightweight construction.” Grab one for £860 before everyone else does.

Info: www.bandm.co.uk

LEMMY REMEMBERED

A statue of the late Motörhead frontman – and perhaps the greatest heavy rock bass player who ever lived – Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister is set to be erected at his local boozer, the Rainbow Bar & Grill in Los Angeles, after a fan petition and crowdfunding campaign. The artist, Travis Moore, is creating the memorial for the cost of the materials only. It’ll take six months to build and will stand six feet tall, facial moles and all. Whether a Rickenbacker 4001 will be part of it was unconﬁrmed at press time. Damn, we miss him.

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R E VO

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Composer:J.S. Bach

Old Johann Sebastian was the master when it came to bass-lines. Sure,

this piece has been overplayed and rearranged for cigar adverts and whatnot over the years (centuries, actually), but the beautiful simplicity of that unhurried

descending line cannot be diminished. A good conductor will keep the pace serene rather than rushed, and if the piece is being recorded, a decent engineer and mixer will make sure that the double basses feature prominently, with a tone entirely absent of mids and top end. Make sure you see this piece performed by a massive German orchestra before you die.

E v e r y mon t h we telly

out_hebass

_-

line wecan’t stopliste_nin

g t o THIS MONTH: _{Air (aka ‘Air On The G String’) from Suite No. 3 In D (circa 1730)}

CAT SCRATCH FEVER

Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler has spoken out about the evil

practice of declawing cats, perhaps not the most expected of issues, but one which ties in with his general belief that animals should be treated kindly. He’s asked New York’s State Senate to pass a bill outlawing the practice. “New York is one of Black Sabbath’s favourite states to perform in because New Yorkers are smart, open-minded, and compassionate,” the great man has said. “I am particularly delighted to be coming back to the Empire State after learning from my friends at The Humane Society Of The United States that there is a bill before lawmakers that, if passed, would ban the practice of declawing cats.” He added, to reinforce his point: “Can you imagine having your ﬁngers chopped off at the last bone? That is what the equivalent is for cats who are declawed. I urge lawmakers to remain steadfast in those characteristics I admire most about New Yorkers and support the bill to ban the declawing of cats.”

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K TELLING

Danish amp-makers TC Electronic have announced the new K-115 cabinet range as the newest addition to the K series. It features a 15” custom-made driver, 400 watts of power handling and dual 8-Ohm Speakon connectors. Fun fact: whenBGM_{visited TC back in 2014, they gave us a sneak peek of}

the then-in-development K cabs, swearing us to secrecy. We must have looked more trustworthy than usual.

Info: www.tcelectronic.com/k-115

BAYWATCH

Every month, keen bass-spotter Ray Walker brings us an online bargain.

This Month:

Spector Rebop 4 MM, £795 http://tinyurl.com/zxe4zcj

Here’s an eye-catching little number that went for a sweet price: a Spector Rebop 4 MM bass. This alder body with trans blue stain matte ﬁnish and a three-piece, 34” scale, maple neck is sure to become a conversation piece for the lucky buyer. The black hardware is a nice touch including Spector’s own aluminum locking bridge. The pickup is an EMG passive dual-coil unit with Spector’s active TonePump tone controls. Interestingly, the volume control doubles as a push-pull control for switching between single or dual-coil modes. Gear-heads GAS up!

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DAN ‘CLANKO’ CLARK,

REBECCA DOWNES

My bass style is no frills and in the pocket, with occasional ﬂashes of,

er… other stuff. I used to play ﬁve-string basses almost exclusively:

I was playing a lot of rock and convinced myself I needed the extra

range for more power and grunt. But then I worked with a producer

who hated ﬁves and claimed they weren’t bassy enough, which at the

time I thought was one of the most bonkers things I’d ever heard. I

mean, by their very deﬁnition they’re more bassy, aren’t they? They

go lower, so they must be… but the more I thought about it, the more it

started to make sense: from a producer’s point of view, all a ﬁve-string

really does is swallow up headroom. Depending on how much you use

the low B-string in a track, you’ll end up being mixed out for the sake

of a few notes, the fundamentals of which can’t even be reproduced

by most bass rigs let alone domestic consumer hi-ﬁ. So nowadays I

mostly play fours, occasionally dropping to a D if needed.

I do not slap, because I can’t! I hear a lot of people expounding the

irrelevance and outdated nature of slap, waxing lyrical about how

it doesn’t ﬁt into their style and so on, and I can’t help but wonder if

that’s just code for ‘I’m just not very good at it’. So I’ll come straight out

and say it: I’m just not very good at it! Don’t get me wrong: I love it as

a style. Marcus Miller is my favourite bass player of all time, and I love

Mark King, Victor Wooten et al, but slapping just isn’t really my bag

from a playing point of view.

The secret of playing bass well is locking with the drums,

speciﬁcally the kick. Understanding harmony, getting your head

around the theory of music as much as possible. Not overdoing it,

though: it’s great to have a good vocabulary of chops in your armoury,

but if you spend all your time trying to shoehorn them in everywhere

you’ll get on everyone else’s nerves and ultimately lose the gig pretty

quickly. My favourite bass ever to date is one I made myself. I’ve

always loved Warwicks and owned several over the years, but after

getting into Marcus Miller I started to set my heart on a nice vintage

Jazz. Then I was introduced to Tony Wright of Lakestone Guitars. I

pitched him the idea of making me a custom ‘in the style of’. He didn’t

seem too keen on the idea but had an interesting counter-suggestion:

‘You’re pretty handy, why don’t you make one yourself? Come and

work in my workshop and I’ll mentor you through the process’. So

I did, and two and a half years later ‘NÖE No. 01’ was born. I spent

more on the materials than the cost of a new standard Jazz… it’s got

Bartolini pickups, a John East preamp, lots of very heavy ash and

maple, and sounds incredible – certainly more down to luck than

judgement on my part. The only downside is that it weighs a ton! I

use it all the time but if it’s a long gig I’ll probably switch to my trusty

Warwick LX at some point. My main gig is with Rebecca Downes

at the moment: I’ve been a regular ﬁxture in her band for about 18

months now. Her second album,

Believe

, is getting lots of airplay and

great reviews across the board. We had a few tours toward the end of

last year and there’s more touring planned for this autumn which will

be great.

