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Favorite bassists who influenced your style

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 409773
  • Start date Start date
#101
Early influences:
- Dee Dee Ramone
- Paul Simonon
- Jason Newsted
- Early KISS Career Gene Simmons

Influences throughout practicing & mastering bass:
- Lemmy
- Adam Devonshire
- Klaus Flouride
- Simon Gallup
- Duff McKagan
- Phil Lynott

I'm primarily a pick player for precision & attack control. I'll play with fingers if a song calls for a more mellow approach if it feels better than pick. Forces me to change my approach, & that's key for constant learning. I wouldn't say i sound like any of my influences, but you can pin point characteristics of each bassist above in how i write my music/bass lines. Even live, it's a big blend of playing my bass low like Dee Dee, if i'm not singing, i move around a lot like Gallup/Simonon, when i'm singing it's Lemmy/Flouride - i've always described my band as Motorhead meets Dead Kennedys, so its quite fitting.
 
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#104
Jason Newsted (not only as a bassist but also as a live performer and also example of humility)
Justin Chancellor
Flea (however I cant really bring myself to listening to RHCP anymore)
Nicolas Godin (on the Moon Safari album)
Lenny Kravitz (amazing bass player, and as a songwriter too)
Trent Reznor (not a bad bass player, but more so how he would use the bass guitar throughout his catalogue)
Geezer on the first 3
 
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#105
Mikaelbass said:
Lenny Kravitz (amazing bass player, and as a songwriter too)
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I second this! His bass parts are fantastic and always do something fun in support of the song.

The players that have had the biggest influence on me and my playing style are:
John Paul Jones
B.B. Dickerson
Family Man
George Porter Jr.

There are obviously a lot more that have expanded my sense of what is possible, and that have been inspirations to me, but those are the ones that I can hear in my playing.
 
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#106
I want to mention it's actually a lot of drummers who inspire my bass playing because of how I love to hear music that bass flows with the rhythm but also has it's own place that creates a new dynamic in the song. But to answer the question I have a lot of bass players who inspire something in how I play. Anyone who puts feeling and jumps out there gets my attention.
Geddy Lee was the first one to make me want to play a bass thanks to his heavy handed and huge sounding playing. Knowing that I am allowed to actually have my own space with this instrument made me want to learn. Geddy and Neil Peart were huge on me.
After him you have Less Claypool. Dude hears bass like nobody else and it made me really think outside the box. Just like Geddy though Les can play just about anything and make it sound excellent.
Ryan Martinie of Mudvayne is another one who was big for me. He has such great dynamics and once again you'll know it's him if he plays your song.
Nick Schinzielos of Job for a cowboy has amazing tone and can do anything on a bass.
Dirk Lance of Incubus
Billy Gould of faith no more
Tony Levin for making pop music interesting
Rob Trujillo suicidal tendencies/ infectious grooves
Billy Sheehan Mr Big
Peter Steel type O Negative
P nut 311
Robbie Merrill Godsmack
I think with all these guys is that you can hear the bass when they play and I think that should always be heard in the music. I like their style and tone for different reasons
 
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#108
Deleted member 409773 said:
My early influences: Mark King, Louis Johnson, Stuart Zender.
More recent ones: Justin Raines, Vincen Garcia, Andrew Gouche.
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My fav bassist, Geddy Lee. Did he influence my style? Probably not. He did inspire me to play bass though.

Sure when I was young I had dreams of being that good. I actually learned the entire A side to 2112. Took 6 or 7 months of playing and listening and playing, day after day, to do it. But I did it, and then rarely played it again after that. And it's been so long, decades now, that I can't remember the last time I attempted to play anything by Rush.

The reality of it, even if by some miracle, I was as good as Geddy, I most likely would not being playing or sounding anything like him today. And here's why. As much as I love the music from Rush, it's an acquired taste. I love blues based rock, good ole rock n roll from the 70s, some 80s, 90s grunge, and 2000s alternative. And those genres have had a lot more influence over my songwriting than Rush as a whole ever will. And playing out, whether it's bar gigs, festivals, or private events like corporate/private parties or weddings, there's just not a lot of requests for Rush songs.

So between originals and covers, I just don't see a lot of influence from Geddy in my playing style or sound although he is why I picked up a bass in the first place. To me, he is the bass master and there will never be another like him. Chris Squire is another one of those very unique players that left me in awe. But for the same reasons as Rush, I never really played any Yes.

