Bass players with Billy Idol?

[BBQV]

I recently re-discovered Billy Idol and was knocked over by som really cool bass playing.

On a couple of songs (Hot in the city, Eyes without a face, Catch my fall, Mony Mony etc.) the bass track is really up front in the mix, the sound is skanky and the lines are played with lots of attitude.

Sounds like the bass player is sitting on a couch, feet on the table, sloppily playing along watching a TV-commercial. Cool!

I tried to find out who the player is, but it seems to be several different bassists playing on these songs. Does anyone here know anything about the secret behind the Billy Idol Bass Sound?

 

[Jeff 66]

I seem to recall Kenny Aaronson playing with Billy Idol at some point. Also Kasim Sulton, thought I may be wrong about that. (I know Thommy Price drummed for Idol at one time, and I usually associate Sulton with Price.)

Did Steve Stevens record any of the basslines? Seems like I had heard that, too.

 

[BBQV]

Yes, Stevens get bass playing credits on some of the later albums, but the early albums all have different people filling the bass chair.

The sound differs but the style is the same. To me it sounds like the same player using different basses, but according to the liner notes it´s more likely to be the other way 'round...

Edit: It may actually be Kenny Aaronson I'm after. He played on Vital Idol which is some kind of re-recorded Best of album if I understand things correctly. It might be those versions of the songs I have...

 

[ERIC31]

The Rebel Yell era of his band has my fave bassist of his...Steve Webster. From what I understand he played on all of the songs on that lp except for Eyes Without A Face which was Sal Cuevas. The bass is prominent in the mix and Steve was a P-Bass man all the way. When I saw them on that tour he was rockin'!

 

[P Coburn]

IF Wikipedia is to be believed ( I don't, because it usually is not ), "Eyes without a face" bass player was Sal Cuevas. I have been really digging that song of late. The bass line is better than most of that genre and time. Steve Stevens on lead guitar is no slouch either.

 

[Michedelic]

IF Wikipedia is to be believed ( I don't, because it usually is not ), "Eyes without a face" bass player was Sal Cuevas. I have been really digging that song of late. The bass line is better than most of that genre and time. Steve Stevens on lead guitar is no slouch either.

Credits should be taken from album notes, and I find that’s usually the case in Wiki articles. If you don’t want to believe what’s listed, there’s always Allmusic(and sometimes Discogs), and Sal Cuevas is mentioned there as well.

 

[P Coburn]

Credits should be taken from album notes, and I find that’s usually the case in Wiki articles. If you don’t want to believe what’s listed, there’s always Allmusic(and sometimes Discogs), and Sal Cuevas is mentioned there as well.

Cool, thanks for the alt sources.

 

[osv]

There is also quite a difference in the bass register between the original and remastered recordings. I prefer the sound of the original recording.

 

[Michedelic]

There is also quite a difference in the bass register between the original and remastered recordings. I prefer the sound of the original recording.

Are you saying it might have been re-rerecorded?

 

[osv]

Are you saying it might have been re-rerecorded?

I don’t know. The bass is just more in your face and seems thicker in the remaster. I prefer the overall mix balance in the original. I find most remasters to sound worse than the original release.

 

[Andrew Hargrove]

Another fan of those Idol/Steven's records here, just interested in the trivia and minutiae too. My favorite bass is White Wedding.

 

[Michedelic]

I don’t know. The bass is just more in your face and seems thicker in the remaster. I prefer the overall mix balance in the original. I find most remasters to sound worse than the original release.

I’d rather hear remasters of older stuff, there’s always something to be improved, plus technology marches on. I don’t consider original issues to be sacred.
What Steven Wilson did with the older King Crimson stuff was transformative. As for remixes, it’s a case by case thing. That revamp done to all the early ZZ Top albums, adding then-modern reverb and so on to appeal to the newer sequencer familiar audience was a misstep. But there was a vast improvement on the redux of Free’s Fire And Water, and Tom Dowd oversaw the overhaul of Layla, and he was the guy in the first place.

 

[tim gueguen]

Steve Webster was a member of Toronto's The Parachute Club, and co-wrote their biggest hit "Rise Up." It was impossible to avoid the song in Canada in the mid '80s, and it has continued to be a a song associated with social activism up here. It's funny that Webster immediately went from that to playing on Rebel Yell.