www.clanko.co.uk, www.rebeccadownes.com

SPEAKING

Bassists reveal the tricks of their trade faster

than a snapping D string

BASSICALLY

BASSES NÖE Jazz, Warwick Streamer LX 4, Warwick Thumb, Ibanez Afﬁrma AFR 105F, Spector Forte5, Spector ReBop4 EFFECTS SansAmp DI, EBS Chorus, EBS OctaBass, EBS IQ, EHX Big Muff, Boss RC-50, Boss AW-3

AMPS EBS TD650 head, EBS Proline 410 cab, EBS Proline 300 (1x15T) cab

GEAR

BASSES Mayones Comodous, Mayones Jabba HH 5

EFFECTS Darkglass B7K, TC Electronic Ditto Looper and Hall Of Fame Reverb, Boss DD-7 delay, OC-3 octaver and TU-3 tuner, Line 6 G90 and G30 relay wireless units

AMPS Eden WTX500 or WT550 heads, Markbass Little Mark Tube 800

GEAR

BASSES Unknown German/Bohemian Rubner-esque upright, circa 1930 EFFECTS None AMPS Markbass Mini CMD 121P

GEAR

REBEKAH BOUCHE,

BOUCHE

There are elements of rockabilly style slap in how I play,

occasionally. We don’t have a drummer so sometimes I veer slightly

into that role. My ﬁrst bass was a beast of a thing, from the 50s I

think. I bought it from a friend who needed the cash more than the

bass at the time, and he and his partner mostly shared hers anyway.

Before that I was playing a washtub – oh, so actually that would

be my ﬁrst bass. A bucket and a broomstick. I’m still in love with

that ﬁrst one, it has such great attitude and it looks fantastic too:

people assume it’s a lot fancier than it is from the way it looks. But

my gorgeous 1930s Bohemian German beauty –which looks like a

Rubner but isn’t, and we’re not quite sure who made it – is the one

I use most for Bouche. It’s incredible, so rich and melodic, and so

much bass for a relatively small body. I love them both.

I’m most inspired by the people around me. I’m not really an

in-my-room-headphones-on kind of girl. So I’d say par ticularly

Fred Stitz (Smokey Angle Shades, Gipsydelica, Razorlight,

Zazou) who absolutely means every single note he ever plays

and just has impeccable taste – he can do so much, but never

ever does too much. He also puts a massive amount of joy into

his playing. It’s astonishing to watch. And Dakota Jim who sold

me that first bass. He’s harmonically so surprising, but a gain,

always gorgeous. Then there’s this guy Tom Wheatley who

plays with some friends of mine. Amazing rhythm and he’s

really into all that free improv stuff, exploring all the sounds

the bass can make. He’s also mesmerising to watch – in fact , I

need to go check out his solo shows, soon! I love playing bass

because as a singer it ’s like having a second voice. In Bouche the

bass is melodic, or as much of a harmonising voice as it is the

groove, or holding it down. The physicality of the double bass,

the sensuality of it: it’s difficult not to see it as human, standing

there right up close to me when I play. I’ve never had that with

any other instrument. We’ve just released our first album,

So

Long Solemn

. We really want everyone to follow us down the

rabbit hole for this one!

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LUKE APPLETON,

ICED EARTH

I would describe my bass style as a combination of Steve Harris’s melodic fills with the power and attack of Cliff Burton. I have a very old school way of playing. For me, being the bass player is the glue between the guitar and the drums. I play a five-string bass, because I love having that low B for an extra dynamic in the music. It opens up so many more fills that I can play and can also make my bass-lines much more interesting. Playing in a band such as Iced Earth, with a lot of anthemic twin lead guitar melodies, the B-string really helps sustain the low end live and on the recordings. The secret of playing bass well is knowing when to underplay. I see so many bass players these days that basically mimic the guitar player, which is something I definitely do not do. The term I always use to describe how to play the bass is ‘less is more’. When I learn or write a song, I am always paying attention to what the kick drum is doing, as this is where I get my grooves from, or work out fills and beats with the drummer. It’s not about doing as many fills or as many notes per second as possible. My favourite bass ever is the Cort EVL Z6B. This was the first bass guitar I owned after I got my artist deal with Cort, and it still has a special place in my heart. I’ve played some of my favourite shows of my career with this bass and it still roars when I play it! I could go on and on about debating who the best bass player ever was, as every bass player has their own unique style of playing that I appreciate in many forms. Some good contenders would be Phil Lynott, Lemmy, Glenn Hughes, Billy Sheehan and Stu Hamm. If I could get the bass tone of any album ever released, I would chooseIII Sides To Every Story by Extreme. Pat Badger really nailed that bass tone. Iced Earth are currently writing a new album and are planning to record in the summer: we will be touring by the end of 2016. I also play in another band called Absolva, where we will be doing summer festivals this year all over UK and Europe.

www.icedearth.com, www.absolva.com BASSES Cort EVL Z6B, Cort GB5

EFFECTS SansAmp Bass Driver

AMPS Ampeg SVT Classic with an 8x10 Ampeg cabinet, Ashdown ABM 500 with 4x10 and 1x15 cabinets

GEAR

stonefeld

BASSES Fender Telecaster, Gibson Grabber EFFECTS Boss ODB-3

AMPS Peavey VB2 valve head, 8x10 or 2x15 cabs

GEAR

DAVE THOMPSON,

RAGING SPEEDHORN

My bass style is harsh and he avy, there’s no point messing around! I’ve never bee n into ﬁve- or six-string basses, never seen the point in them. Four strings all the way. My ﬁrst bass was a Merlin Precision copy, I found it in a junk shop called Aladdin’s Cave and paid £25 for it. I really loved my Fender Aerodyne, it was a great sounding bass. My 1978 Precision was amazing too – both are sadly gone now. Paul McCartney is a massive inspiration. The Beatles had a major impact on me growing up: his style is his own, which I could always recognise instantly. If I could get the bass tone of any album ever released, I would choose Metallica’s...And Justice For All _.

www.facebook/ragingspeedhorn © M y _r i a _m F r a _n c o e u

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KELLY OGDEN,

THE DOLLYROTS

I’m a physical player so I don’t mind moving up and down the ne ck. As a lead singer/bassist and someone with a high vocal register I like to balance it out with the lowest, fattest, biggest tone I can get out of a bass, so higher string notes tend to work against that. Really, I could do with three strings on 90 per cent of our tracks. My tour bass for a long time was a 90s Fender Jazz that lost the G tuning peg after some onstage smashing… and I continued to play it for a couple years without really missing that string. We play straightforward rock’n’roll, heavily inﬂuenced by 60s pop and early punk. There’s not a ton of space for slapping. I play with a pick unless I drop one in the middle of a song, and then I play with a bloody thumb and index ﬁnger. Although I wouldn’t trade instruments for the world, I sort of play the bass like it’s a guitar. I need the sound of the pick attack and rapid downstrokes.

