Two Bassists in a band

[RevOgre]

Umman Manda

 

[wallawallabob]

A full symphonic orchestra usually has 8 bass players.....

 

[mbluto]

Cop Shoot Cop had a decent following in early 90s... two bassists; one clean bass, one overdriven/distorted...

 

[logdrum]

For bass wank fest i.e clinics - sure. But usually 2 drummers would work but not 2 bass guitar players - usually. Orchestra is different, because amplification was not invented when classical music was written

 

[Philip McAdam]

I am just throwing this out there out of curiosity. Some bands have two drummers like the Grateful Dead all the way to Lawrence Welk and other groups in between. Does anyone know of bands that had two bassist? Would it work? Thanks

Oscar Peterson famously played with Ray Brown and NHOP. Seemed to be alright.
The Omnific also has two bass players.

 

[smarthound]

'80s band Delta 5 had two bassists - both female.

 

[ComicBass]

Hipster Assassins!

 

[swarfrat]

How about eight?

 

[packhowitzer]

The band Trans AM used two basses with some regularity:

 

[Pocket Dave]

Here's two bassists with Andy Timmons:

 

[Mr Cheese]

I am just throwing this out there out of curiosity. Some bands have two drummers like the Grateful Dead all the way to Lawrence Welk and other groups in between. Does anyone know of bands that had two bassist? Would it work? Thanks

I believe orchestras have 8.

 

[Ric5]

 

[Ric5]

 

[Cube Bass]

Crimsons in double trio era were already mentioned. I seen them on the Power to Believe tour with only Trey Gunn, but at one moment he had solo on two Warr guitars at the same time - fretted one on shoulders and fretless one layed on a stand like keyboard. (Well, and now they have three drummers..)
I've seen other multi-bass bands - Le Singe Blanc for example. I even saw a three bass band last summer. It was some art/hard core. All instruments tuned to very different sounds - played cool together..

 

[LordRyan]

The Portland, Oregon funk/soul band Pleasure best known for their hit "Glide" had two bass players around 1980 when I saw them at the Oregon State Fair. Nathaniel Phillips was the bassist on all their recordings and he is still with the current line-up. The live show I saw had a second bassist for the whole set. There were some breakdowns featuring both bassists.

According to a radio interview I heard with Brian Holland several of the Holland-Dozier-Holland Motown recordings featured James Jamerson along with a second bassist. The second bassist would hold down a simple low range pattern while Jamerson did his thing in a higher register.

 

[User474755]

The criminally underrated Bay Area thrash pioneers Skitzo have had two bass players for a while now.

 

[Lux]

In Finland we have a funk band Fishmachine with two bassists. The other one plays on high frets sounding like a guitar, the other from low position.

 

[Wood and Wire]

This is one of my all time favourite 2 bass tracks :




Here are a couple of big hit records (at least here in the U.K.), that perhaps people didn't realise featured 2 basses :








Rightly, Ned's Atomic Dustbin have been mentioned a lot, but can we please move beyond Grey Cell Green, and Kill Your Television? - they had a lot of other great songs, with videos :

This one features 2 bass solos




This one is more sparse




This one has great parts for both basses




The bass intro on this one still floors me




Plenty of other tracks to choose from too.

 

[Les Fret]

I have watched some videos posted here with two bass players and drums only. Although they are good I think it gets boring pretty quickly.

But it can be interesting in the right context like Miles Davis with Foley, but that’s piccolo bass which sounds like a guitar. Or King Crimson double trio, but that’s on Chapman Stick or Warr guitar, both can play in the guitar range which makes it more interesting.

 

[gricko]

can not read six pages to check if somebody mentioned these, but, off the top of my head, two from hardcorepunkpostwhatever gengre - girls vs boys and cop shoot cop. some KEN mode songs have two basses and no guitar.