the reason you started.

Geddy Lee, John Paul Jones, Cliff Burton, Krist Novoselic, Steve Harris, and Tim Commerford.

 

Initially - Mike Gordon - Phish

Currently - Garrett Sayers - The Motet

 

Jack Cassidy, Phil Lesch, and best of all I wouldnt have to pay a cover charge to get in the bars any more. Groupies were a perk..............

 

No idols, I needed a hobby, and I wanted to be able to play some bass on my demos (composing a little every now and then).

Been a musician for all my life, main instrument is keyboards (20+ years), and I play a lil guitar, can handle drumsticks, and when needed I do sing backup vocals. Though I don't play actively since a cpl of years, and missed the playing a lil, was just spooking around in my homestudio and really havent done anything really creative music wise for round about 5 years or so.

Bass was a fresh new thing for me, been playing for 1 1/2 years now and I quite suck, meaning, I can play, hang on and play along about any pop/rock tune well, but I have no idea what I do, it just happens. Need to practice more technique, and I would love to learn them scores one day.



D.Don

 

Jack Bruce! The essence of rock and roll cool!

 

The bassist from Aerosmith. One song in particular led to me learning what a bass was (so happens the album that song was on inspired the guitarist in my band to pick up guitar). After that it was a lot of listening to Rush and a lot of playing Offspring that held my interest. There was no particular bassist or bassline that made me want to play; it was realizing what bass was and that it was what I wanted to do.

 

initially it was cliff burton and tom araya

now its geezer butler, steve digiorgio, and jaco

 

I had been playing guitar in jr high, and this was when cable tv and music videos had just started to take off (pre-mtv)... so I started seeing music vids for the first time and I was hypnotized!

The first guy that I saw that made a huge impact was John Entwhistle playing Baba O'reilly onstage w/ The Who. Johns Tone, the awesome Alembic, and his flying all over it was like being struck by lightning. I saw that video a hundred times (even before I heard the studio version- which paled in comparison to what I was used to) and loved it. I saw it again the other day and it made me smile again!

The second (around the same time) was seeing Jaco w/ Joni Mitchell... his total command, and his bass solo over a loop- perfectly illustrated that there were no limits to what you could do w/ a Bass guitar

After that, it was seeing Geddy Lee and Geezer Butler in concert that the die was cast

 

I hate to say it, but Maxwell Murder was what made me want to play bass. My tastes and role models (i have no idols) have matured somewhat, but Matt and his work on that album sold me, no song more so than Max Murder.

 

The reason I started was there wasn't any good bass players in my town.. I was a guitarist always searching for bass players. I always liked early Kiss and some of Gene's bass lines. I was into Nikki Sixx and Dee Dee Ramones attack style.. So I picked it up..and played rhythm guitar on bass for a while.. until I started listening to bass lines more closely. Geezer, Geddy, Steve Harris, Jaco... Suddenly, I was a bass player..for life.

 

George Porter from the Meters made me want to start taking bass seriously, as opposed to just dabbling on it as a side thing from playing my guitar.

Not only that, but I also want to completely dominate my untalented friends who are in bands.

 

My son was learning guitar and asked if I would too. Picked bass to "not get competetive" and he is a musical genius and I hold my own playing in my own band and doing bass for him until he finds a bassist.

 

I was a teen whe I started and was the late 80's. But I wasn't the music of then that got my to want to play. It Jack Bruce, Paul McCartney, John Entwistle, Bill Wyman, James Jamerson, and John Deacon.

 

Gene Simmons, when I was 10

 

To be honest I can't quite remember why I wanted to play bass in the first place. I knew nothing of music, I honestly didn't know what a bass sounded like, or looked like. But one day I thought it would be cool to play and instrument, I thought drums would be nice but the neighbors disagreed. So then, randomly, I chose bass instead.

Some of my bass idols include: Mark King, Stanely Clarke, Chris Squire, Jaco Pastorius, Stuart Zender, Steve Bailey, Michael Manring and Charles Mingus.

 

I picked up bass because I wanted to play like Geddy Lee, John Entwistle, and Chris Squire.

I don't think I got idols, but I do have a lot of admiration for a great deal of bass players. From progressive rock greats like Chris Squire and Ray Shulman to Klaus Fluoride of the Dead Kennedys, if the bass line is good, I can usually dig it.

 

The only idol I really have is P-nut from 311. He is awesome. I mainly took up the bass though because my brother plays guitar and I wanted to see if we could get a band started up. Plus I was pushed into playing really high instruments throughout my life...clarinet, oboe...and I really have always had a crave to play low stuff. Plus I knew that there was a high demand for bassists, and I really really wanted to be in a band.

 

When I was younger I wanted to play bass to be like a rockstar. At least it got me to start playing.

Now currently my idols are James Jamerson, Carol Kaye, Dan Gigon, and many others. I aspire to become a bass teacher in the college I'm studying and get a lot of jazz/RnB/Latin gigs.

 

Bruce Foxton (The Jam) and Norwood Fisher (Fishbone), mainly. And Horace Panter (Specials) and Mark Bedford (Madness), subliminally.