• 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.

What inspired you to play bass?!

smklassen0977

smklassen0977

Nov 4, 2013
54
24
48
North Ridgeville, OH
#1
I looked for similar threads.. Surely this is out there somewhere, if it is, oh well..

Who inspired you? What inspired you? Why did you choose bass over guitar? etc..

Mine:

My brother started playing guitar while he was in his first year at college.. He'd come home on the weekends and play riffs you'd hear on the radio.. Metallica, Deep Purple, AC/DC.. He was hooked and I was amazed that I was hearing the same thing I heard when I'd play my tapes, radio, CD's, etc.. I thought it was the coolest thing.. He was starting a band in college and I was going to the same university the next year.. They needed a bass player.. I had that summer to learn to play before joining the band.. the rest is history.. Other than playing live, players like Cliff Burton (especially), Tony Kanal, Jason Newsted, Sting, kept me going... In the beginning all I wanted to do was shred like Burton's solos.. Then I got hooked with the simple but difficult to sing over lines of Sting, and Fleas slap style, Geezer Butler's jazzing but heavy lines..

Since the beginning I've always liked the "notoriety" of being a part of the foundation of the music, being comfortable with being in more of a support role.. but I can't deny I look forward to the occasional solo.
 
#2
I always liked music as a child. I often played air guitar to the radio in the back of my mom's Buick Electra 225. Always wanted to play. But in 1977 I discovered KISS and it was all downhill from there. But oddly enough the vast bulk of my career has been in country music. Go figure.
 
#3
I was thinking about this not too long ago. I had seven years of music theory growing up, played piano passably well. Played the trumpet for a few years in band, but neither spoke to me.

Everyone I knew seemed to play guitar, but it just never attracted me either. I loved the sound of bass as far back as I can remember. John Paul Jones, Geddy Lee, Jack Bruce, Duck Dunn were the players that I remember not being able to get enough of. And if there was a bass solo in a song, that's the part that stuck in my head.

I picked up a friend's Precision when I was 16 or 17, and fell in love with it immediately. I had my own shortly thereafter (still have that bass), and looking back, I can't imagine choosing anything else.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ladybirdprecision and DougieB
#4
Well like yourself, my older brother played guitar and I just thought the bass was and still is a really cool instrument...Then 1977 saw Rush with Geddy playin the Jetglo 4001 Ric... A few years later when I could afford a bass I started playing...then shortly after I was the proud owner of a Jetglo 4001 Ric...then like an idiot sold it...but now have some newer Rics and really enjoy playing...I,m a lot older and wiser....hmmmm well a lot older.:laugh:
 
#9
I started playing a little bit of bass after playing drums for about 5 years and a little bit of guitar, but I ended up putting it down after a little while... But that's when I heard it... the opening bassline of Sweet Child O' Mine! I was instantly turned on to bass like I had been when I first started playing the drums! So then I got into a bunch more GN'R and other 80's music and now, about 3 years later, all I listen to is Punk and Metal... and alot of other Hard Rock and such. Duff McKagan and (the old) GN'R has taught me so much in my musical journey (definitely not a career) and (the old) GNR is still one of my favorite bands. Thanks Duff!
 
  • Like
Reactions: inate_hex
#12
Playing guitar was on my bucket list but some people at church were going to teach lessons and bass seemed easier to start with so I decided to learn bass first. Playing guitar sounds kind of cool but I fell in love with the bass and stuck with it. My band needed a bassist and I happened to be learning so it all worked out. Bass is best!
 
#14
I have eclectic taste in music, but always gravitated toward the throbbing drive of the bass. I am not sure what planted the original seed. I know Geddy Lee fed that seed for a lot of years, as did Gene Simmons, Geezer Butler, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, Robert Trujillo, Cliff Burton (R.I.P.), Steve Harris, John Myung, etc... I have no aspirations toward a professional music career. Although I am not against the idea of maybe a local country or classic rock type gig very part time, I am a middle aged family man and play music for fun and stress relief when work wears away at my last nerve.

I originally picked up bass as an extension of playing guitar in High School, (or maybe it was Jr. High, I don't remember). Nobody else in class wanted to play the bass, everyone wanted to play the guitar and do the lead thing... I was happy holding down a steady groove and watching... With guitar, folks just sort of listen and smile, throw the bass in and people start MOVING, It's an awesome thing...
 
  • Like
Reactions: pedroims and xbud
#15
It's likely a common theme:
high school buddies wanted to start a band (basically to attract female attention), and they both wanted to play guitar, and I knew I couldn't drum for crap, so bass was all that was left.
It turns out that I have some natural talent for it, so much the better.

First inspirational player after I'd started learning to play bass was Geddy Lee, specifically the song Spirit of Radio.
I've been a fan ever since.

Things turned out pretty well, I got to play with a lot of fun people, have some pretty decent gear, and met my wife through playing in one the of the bands.
Mission accomplished! ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: xbud and EclecticLady
#16
Played guitar for years. Thumbs started getting arthritic as I got older, which made playing guitar chords painful. Not wanting to throw in the towel completely, I tried a short scale bass which, for some reason, doesn't cause the same discomfort. Once I got interested in actually learning to play the thing with some minimal degree of competence, I started hearing new things in songs I'd been listening to for years (as silly as that may sound).

By serendipitous coincidence, I think that the proliferation of well-known songs broken down into isolated tracks on YouTube began to open my eyes wider to the fundamentally important role that the rhythm section plays as a foundation for the whole. As an aspiring guitar player, I think I had become far too focused on the mechanics of the weedily-weedily world of soloing. Now I'm much more intrigued by the elegant simplicity of many great bass lines. Many guitar solos that I used to admire now sound tediously excessive and strangely unmusical to me now.

Go figure...
 
  • Like
Reactions: L Anthony, Imaginary Pony, GrooverMcTube and 1 other person
#18
I started drums and bass around the same time, 1969 at age ten. I leaned toward drums and played in bands as a drummer from 1975 on.

I had my first stroke in 2008 which took me back to square one on everything. I used drumming, trying to drum as a large part of my physical therapy. When I got to the point that I was starting to feel like a drummer again I branched out into hand percussion and bass.
 
#20
Growing up, the majority of music that was played around my home was 50's classics, Motown / R&B and Latin Salsa, Merengue and Latin Jazz. So from my earliest memories, drums, clave (rhythm) and bass were impressed upon me from the speakers of the family's console stereo. From there, I gravitated toward bass in all areas. I have a low voice so in church I would sing the bass parts. Southern gospel music also taught me harmony and ear-training. In the early 80's I got my first bass, a Peavey Patriot, and I've never looked back.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Big Hoss

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back