John Paul Jones and John Entwistle, great players as well, some of the best IMO, but Led Zeppelin and The Who had way more mainstream music than either Rush or Yes, and have probably influenced my actual playing and sound more than anyone else. And you could throw in Tom Hamilton of Aerosmith, those early albums, Get Your Wings, Toys In The Attic, Rocks, and Draw The Line had a huge influence on me in the late 70s into the early 80s before joining the Navy in 84. And I still play music off of those albums today. Tom Hamilton was a beast of bass player on those albums, deserves way more credit as a bass player than he got.
 
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#109
From the early days, even before I picked up a bass, John Entwistle, Paul McCartney, and Cliff Williams. In later years, Justin Meldal-Johnsen became a big influence. Most recently, I've been playing lots of Grateful Dead, so Phil Lesh has become a huge influence, and some approaches I've learned for GD songs have started working their way into other material.
 
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#110
Ritter667 said:
I never had an idol as such that I looked up to and attempted to be and sound like, it has always been more of a personal exploration, what can I do on this instrument.

And even the way I started playing bass was not because I heard someone else playing it, it happened after having picked up a bass myself and played it though and amp, right there I fell in love with the massive sound and feel of it.

Also I have never played covers, I've already been in original bands, and have always been more interested in composing/writing my own stuff, than copying what others have done.

But here is a list of my favorite bass players, which I suppose has had some extend of influence on me, in no particular order:

Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (NHØP) - Victor Wooten - Stanley Clarke - Chris Wood - Bill Laswell - Trevor Dunn - Julie Slick - Justin Chancellor - Cliff Burton - Lemmy - Lou Barlow - Paz Lenchantin - Kim Deal - Kim Gordon - Zak Sally - Peter Hook - Paul McCartney - Jack Casady
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I should maybe add that above anything that might have had influenced the way I am playing, being howled in by some friends to play bass in their math rock band, some 20 years ago by now had more influence on the way I am playing today than pretty much anything else.

Odd meters/rime signatures and rhythms became second nature to me, and that have stayed with me when I am composing.

It's not a matter of being clever or contrived, it's simply the way that I naturally "think" music now.
 
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#114
Here are my influences:
1. Lemmy (RIP) - He's easily my biggest influence! His tone, chordal playing, solos, bass intros and use of Rickenbacker basses are all integral to my own style of playing. Listening to Motorhead taught me how to play piccolo bass as well!

2. Geezer Butler - The Godfather of Heavy Metal Bass himself is another huge influence on me. His use of the blues scale, use of the minor pentatonic scale, bass runs, and overall note choices are highly influential. I highly regard the first 2 Black Sabbath albums in particular.

3. Cliff Burton (RIP) - The Major Rager's tone, bass solos, and assertiveness are highly influential! He was a master of knowing when to hold down the groove, when to solo, or when to assert himself for a little while. All my bass solos are influenced by him. I even tried a Morley Power Wah to be more like Cliff, but it didn't work out for my style.

4. Frank Bello - Frank's assertiveness, note choices, and timing are really influential. I also love his philosophy and approach to the bass - being a fan first and creating music that his fans want to hear. Here's hoping that he and Anthrax release an album in 2025!

5. DD Verni - DD's influence on me is more about tone and songwriting. He invented "The Clank" and changed metal bass tone forever with Overkill in the late 1980s. Before that, he played a Ric 4001 and was still very clanky. His songwriting is also second to none in the world of heavy metal.

6. Steve Harris - Steve's use of arpeggiated power chords, melodic runs, and the gallop are influential. He's also an incredible songwriter and bandleader who knows how to be heard in a mix despite playing a P Bass with flats.

7. Geddy Lee - Listening to him play the bass showed me that it was OK to be heavy handed and strike my strings hard. His use of lighter gauge strings is also influential. His Rickenbacker tone and technical prowess on the bass are second to none! His strategically timed melodic runs, solos, and use of the space in a power trio are influential.

8. Jack Bruce (RIP) - Jack's bass lines were a huge early influence on my playing. He was one of the first great melodic rock bassists because he came from a jazz background. I loved how he was able to take advantage of the space in a power trio, hold the groove down, be the "glue" between the drums and guitar, and sing at the same time!

9. Paul McCartney - Paul was my first bass hero as a teenager as the main bassist and one of the main songwriters of The Beatles. Some of the first songs I learned to play as a teenager were by The Beatles and I was able to take what I learned and make it the foundation of my playing. He's also one of the reasons why I put flats on my second Ric 4003.

10. Noel Redding (RIP) - Some of his bass parts from the Jimi Hendrix Experience were influential on me as a teenager and even today. His timekeeping ability, note choices, and chromatic runs were influential to me as a teenager and still are today.
 
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