My first bass was a 1979 Fender Musicmaster in bright yellow. It worked for our first album and tours but I can’t play it now: it’s just impossible to get a fat, deep tone unless you’re playing a heavy full-scale bass. After that I moved on to Fender Jazz and P-Basses, found Gibsons and never looked back. My favourite bass is my 2006 Gibson Studio Thunderbird. I had only played Fenders until I was gifted this beast after signing to Joan Jett’s Blackheart label. At first I was terrified of the thing. The tone was just so full and it was so much louder than t he Fenders. On the other hand, the neck is so easy to play compared to my P-Bass. At first I played it because I felt like it would be rude not to, but after about two shows I was sold. I toured with it until about a year ago and now only bring it out for special occasions or in studio. I don’t want to b e heartbroken if an airline loses it or som eone nicks it.

I will forever look up to Lemmy, RIP dude. He was a master of playing bass with the pick attack usually reserved for guitar. When I saw Lemmy play I thought, ‘Yes! That’s it! That’s how I want to play’. Suzi Quatro is a goddess. Paul McCartney is a genius. Kim Deal, Kim Gordon… ‘the Kims’ showed me how to play not like a girl, but like myself. In a more punk vein, Krist Novoselic and Matt Freeman are up there. Krist managed to write such great counterpoint, heavy bass-lines that drove Nirvana’s songs. And Freeman is a crazy busy and technical player within a genre that doesn’t call for that. It is one of the main things that makes Rancid/ Operation Ivy stand out from the pack. Best bass player ever? Okay, I’m

going to skip the usual ‘Best Bassist’ list and say Suzi Quatro. Not only was she a great bassist and front person, but she did it at a time when it wasn’t normal for a woman to be up there. When I think of the real pioneers of women in rock I think of her and Wanda Jackson.

Our band is in freakout mode, getting ready for our third trip to the UK. Last time we were there we were supporting Buzzcocks. This time we’re supporting our pals Bowling For Soup. We’re also preparing to release our ﬁrst live album and DVD,The Dollyrots Family Vacation: Live in Los Angeles and a brand new EP called Mama’s Gonna Knock You Out . In other words we’re running around like chickens with our heads cut off.

www.dollyrots.com

BILL BANWELL,

KELIS, THE HOOSIERS, RAG’N’BONE MAN

As a session bassist I tend to mould my playing style to the band or artist that I’m involved with at the time, as different genres call for different approaches. I like to keep it sounding solid but thoughtful as well. My personal playing is very much inﬂuenced by funk grooves and jazz fusion. I mainly play ﬁve-string basses: I love the sound of the B-string. There’s something about the lower octave which, when used in the right places, has a huge impact. The four-string comes out now and then on certain gigs. I tend to use slap only on bass solo occasions, it just sounds cool and is always impressive to your average audience.

I was hugely inspired by Victor Wooten as a teenager, so practised the hell out of his chops and technique for a good few years. I believe the secret to being a great bass player is understanding groove and pocket, staying inspired, putting the practice hours in and keeping your mind open to a wide range of music genres. My ﬁrst bass was a four-string P-Bass copy, a beginner bass package that came with a practice amp, lead and strap: it was a good bass to learn on and certainly did the job. My favourite bass to date has to be my custom Warwick Streamer Stage I, it plays and sounds incredible.

My bass heroes are Victor Wooten, Jaco Pastorius, Marcus Miller, Hadrien Feraud and Tom Kennedy along with session greats s uch as Nathan East, Pino Palladino, James Jamerson and Jimmy Johnson. It’s really tough to say who the greatest bass player in the world is: there have been so many inﬂuential players. I’d say Jaco Pastorius deﬁnitely has to b e one of them, his playing was incredible and no one was doing any of that

stuff at the time. If I could achieve the bass tone of any album released it would have to be Erykah Badu’s Live album: the tone that Hubert Eaves IV has is so smo oth and chunky. It’s also very high up in the mix, which is a rare treat.

http://www.instagram.com/billbass88

GEAR

BASS Warwick Streamer Stage I, Warwick CV Streamer EFFECTS Boss OC-2, MXR Bass Overdrive

AMPS Warwick LWA 1000, 4x10, 1x15, 2x8 cabs

BASSICALLY SPEAKING

GEAR

BASSES Gibson Studio Thunderbird, Schecter Sixx, Luna acoustic, Fender Precision, Debutante Rock Candy Daisy Rock EFFECTS MXR M80 Bass DI, Rat distortion

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BASSES Fender Jazz, Fender Precision, Ovation Celebrity CC074

EFFECTS Ibanez Tube Screamer, Boss DD-7 Digital Delay, Electro-Harmonix Big Muff AMPS Ampeg SVT-AV, Ampeg B2R, Ampeg 4x10 or 8x10 cab

GEAR

ALEX STIFF,

THE RECORD COMPANY

I take a pretty minimal approach to playing bass. Being in a trio requires me to ﬁll a lot of space and low end without getting too fancy. I also like the look and feel of beat-up, junky looking instruments, and those tend to be four-strings. I use strings that are really old, so slapping wouldn’t totally work with my set-up. I remember watching that video where bass legend Chuck Rainey explains his ‘secret’ slap bass on Steely Dan’s ‘Peg’. Essentially during recording, he turned away from everyone to hide the fact that he was slapping – but did it to a tremendously funky effect that worked great on the song.

