Great metal bass players...

I'm not buying Frank Bello being a mini Steve Harris. He's too sloppy and runs all over the place. Steve Harris is more of a straight ahead speed player.

Rage Against The Machine is very thrash metal. So I'll add Tim Commerford. Some of John Myung's stuff is really boring but the guy is a monster player and Dream Theater is a prog metal band, so he's up there as well.

 

That's who I was going to nominate. That guy is just a fantastic musician all around.

 

I love Commerford's style. Another favorite as many others have said would be Justin Chancellor. I listen to a ton of "metal", but definitely more on the extreme/death/grindcore side of things, and for the most part the bassists are forgettable, or at least don't stand out enough through the mix that I consciously pay attention to them.

The bassist for Fear Before the March of Flames, Michael Madruga, was always a favorite of mine too, he rocked a Jazz bass, monster tone and some interesting lines IMO.

 

Great idea for a thread , off the top of my head

Steve Harris - Iron Maiden , great player , without his basslines Maiden would sound kind of empty
Alex Webster - Cannibal Corpse - Great player , very inventive given the constraints of the genre, great tone that cuts through despite not being particularly loud in the mix
Cliff Burton - Metallica - Great lead bass kind of style, some great inventive parts (the intro part on for whom the bell tolls for example) the isolated bass track for Fight fire with fire is awesome, a real shame he was always buried in the mix
Jason Newsted - Metallica - Great player, again a real shame Metallica decided to bury him in the mix
Frank Bello - Anthrax - Good ballsy bass playing , love his tone
Steve DiGiorgio - Various metal bands - Just a good, solid player, knows when to hold back and when to let loose
Paulo Jr. - Sepultura - not often mentioned but I really like his bass work, not overly flashy but just solid bass playing with a good ballsy tone
Peter Iwers - In flames

 

I'm going to throw out some of the names already mentioned:
Geezer, Steve Harris, Jimmy Bain, Justin Chancellor (metal-ish), Joe Lester of Intronaut, Martin Mendez of Opeth, Cliff Burton (although I'm wary of putting accolades on dead people; we make idols out of them because they never had a chance to release something bad,) Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse, and Frank Bello just because I was a big Anthrax fan in the 80s.

Names not yet mentioned:
Jon Stockman of Karnivool
Nick Schendzielos (Cephalic Carnage, Job for a Cowboy, Havok)
Ryan Martinie
Jeroen Paul Thesseling (stopped playing metal, but his two albums with Obscura are awesome)
Brody Uttley of Rivers of Nihil
Alex Numason of Vintage Caravan
Leo Smee formally of Cathedral, live player for With the Dead (solid grooves and I dig his tone)
Billy Gould of Faith No More (metal-ish)
Derek Boyer of Suffocation

 

+1
Finally some (overdue, imo) mention of ryan martinie.

 

didn't notice dan briggs anywhere yet. he is great, fun to watch.

 

Another obscure honorable mention is Michael "Flint" Vujea from Cirith Ungol. Very solid on the "King Of The Dead" lp (1984) with some cool lines.

 

Roger Glover & Geddy Lee getting mentioned has amused me. I'm surprised no one offered John Paul Jones

it's a shame this guy didn't get to shine in Metallica:



none of the players mentioned are actually made of metal, all flesh & bone

 

I though OHM was Fusion.
Or does Pag also play in a Metal band?

 

Steve Harris because Run To The Hills made me want to play bass in the first place!

Frank Bello who makes bass look fun and he's so energetic. I think he's great!

D.D. Verni because he killed it on Under The Influence, Years Of Decay (My fave) and Horrorscope.

I've got to give it up for Tom Araya for Hell Awaits. The best of the early Slayer stuff where the bass is mixed clearly.

 

Steve Dawson formerly of Saxon was great.



He's still rockin' with Oliver Dawson Saxon:

 

Joey Vera from Armored Saint and Fates Warning

 

Hell yeah! Great band overall. I'm not to sure about the "No Biff" version, though.

 

I finally listened to Damnation after all these years and I was surprised at how much I liked it. There are some nice bass lines on there. I can't really hear Mendez on the other pre-Heritage stuff.

I'm a big fan of Steve DiGiorgio's sound on that first Autopsy album. I'm easy to please. I'm a fan of any Metal bassist I can actually hear.

 

I don't see Geddy Lee at all as a metal player, but you don't listen to Glover on "Fireball" or "Machine Head" and recognize some early heavy metal when you hear it?

 

Felipe Andreoli

 

It's the best lineup the "no Biff" version's had, in my opinion. At least this vocalist somewhat sounds like Biff, unlike the first one who was more glam.

 

Obligatory "Victor Wooten is great" comment.

 

I hear where you are coming from. It's just very hard for me to warm up to other vocalists taking the place of a vocalist that is so unique to the sound of that band. It's kind of like if Motorhead decided to go on w/o Lemmy. It didn't work out too well for Exciter when they went on with other vocalists and Venom (Inc) with no Cronos. Maybe I'm too picky or just a creature of habit?!