Dave Curran (Unsane)

[chanson]

Since discovering Unsane earlier this year, they have quickly become one of my favorite bands. Part of this is due to Dave Curran, their bassist on all but their first 2 albums. I love their 3 piece bass driven sound. Dave's bass tone is nothing short of amazing to me. From what I've gathered online, he plays P basses almost exclusively, although I have seen some pictures from a few years ago of him playing an EGC bass. The few comments I have found about his rig say he uses the typical SVT + fridge combo, and a Rat pedal. I've never found any pics of his board.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss any info about Dave's gear, or nerd out about his playing. Any stories are welcome.

 

[basst scho]

i saw unsane this summer at a small festival and they were using little combo-amps.
can´t remember what bass he played

 

[AaronVonRock]

I'm a huge Unsane fan and absolutely love his bass sound. I think you pretty much have a good idea of his bass gear. It's nothing fancy but just kicks you in the balls when he plays.

Dave is also the road manager for the Melvins and a few other bands.

 

[Gav4003]

to resurrect this one as I found it doing a search on unsane gear, an old band of mine played with unsane years back in Bristol (UK) and I got talking to Dave for a while, he had a standard ampeg svt head and 810 cab, he had an old p bass that was all stock and a rat pedal (old 80's one) that had been repaired many times. possibly a tuner too. Really simple set up, he just hits the strings really hard. Amazing tone, great player, really nice guy.

 

[deff]

I'm always surprised that I don't see more about Dave here on the forum. While there are bands that are heavily bass oriented Unsane is maybe the archetype for heavy bass driven music. He's probably been the biggest influence on me as a writer, although I suppose that Chris Spencer writes most of the material. Dave's writing and playing is just unsettling in all the right ways. He's definitely in some ways should define what heavy bass playing should be.

 

[Tim Parks]

Keeping this thread alive for a great bassist…

Saw Unsane last feb in Costa Mesa, CA
I wasn’t there to take pictures, but I did grab a couple. I could be wrong, but it looks to me like Dave was playing a Music Man, likely an EBMM Stingray. Shot a pic of his board

 

[bassness]

Dave isn't in the current version of Unsane. That's Cooper on bass, who played guitar in JJ Paradise Players Club along with Dave on bass.

Dave is currently living in Italy and has a band called Baratro.

 

[Tim Parks]

Ah, thanks for the correction!

 

[deff]

Cooper is pretty awesome as well, if you only take his work for Made Out of Babies. But he's done so much more. Certainly he and Dave are both fantastic musicians.