My ﬁrst bass was a black Ibanez four-string. Me and my mom found an inexpensive bass for my dad’s birthday, so he could jam with me (I played guitar). He never played it, though, so slowly it moved into my room. My favourite bass ever to date is probably my current Fender Jazz. It’s been with me on every gig and almost every recording the Record Company has done. I keep meaning to get it worked on, as many of the upper frets don’t work. It’s got a really high action, and old rusty strings. I guess I’m worried it may lose its mojo if there isn’t any degree of struggle to play it. The greatest bass player that ever lived is Paul McCartney. I love the power of great songwriting, and his bass-lines tell a story of their own. The bass parts onSgt. Pepper are astonishing. With those vocal melodies, the bass didn’t technically have to say a whole lot, yet Paul ﬁnds a way to make the bass both interesting, and work with the song.

Right before this band started, I was at a turning point in my life, where I didn’t think I could continue making music for a living. The idea of starting up a new band seemed hopeless, but something inside me found myself clicking on the ‘Musicians Wanted’ section on Craigslist, and the only ad that I answered happened to be from our singer Chris Vos, who was looking for a bass player. I met him and we eventually started the Record Company. Basically you have to put yourself out there if you want things to happen. We also made our current record with cheap instruments and recording gear in my living room, mostly from used items on Craigslist. It shows that you don’t need to have expensive, fancy gear to make music that s peaks to you. We have a new album,Give It Back To You, out worldwide on Concord Records, and we will be touring all over the US and Europe in the coming months.

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“

LUTHIERS USED TO BE LIKE SOME

MYTHICAL CREATURES YOU ONLY HEARD

ABOUT IN LOW WHISPERS IN AFFLUENT

PLAYING CIRCLES

”

W

elcome, readers, to my new regular column. I intend to focus on the theory, design and craft of bass construction, and everything else in between. There are literally dozens of ways to build and construct musical instruments, and there is simply not enough room to cover the entirety of all the methods in this column, so I’d like to concentrate on how

we do it at Eve Guitars, and hopefully to be informative about the practice of bass building.

I’ve been building bass guitars for over 25 years, and intend to use this space to share a few observations and tips that I’ve discovered over the years. This will take shape by following an Eve build from start to ﬁnish, by inspecting each and every element and including wood selection, workshop techniques, hardware and ﬁnish.

Firstly, I must state for the record that I’m entirely self-taught. In the early days, there was almost zero information on instrument construction. Obviously there was no internet to consult, so you had to either make an educated guess, or have some kind of formal training. Luthiers were like some mythical creatures you only heard about in low whispers in affluent playing circles, so they were difficult to track down and ask for advice. Therefore, I had to apply some logical thinking and simply make my best guess to how to make an instrument! I’ll be sharing my findings and thoughts with you here.

In the early days it was very difﬁcult to start a workshop. The price of entry for tooling was extremely high, and to spec out suitable premises took an eye-wateringly amount of cash. It’s easy

to forget, but unless you were in the building trade, it

was costly to buy high quality tools such as bandsaws, surface planers, thicknessers and so on. It’s all different now, with greater availability and wider choice, but back then, these machines were extremely expensive and only available to business trade. Thankfully, times move on, and it’s amazing what you can pick up from any decent DIY store

or dedicated online supplier. Even eBay can be useful if you’re careful what you are looking for and buy from a trusted source.

As I’m sure you all know, basses come in all

manner of wood combinations and hardware choices. There is a lot of voodoo about what each one does and how they interact, and the ‘magical’ combination of materials for the ‘perfect’ tone. We’ll look at these as we progress through the stages of selection and hopefully clarify a few things, while giving you an insider’s view on what to

look for and what to avoid, whether you’re a budding luthier or just a player who wants to know more about what goes

on under the bonnet.

Here at Eve Guitars we have a strong ethos in making the best instruments we can with soul and

integrity. We are very passionate about the process, and believe love should be built in to each and

individual instrument, from hands that believe in the true art and craft of instrument making. This column is intended to reﬂect this sentiment. We hope you will agree.

www.evebass.com

Doug Mullen of Eve Guitars begins a new column on the

design and manufacture of one of his ace basses

The Luthier

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EXAMPLE 3

Joe Hubbard examines blues and pentatonic workouts for bass

Applied Improvisation with

Rockschool

EXAMPLE 2

W

elcome back! There are two main approaches to improvising over a set of chord changes. One of these, harmonic speciﬁcity, means playing on the chords in question, paying close attention to resolving on chord tones and the tensions of the speciﬁc chords you are playing on – while employing embellishments such as chromatic approach notes, diatonic approach notes and scalar passing tones.

The second approach is based on playing over a set of chord changes in relation to the tonic of the key area. This concept lends itself to applying pentatonic and blues scale ideas.

Experienced improvisers will be able to move in and out of these two principles dynamically in order to enhance the shape and contour of their improvisation.

What most people refer to as the blues scale is actually called the minor blues scale. This scale and the minor pentatonic scale are closely related, because the blues scale has the same notes as the pentatonic, with an added chromatic note between the fourth and the ﬁfth – seeexample 1.

Another way to look at the blues scale is from the major perspective. The major blues scale is exactly the same as the major pentatonic scale, with an added chromatic tone between the second and the third. This resembles a double chromatic approach note from below the third – seeexample 2.

The pentatonic and the blues scales share the same relative concept as the major scale and its relative minor scale. The C major blues and pentatonic scales have the same notes in them as the A minor blues and pentatonic scales – as seen inexample 3.

The method for applying the blues and pentatonic to the overall key area is s traightforward – major pentatonic and blues scales (along with relative minor) for major key areas, and minor pentatonic and blues scales (along with relative major) for minor key areas. If you are applying these scales over a song form such as the 12 bar blues progression (which is based on dominant seventh chords), you can also apply the parallel minor pentatonic and blues scales to outline the overall key area, like

inexample 4.

Next month Nik Preston is back with another lesson – so stay tuned!

