I just saw this photo of Chris Squire and his 3 neck bass guitar. Pretty interesting and cool.
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Chris Squire's 3 neck bass guitar
- Thread starter Richland123
- Start date
Pretty old photo. Chris is young and skinny there. That bass and others used to be described on the gear section of his website (I think). I don't know if they still are. The site has been recently revamped. But I'm sure you can google a description of it. He has lots of cool gear!
- Feb 24, 2004
- 4,103
- 643
- 68
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Phantom Guitars, Eastwood Guitars
Made by Wal.
Top to bottom:
6-string bass, root and octave pairs, tuned A D G.
4-string fretted.
4-string fretless.
Top to bottom:
6-string bass, root and octave pairs, tuned A D G.
4-string fretted.
4-string fretless.
Yea that looks circa 1975 or so. I would love to hear what that thing sounds like. I didn't know Squire had ever performed with a fretless.
The triple necked bass is only used on one song,"Awaken" from Going For The One,tho it was not recorded with it.He used a Guild fretless on "The Remembering" from Tales From Topographic Oceans.
The pic is from 1977.
EDIT: Here is the fretless Guild:
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Here's Roger with the bass.According to the site linked below,it is the second Wal ever made.
A nice close up of the body:
The Wal is now on display at the New York Hard Rock Cafe.
The bass Chris now uses was comissioned from a Japanese luthier some number of years ago.It is pictured here:
More info on the Wal here:[Invalid or Expired Link Removed] Neck
OP's pic is from August 2,1977,as evidenced here: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
It's fairly easy to figure out what year/tour pics of Chris are from due to the fact that he usually wore the same stage outfit each night of said tour.
It's fairly easy to figure out what year/tour pics of Chris are from due to the fact that he usually wore the same stage outfit each night of said tour.
Chris' website is down right now,so i can't find the article on it,but evidently he recorded Awaken with a fretted and fretless.( Not sure about the middle part ) The story goes that Chris was trying to figure out how he was going to play Awaken onstage and Wakeman brought the triple neck to him,which then had the 6 string neck converted to the root/octave strings rather than regular guitar tuning.
A quote from the Rickenbacker forum:
"When YES recorded Awaken on the Going For The One album,Squire used various basses on the track and for live the tripleneck was the answer to get the different sounds."
I will keep searching for the info and post a link here when/if I find it.
EDIT: I found video on Youtube of Yes recording Awaken.You can see Chris playing a Rickenbacker right around the 8:00 minute mark.It looks like it's his white one with black binding,which I believe is his 8 string Rick.
L
IMMusicRulz
Commercial User
Chris Squire's triple neck bass was a really unusual looking bass, and as stated in this thread, it was in fact owned by Roger Newell, the bassist for Rick Wakeman. Rumour is that Roger Newell gave this bass to Wakeman, who eventually gave it to Chris Squire. This was when Squire started to veer away from the Ric and play his 72 Jazz Bass and his Gibson Thunderbird.
Here is Chris Squire playing that bass in 1977:
I was right in front of Roger when I saw the King Arthur show in Cincinnati in the winter of '75. What a fab instrument that Wal is.
Chris played the Japanese copy when I saw Yes for the last time, on August 7, 2013. I was right in front of Chris for that show.
Roger Newell never owned it: the instrument was ordered, paid for and owned by Rick Wakeman, who later on gave it to Chris Squire.
A HISTORY OF WAL BASSES: "Chris Squire" Custom Triple Neck Wal feature - "Bassist" magazine 1999
A HISTORY OF WAL BASSES: "Chris Squire" Custom Triple Neck Wal feature - "Bassist" magazine 1999
I'd bet that dog was heavy. I can understand why he only played it on AWAKEN.
