• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

flea is a monster?

#21
Well it CAN be about the groove. I like to say that bass is about whatever I want it to be at any given time. But otherwise I agree with you.

I see a lot of bassists on here judge other bassists by the amount of strings they break or how low they wear their bass or how much they paid for their bass or some equally unimportant reason, though. Listen, when you get as good as Flea or achieve the lasting fame Flea has had, then you can tell him his technique blows. At which point Flea well tell you to F off, then you'll come on TB and tell everyone how he blew you off. What's it to you if he breaks a lot of strings? He gets them free.

As for the silly comment about having to stop and get another bass, most people can actually make it to the end of the song after they break a string. If you can't, maybe you should learn a little more about the notes on your bass. And Flea DOES have a bass tech to help him get another one of the 4 basses he brings on tour. So that's a moot point.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JackANSI
#23
In answer to the original question - yes I believe it's true, he plays ridiculously hard, and it works for his style / sound.

I myself, am constantly working on technique to avoid string "clacking" or fret noise through finger attack, good left hand technique etc. etc.

Flea uses this as part of his sound, watch him almost unamplified on the net, at bassplayer TV. His technique as demostrated here is one that I'm sure breaks strings.

Link Removed
 
#25
I wouldnt say that is true for drummers, or guitarists, but bassists, if you're slapping and popping "normally" and your strings break, you should calm it down cause next comes your finger joints.
 
#26
And the transformation to bashing Flea/not bashing Flea thread is complete. Just to put a word in, I think most Flea bashers are actually the old guys who can't handle looking at a naked man's body, and in their mind that makes Flea a worse player. I've said it a billion times before, most people just don't understand that Flea is coming from PUNK ROCK, it's all about the intensity. He's not trying to impress anybody, which to me is very....impressive.
 
#27
i've only had a string break on my bass once, and i didnt even do. my guitarist was playing my bass, and asked me about slap n' pop so i showed him how, and he said "like this?" and pulled really hard on the g string. i didnt actually break, it was wierd it kinda unwound itself up by the tuning pegs. that was on my old squier. ghs strings. i still use ghs, i think they're the best by far, stronger and sound good.
 
#28
Maybe Flea doesn't have perfect technique. Does it matter all that much? You can play everything behind your head with your eyes closed on stilts, but as long as it sounds good and you can rock out then you're doing your job as a rock bassist.

It's hard to rock out the way the Chili Peppers do and still play everything as if you were sitting down. Just my 2 cents.
 
#33
I'm not sure about pulling too hard. I think that if thats the only way to get the sound you want, then there's not too many other options.

By way of the Flea-bashing debate, I think he used to get a lot of love on here (so much that I was surprised when I first joined, under a different member name). I think that any bashing now is a result of that maybe undeserved talk before.
 
#36
You have to use MS Internet Exploder for most of them.

if you use opera, you should have the latest Flash installed in

C:\Program Files\Opera\program\plugins

Dunno about firefox, but must be similar.

BTW, I used to break strings when I started. Even the E once, but the D and G mostly. Then I used to bodge them back together. Kinda worked, but it was for a crappy bass, so I didn;t care.

I don't see the problem with breaking strings. Flea plays hard, so I'm not surprised.
 
#38
I have yet to break any strings, btw, and I've been a committed player since... uhhhhhh... January of *scratches head* 2002 maybe? Or 2001... danged if I can pin it down.... And I started trying all that crazy stuff within a month of starting, much to the outward chagrin of the guy (a buddy who was a semi-pro) who taught me. In fact, I used to think the possibility was quite remote until I saw a guy here in Vegas break one during a solo, on an F-bass.

The guy was a full-time pro whose sole job was playing nightly in a Strip cover band (that is, at one of the Strip hotels, playing for tourists), which is a slot that very few ever get (tremendous competition for it), so he was certainly no hack. When I saw him break a string he was playing in a hobby band with other Strip pros so he had much more liberty to solo around and stuff.

Vegas cover bands are perhaps the best anywhere in North America because there's a higher percentage that do it for a living, and there's a lot of competition, especially for the touristy gigs.
 
#40
I have broken a bass string only once in 20 years and that was about 18 years ago. Too poor to replace the strings, I kept the same set for about 9 months, and in the death metal band I was part of my job was to hammer away at the open E string with a heavy pick for about three hours a night (How could I ever have liked that drivel?) until eventually the string broke at the bridge from fatigue, snapping up and leaving the pointy strand at the end sticking in my arm.

Lessons learned:

1) It's better to replace strings more often than once every nine months.

2) It's better to play the bass like a genuine musical instrument rather than mindlessly banging away on the strings like a chimp beating on a tree branch.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back