EXAMPLE 4

EXAMPLE 1

Rockschool

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A

nd so the most successful London Bass Guitar Show ever is over for another

year, and I’m already counting down to next year’s. You see, I’m something of a veteran of music shows. Long before the existence of Basschat and my involvement as its

representative, and indeed long beforeBass

Guitar Magazine itself began publication,

I started attending what was originally called the London Music Show – in 1994, held in Wembley.

For me, the attraction of highly desirable music gear, coupled with the opportunity to see

performances and masterclasses by many British and international stars, makes the LBGS irresistible. I have always particularly loved the masterclasses: they allow us to gain insights into the star players’ skills, ask them questions, shake their hand and catch a glimpse of them as human beings – not to mention take selﬁes with them! Also, by watching them play and being exposed to their infectious enthusiasm, we may become inspired to try styles, instruments or accessories that are new to us, or listen to kinds of music we may not have considered before.

Since becoming a member of the Basschat community, I have loved meeting fellow Basschatters at the show who are also professional bass players, and who may be there as visitors, or helping out at exhibitors’ stands, or giving brief performances at their favourite gear manufacturer’s booth. It’s always good to put faces to screen names; after meeting a Basschatter in the ﬂesh, talking, laughing, or arguing with them online feels much more real. Also, many of the exhibitors themselves are Basschatters, and usually regular posters, so the show allows us to see them in person, ask a myriad of geeky questions, watch demos, and be tempted to place an order (or three).

Basschat had a small ofﬁcial presence at the 2013 and 2014 shows. On those oc casions we were sharing some exhibiting space with Bass Gear, the shop in Twyford, and created a Basschat Corner with some posters, some free goodies, and myself as a representative, armed with a camera and a large tablet (the electronic, not the headache-soothing kind, despite the slap-fest noise). Our meeting point at the 2013 show also hosted the London leg of our Basschat Charity Relay; our travelling bass, the BC Baton, was taken to the show by owner and relay creator James Ryan for Basschatters to collect, play in public, and pass on to others in town and in the rest of the country, raising money for Cancer Research UK in the process.

In the years when no Basschat Corner had been organised, I’ve enjoyed being the forum’s roaming representative at the show. This year I was lucky enough to also be working forBGM , so I was proudly wearing two hats – in fact, two lanyards: the magazine’s press pass and Basschat’s exclusive lanyard with the black a nd orange logo. Many Basschatters write their online monikers and real names on the lanyard, then play spot-the-fellow-wearer. They could be se en everywhere: queueing for performances and masterclasses, ogling gear, chatting with exhibitors at the stands. Having said that, we also have incognito Basschatters, who attend bass shows but want to be still shrouded in mystery when posting on the forum. Yes, we think they’re being unnecessarily shy, but we still appreciate their involvement!

www.basschat.co.uk

BASSCHAT

Silvia Bluejay of Basschat toasts

another great LBGS

THE

MU

I

t’s a long-running joke that our industry has too many acronyms and no one knows what they do. Near the top of the list, up there with PRS, ASCAP, PPL and BMI, is MCPS. MCPS provides £140 million worth of income to songwriters, composers and publishers each year. It has well over 26,000 members, and has b een around since 1911.

But what does MCPS actually do? MCPS stands for Mechanical Copyright Protection Society. It distributes mechanical royalties, which are paid to songwriters, composers and publishers when copies have been made of pieces of music they have contributed to. Those copies can be a CD sale, synchronisation into a TV programme, a DVD or a download from a website such as iTunes.

Streaming services make various copies in the process of music being played via their platforms. Acts of copying include when a track is buffered on the internet or sent via satellite, or if someone saves a stream to their laptop for ofﬂine playback.

All of this applies regardless of who is singing your song – if someone else sings it and makes a copy, that’s another act of copying. To make a copy of a song, whoever wants to make the copy needs to buy a mechanical licence. That money is paid back to MCPS members, whether through publishers or directly to songwriters/composers themselves.

Individual royalties can be really small, making them expensive for a publisher to collect. MCPS traces and collects all the tiny sums of money

on publishers and songwriters’ behalves. It might sound like a small and trivial job, but those small payments add up to give MCPS that £140 million turnover.

For songwriters who don’t have publishers, MCPS licenses its

members’ repertoire in one go via negotiated agreements with the record industry, digital services and broadcasters. You can join directly for £50. We can offer advice if you’re trying to decide between direct memb ership or working through a publisher.

If you’re thinking about it, or have questions about any other aspect of your career (including those pesky acronyms), get in touch with your Musicians’ Union Regional Ofﬁce via theMU.org/contact.

Acronymically speaking with

the Musicians’ Union

“

MCPS STANDS FOR MECHANICAL

COPYRIGHT PROTECTION SOCIETY.

IT DISTRIBUTES MECHANICAL

ROYALTIES, WHICH ARE PAID TO

SONGWRITERS, COMPOSERS AND

PUBLISHERS WHEN COPIES HAVE

BEEN MADE OF PIECES OF MUSIC

THEY HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO

”

THE LOWDOWN

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Photography by Tina K

In his first ever solo magazine cover, Alex ‘V-Man’ Venturella tells Joel McIver the unlikely tale of how

he came to join one of the world’s biggest metal bands...

The Man

In The

Mask

member, drummer Joey Jordison, also left the band, in circumstances yet to be explained. In this period when the nine members were reduced to seven, Slipknot were between albums, and a new rhythm section had to be recruited before a new one could be recorded.

Enter Alex Venturella, who – alongside new drummer Jay Weinberg, son of Bruce Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg – was recruited into the band in 2014. At ﬁrst his identity was concealed behind the mask that he wears, like his eight bandmates: but that didn’t last long: a bunch of distinctive tattoos on his hands gave the game away. A well-received comeback album was then released in 2014 as a tribute to Gray, titled

.5; The Gray Chapter .

As Alex revealed to us before appearing at the Status Graphite booth at the London Bass Guitar Show back in March, he’s been working in the music industry for years – and although that meant that his identity couldn’t be hidden for long, it also means that he’s mentally equipped to handle what is known as one of the toughest gigs in metal. Reckon you could play in that mask and boiler suit under boiling stage lights every night? No, us neither. Read on...

