Fretless Rock Bassist - anyone?

[Judge]

Follwoing a recent thread about Japan I started listening to Mick Karn and started going through my CD's to dig out more fretless bass playing. I generally prefer rock in all it's various formats and I as I was searching though my CD's I couldn't find any bassist that generally just plays fretless within a rock band format. Is there one?

 

[LajoieT]

If I remember correctly (which is rare) Tony Franklin played Fretless on most if not all of the Firm's tracks.

 

[doc540]

When I saw Chicago Peter Cetera was playing a P fretless and singing.

 

[James Hart]

"Rock" has MANY flavors...

some that I dig are:

Tony Franklin with the Firm and Blue Murder
David J from Love & Rockets
Sting with the Police
Tony Levin with Peter Gabriel

 

[kobass]

I'm not sure if this qualifies as "rock", more like "pop", but the bass player on the late 70's double album (remember albums?) "Frampton Comes Alive" (Peter Frampton) played a maple fretboard P or J (can't remember-it was the seventies!) throughout the entire concert.

 

[Muzique Fann]

Jack Bruce?

 

[MuzikMan]

The guy from Pearl Jam. First album has very powerful rock fretless tone.

 

[VoodooChile]

though not entirely rock (but still damn good), the bass player for fishbone played fretless warwick thumb on quite a few tracks.

doesn't the bass player for Springsteen play a fretless spector?

 

[Lackey]

Sean Malone w/ Gordian Knot

Colin Edwin w/ Porcupine Tree (In Absentia!!!)

Steve DiGiorgio (sp?) w/ Testament, Death, Iced Earth (I think?)

Trey Gunn plays some fretless WarrStickBass on the newest King Crimson album, The Power To Believe

Oh, and of course: Les Claypool

 

[Flanders]

Patrick O'Hearn was known to play fretless when he played with Zappa. And if that ain't rock, mister, I'll eat my hat!

 

[Erlendur Már]

The guy from Pearl Jam. First album has very powerful rock fretless tone.

Jeff Ament. He's very cool.

 

[jerry]

He might be a little obscure, but William Kopecky of the band Kopecky plays fretless in a pretty heavy rock vein. Don't forget the late great Rick Danko from the Band, and Freebo from Bonnie Raitts 70' albums.......both great players that played fretless pre Jaco.

 

[jeff schmidt]

Andy West - Dixie Dregs.

 

[Bassis78]

I also believe Jason Newsted when he was in Metallica played some tracks of fretless on the black album....correct me if I am wrong folks!!!

 

[Steph Dawe]

Dave Gilmour played a fretless in "Hey You" (The Wall), but whether you'd classify that as real rock, it's up to you.

Personally I play fretless in the school rock band (we play stuff like Evanescence and Cake) and it does a good job; I was worried about having too much of a jazz sound but it did well, and had a very hard kinda rough sound.

Whatever that is.

 

[Benjamin Strange]

I'm playing mosty fretless in the new band I've joined, which is kind of a combination of APC/Depeche Mode/Ministry rock type band.

Doesn't that Steve Digornio play fretless in a death metal band?

Jeff Ament is pretty darn cool, too.

 

[john turner]

Follwoing a recent thread about Japan I started listening to Mick Karn and started going through my CD's to dig out more fretless bass playing. I generally prefer rock in all it's various formats and I as I was searching though my CD's I couldn't find any bassist that generally just plays fretless within a rock band format. Is there one?

i play fretless on over half of our first cd and almost half of the 2nd one, including a few distorted fretless solos and some fretless slapping.

 

[Judge]

Some interesting ones there. I'm not familiar with Tony Franklin and he may be one I have to check out.

With regards to Jeff Ament he does use a fretless on occasions but I don't believe he uses it as his main bass. Could be wrong though.

As for John Turner, maybe I'll have to invest in his CD

 

[Steph Dawe]

As for John Turner, maybe I'll have to invest in his CD

I hear he's all right, but nothing on Jaco. 'Cos, you know, Jaco only needed four strings, this guy needs at least 20 on each bass.... j/k Mr Turner.

 

[Ian Perge]

Seconding, thirding... whatevering the Tony Franklin call. It hasn't been mentioned in this thread, but he's played some killer lines on keyboardist Invalid Link Removed "Planet X", "Inertia", "Black Utopia" and upcoming (Fall) solo albums. His fretless P-bass though Ampeg tone slays me, and I'm generally not a fan of "The Ampeg Sound". Odd...