O

n paper, Slipknot shouldnever have made it big. Their music is too aggressive for

mainstream acceptance, their singer’s vocals are often bestial and their image is enough to make most over-40s ﬁll their drawers. And yet they’ve been selling out arenas since 2002, when their second album

Iowa was a worldwide hit.

You couldn’t make the Slipknot story up, but essentially it runs as follows. Nine musicians from Des Moines, Iowa, coalesced into a highly dysfunctional band after several years of fafﬁng about in 1999, when they signed to the premium heavy metal label Roadrunner and released a self-titled album. For a couple of years they rode the nu-metal wave, building a fanbase who enjoyed their curious blend of death metal, samples and enraged lyrics, b efore streamlining their sound a bit, dropping the ‘nu’ from their metal and getting huge. Two of them play in Stone Sour, a stadium-rock act also from Iowa.

In 2010 Slipknot were rocked by tragedy when their bassist Paul Gray, one of their founder members, succumbed to a heroin overdose. Three years later, another founder

How did you come to join Slipknot, Alex? It’s a funny one! I was teching with Mastodon in 2014 and we’d just got back from Australia, where we were doing the Soundwave festival. I was staying with [Mastodon singer and former BGM cover star] Troy Sanders’ brother Darren Sanders in Atlanta, which was a party house with people coming and going. One night, Darren’s girlfriend got a call at one in the morning from [Slipknot guitarist] Jim Root. I knew Jim because I toured with Slipknot in 2008, teching with Coheed & Cambria. So she passed me the phone and he said, ‘Do you know any bass players?’ I asked if it was for Stone Sour and he said, ‘No – the other band’ and I instantly said ‘I’ll do it!’ I gave him this whole drunken spiel about ‘I’ll give you some slap bass if you need it!’ and we were having a laugh. Then he said ‘Seriously, do you actually want to do this?’ and I said ‘Yes, I’d really love to do it’.

What happened then?

Four days later the manager called me and told me to learn six songs. I thought, ‘Fuck that, I’ll learn more than that’ and sat down on the couch and watched all of Paul’s old videos and DVDs, and crammed in as much knowledge as I could. Some people think it’s well easy to play

Bass Guitar MagazineMay 2016 023 Alex ‘V-Man’ Venturella, Slipknot

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Slipknot’s stuff, but there’s a lot of chromatic stuff going on and it’s a workout. I phoned James Leach, the bassist from Sikth, who is a good friend of mine, and said, ‘Dude, you won’t believe what’s happening’. He told me I needed to downpick as hard as I could, so I worked on building that up.

What kind of reception did you get from Slipknot themselves when you ﬁrst joined the band?

They ﬂew me out to Sunset Sound studio in Los Angeles. They had a rig set up for me, but I said I didn’t really like it and asked if we could change some things around, which I did. I had Troy Sanders’ Zon bass with me and, being a tech, I’d set it up myself to play as nicely as I could. I said, ‘Right, let’s go!’

Who else was there?

All the other eight were there. They said, ‘Go on then, knock it out’ and so I did, doing what James had told me to do and downpicking everything as tightly as I could. They all went

off in another room to listen to it and asked me to stick around afterwards and play some more. They wanted me to learn some new stuff and jam to it: because I knew Jim, I could ask him if I could try certain things, which they let me do. I came up with some bass-lines and it was cool.

Was this a stressful situation?

After the studio audition, we were in a nice big mansion up in the Hollywood Hills, so it wasn’t pressured. Everyone was chilled out and relaxed. It wasn’t like playing classical guitar in front of 200 people in an exhibition hall, as I did when I was a teenager. I hated playing in front of people at those times, so I was in my comfort zone this time. I knew I could do it, and I was conﬁdent in myself. I suggested trying a few things out, and getting in the gear that I wanted to use, and ﬁnally they sat me down and told me that I was going to play on.5: The Gray Chapter . In total, I played on eight songs, and Jim and Mick [Thomson, guitarist] did the rest.

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Was there a ‘Eureka’ moment when you realised you’d joined one of the world’s biggest bands?

All I was ever focused on was building my rig and making sure that my bass sounded good. I never thought about stage nerves, or anything like that: I only focused on playing and sounding right. It wasn’t until the curtain came up at the ﬁrst Knotfest that I had a moment when I realised ‘Whoa! I’ve got a mask on!’ What have been the challenges of playing in Slipknot so far?

The main learning curve has been learning how to rock out. It’s an hour and 40 minute set, so I’ve learned different techniques for headbanging and picking. My thumb used to hurt because I was picking so hard: it would expand and blow up, so now I pick with more control and less aggression. I’d notice it hurting before and so I’d have to play notes with less attack, and our front-of-house guy would notice it because I’ve got four outputs. I was still playing ﬁne, but I had to work around it to get back to the level I’d been before. So I’m always on the technical side of things.

Did Slipknot ask you to play the same bass gear as Paul Gray did?

No, they were like, ‘Whatever you feel comfortable playing is ﬁne with us’. So what basses are you using? We tried everything in the studio and recorded with a P-Bass, which sounded great. And then we did the same thing live, going through all the basses, trying the ones that Paul used and everything. Nothing beat the P-Bass, although as I said before, I tried Troy Sanders’ Zon, and used one in the studio. And for playing live, I auditioned different basses and went with a Status S2.

Are you a fan of headless basses, then? Headless has always been a thing for me, and now there seems to be a bit of trend for it coming back. I’ve always been a fan of Steinbergers, and there’s a great video of Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd – who is my favourite guitar player – playing a white cricket-bat Steinberger guitar. But I’m equally happy with headed basses too.

Do you prefer four or ﬁve strings? For what I’m doing with Slipknot there’s enough notes on a four-string. They’ve kept the same tunings for over 15 years, so it’s not going to be any time soon that they go any lower, or I’ll start using fretless basses or anything. Plus, if the strings get any thicker, they’ll start to annoy me.

What’s your background?

I studied classical guitar, and did all the grades and all that malarkey, when I was a teenager.

"

It wasn't until the

curtain came up at the

first Knotfest that I had a

moment when I

realised 'Whoa

I've got a

mask on'

"

Bass Guitar MagazineMay 2016 025 Alex ‘V-Man’ Venturella, Slipknot

BASSISTS

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I was taught by Lee Sollory, who is in the London Guitar Trio, until I was 16 or 17. I barely touched electric guitar before that. When did the loud music come along? I picked up the electric guitar and started playing in hardcore bands, but metal was something that I listened to rather than played. I never learned anyone else’s music: I always learned by reading music or playing along. My ﬁrst band was called Incoherence, but I never really knew anything about proper shredding until I left that band and started Cry For Silence: that was when I jumped into the deep end and went to eight-string guitars and learned all the techniques. I played in Krokodil as well.

How did you get into bass?

I learned tapping licks on bass, and then

started playing more and more bass on the road, because I was teching for people. I’d pick up bass for an hour a day, using someone else’s gear, and I’d learn a load of Steve Harris licks. Having the knowledge of classical guitar, I knew the groundwork and how to get around the bass. I just needed to sound like a bass player, instead of a guitarist playing bass. What have you found to be the best way to achieve that?

By listening to music and picking out the bass, as opposed to listening to music and the bass just being a background thing. A guitarist might just play root notes on the bass, but you need to be able to go around those notes rather than just copying them.

How did you ﬁnd switching from playing guitar to bass?

Being a classical guitarist and playing on a small scale, going to the bass was a bit of a stretch. And even when I’d learned to play bass, I’d never played it while rocking out or headbanging, and I have tiny little hands, so on my Status S2s I’ve gone for a Jazz-style neck and narrow string separation.

What music did you listen to as a kid? It was Guns N’ Roses early on, and my dad was a big Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, King Crimson and Hawkwind fan, so that was what I grew up listening to. From the age of 15 onwards it was Pantera and Metallica and Megadeth. I love Primus too: I saw them on the Anti- Pop tour and was blown away by the song

‘Lacquer Head’. I listened to that album and then their whole catalogue, and became a big Les Claypool fan.

Is jazz your cup of tea?

I love Al Di Meola and Allan Holdsworth and all those fusion guys, so the bass playing that went along with that was always high-calibre, but it’s only recently that I’ve gone out of my way to listen to Marcus Miller and the rest of those guys. I never really sat down to listen to dedicated bass players before that.

Does the mask make it difﬁcult to play? At ﬁrst the mask was a bit weird, but the LEDs make the sides of the bass neck easier to see! Sometimes when I’m headbanging forward I can see the fret markers and I know I’m in the pocket.

Despite it, people realised who you were soon after joining, because they recognised your hand tattoos.

Well, I’ve been in the industry for a while, teching with John 5 and some other big names, so it was only a matter of time before people worked out who I was.

Is it odd being a Brit in a band of Americans? There’s always talk of me moving to America, but I’m from St Albans and grew up in Watford and I don’t want to leave my friends and my girlfriend. Also, the dudes in the band come from all over America, so everyone travels anyway.

So you’re in a good place?

Deﬁnitely. If I’d got this gig as a random kid who didn’t know anyone, it would have been daunting, but I’ve done so much and know so many people that when we play a festival I can go into every dressing room and know everybody. I was in the industry but I wasn’t a famous bass player or from a big metal band, so it’s not about me: it’s about seven dudes who’ve been through a lot of shit and need someone to do service to what Paul did.

Info: www.slipknot1.com

Alex ‘V-Man’ Venturella, Slipknot

BASSISTS

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e’re all in different bands in RNDM, so there’s a little bit of planning going on whenever we release an album. We started this new record,Ghost Riding, about a year ago: it took us seven or eight months to do in a couple of different sessions. We mixed it three times, adding and taking away things each time – so it took a lot longer to do than the ﬁrst record,Acts, which came out in 2012. That was cool, though, because we wanted to approach it a lot differently.

The great thing about making this record was that our guitarist Joe Arthur and I had a back-and-forth discussion about the spirit records that we leaned into for the new songs: we talked about the ﬁrst couple of David Sylvian solo albums, and some of the weirder Bowie stuff and Peter Gabriel and Bauhaus and Talk Talk. Basically, songs that had space. So the new record star ted that way, but then our instincts took over and we made it all different. It started with a drum machine and keyboards and us crafting simple arrangements,

before going back as a three-piece band and playing over the top of those arrangements. I’d never made a record like that, and it was fun.

Orange is still the colour we use for the band’s image and the stage set: we thought about changing the colour, but everyone still liked the orange and we’d collected a lot of stuff in that colour, so we thought we might as well continue to use it. We’re taking out almost all Orange amps this time, which we tried to get going on the ﬁrst record, but failed to for some reason: we just didn’t get it organised. Orange has been super-gracious to us, giving us a bunch of gear to play on the tour: it’s a match made in heaven. The one I’m using is a 200W head. Before that I was using Fenders with orange tolex, and Ampeg cabs, also covered in orange.

For basses, I use my Mike Lull signature series. I almost never play anything else. They always sound great and there’s no dead spots in any of the necks. Sometimes I’ll play one of my older Lulls and I’ll notice that a particular section of the neck plays really great, or the pickups are cool-sounding: I’ve got very fond of the Lulls.

That said, every time I do a project I bring a couple of other basses with me, that I haven’t played in a while, and a couple of those ended up on the new record. There’s an old Fender P-Bass on a couple of things, and a Wal and a 12-string on a couple of other sections.

In my live set-up I have a Swollen Pickle, a Strymon Flint reverb with cool slapback, and a Boss octave pedal which is great for making that 12-string sound live, as I’m not taking the 12-string bass out with me. We’re carrying all of our stuff on the plane, which makes taking more than two basses out difﬁcult. We’re on a budget: the ﬁrst record and tour we did was a little higher than where we should have been, and we lost a bit of money, so we’re stripping it back a bit this time. The production will be more intensive live this time though.

I’m really missing the 12-string, I must say. It was originally a Hamer backup that I had. I wasn’t happy with the body, though, and it was a neck-through design, so Mike Lull chopped out the neck and kept the hardware and used one of his bodies in my kinda Thunderbird design.

Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament returns with a second album, Ghost Riding , from his side project RNDM – and

discusses the tricky task of taking eight basses on tour

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Over the course of Pearl Jam’s career, I’ve ranged from going super crazy with the rack and switching between amps, and being an absolute nightmare for my tech, to simplifying it down to two amps which are on all the time. I used Dug Pinnick’s signature head, the Tech 21 Ultra Bass 1000, when we were down in South America, which was great. It does what my Pearce amps have done for years, and it’s a bit more ﬂexible and louder.

Simplicity is really important for me nowadays, especially by the time the bass sound gets through the PA to the people. Sometimes you’re playing through too many pedals and the low end goes away, and it’s a nightmare for the sound guy. Only a couple of pedals work for me, really.

In Pearl Jam I have eight basses out on tour. We have songs that are tuned down to D, Eb, E, then there’s fretless... and we change the setlist before the show, or even during the show, so the techs don’t have time to tune a bass – they need one right there off the shelf.

Pearl Jam’s producer Brendan O’Brien is a phenomenal bass player. We butt heads sometimes, because he has a speciﬁc way that he hears bass: he really likes to hear a P-Bass or a Thunderbird through an Ampeg SVT. That’s what he likes. I’ll put on a new bass and he’ll say, “Hey, what just changed?” and I’ll tell him “I’m playing a fretless on this one, sorry. I know you’re not really fond of them!”

But he always has great ideas: he comes from a prog and pop background. Nick Lowe is probably the beginning and end of where he wants bass to be – super-interesting playing and all the right passing notes. I broke out of that this time, because we didn’t use Brendan on the new RNDM album! I channelled different bass players, like Tony Levin and Willie Weeks and the bassist from the Meters. I love those guys, and hopefully you’ll hear their inﬂuences when you hear our new record.

Ghost Ridingis out now. Info: www.rndmband.com

“

I’VE RANGED FROM GOING SUPER

CRAZY WITH THE RACK AND

SWITCHING BETWEEN AMPS, AND

BEING A NIGHTMARE FOR MY TECH, TO

SIMPLIFYING IT DOWN TO TWO AMPS

”

n

g

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I loved Cliff Burton’s playing. There was a local guy, Hayward Peele, who was real nasty: sadly, he was killed in a home invasion back in the late 90s. And of course I love my friends Flea and Robert Trujillo, and there are always new amazing bassists coming up: I really like Tal Wilkenfeld, I think she’s awesome. I love seeing new talent.”

One listen to ‘I Come In Peace’ from Harley’s new album,Cro-Mags, and you have to agree that he has one of the most violent, explosive styles of playing bass ever committed to tape.

“I was a drummer for a lot of years before I started playing bass, so I’m inherently rhythm conscious,” he reckons. “I don’t just play a bass part, I’m very percussive. And I listen to a lot of different stuff. I think most hardcore bassists are playing with a limited tool set and are kinda one-dimensional. I don’t think I’m so great, I just think I’m a little more musical and rhythmic than your average hardcore or metal guy.

“All I know is, all the players I have played with over the years, who I respect, and some of the players I look up to, give me props – so I guess I must be okay or kinda good. But I know I’m not one of the great ones… I just do my thing and have fun doing it.”

Cro-Mags is out now on 171-A Records. Info: www.harleyﬂanagan.com

F

ans of hardcore punk music,in particular the especially virulent strain hailing from NYC, will know and love the Cro-Mags, whose 1986 debut album,The Age Of

Quarrel, was not only an

instant classic of the genre, but an aptly-titled release given the bitter feuding that went down between the band members since [Google it, it makes entertaining reading]. We’re not here to rake over old ashes, though, but rather to celebrate the new album, and often overlooked bass guitar brilliance, of original Cro-Mag Harley Flanagan.

“I joined the Stimulators on drums in 1979, and we recorded two 45s,” recalls Harley, of how his musical journey began. “They were a pretty important band on the scene in the late 70s, and although they were a punk band, they were one of the foundational bands of what would become New York hardcore. By 1980 I started learning bass on the side, and when I recorded my ﬁrst solo recordings with me on bass, guitar, drums and vocals in 1982-83, I really made the switch to bass. At the time the only two bassists who gave me any guidance were Anne Gustavson, the bassist for the Stimulators, and one of my biggest inﬂuences, Darryl Jenifer of Bad Brains.

“I love both the bass and the drums. It makes me nuts because when I play drums I hear what I would be playing on bass in my head, and when I play bass I hear what I would be doing on drums in my head. So I’m always itching to play the other instrument, but it depends on the mood I’m in and the moment; I just like to play.”

Flanagan began on a Guild Starﬁre, but readers will be intrigued to learn that his next bass originally belonged to Jaco Pastorius.“It was an Ibanez Musician,” he recalls, “but Jaco had messed with the built-in preamp and totally fucked it up, so it had to be ﬁxed. I never saw pictures of him playing it, but the story is that he got it in Japan from Ibanez: their people showed up at a gig and gave it to him. He traded it to a friend of mine on the Lower East Side for an eight-ball [an eighth of an ounce] of coke, and I bought it off him for like 100 bucks: I played it on theAge Of Quarrel record. I used to run into Jaco in the neighbourhood from time to time; I have some great – but kind of tragic – Jaco stories. They’re all in my book, which will be out this spring.”

As well as Darryl from Bad Brains (“He was like my big brother growing up”), Flanagan professes his biggest inﬂuences on the bass to be Geezer Butler and Lemmy. “I learned tons of Motörhead when I ﬁrst started getting serious about bass,” he says. “I learned theAce Of Spades album back to front. I loved Lemmy’s rhythm and attack: it was so locked in with the kick and snare – and all those power chords, I loved it. When we toured with them onOrgasmatron, forget about it. I watched every set they played and every soundcheck. My ears are still ringing from that shit all these years later.

“Sabbath was another band I tried to learn as much as I could from. I borrowed and stole so many runs from Geezer and so many drum fills from Bill Ward: they were two of my biggest influences as far as rhythm sections go in rock. Of course, there is Rainy from Discharge who is a monster: I love his playing, and Cronos from Venom, who I think is so sadly underrated. He’s a good player and has written some really heavy riffs and great songs. I love the way he slides, it’s so rhythmic; he has a definite style all his own. I used to practise their songs too.

“But there are many others that blew my mind. There are people I borrowed little things from but could never dream of trying to emulate, people like Jaco, Stanley Clarke and many others.