My guitar teacher, Chuck. I started taking guitar lessons when I was 12, and when I told him that I also play trombone, he said "Oh! Then you'd make a good bass player!" I didn't pick up bass until I was 15, but he was my inspiration for the most part.
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Who started it all for you?
- Thread starter trayner1
- Start date
Please don't laugh at me too hard 
This is the guy who started it all for me. Taira Yoshiyuki, a fictional character from the manga / anime Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad. I was around 15 years old (19 now), with no interest in music whatsoever. This anime pretty much gave me a glimpse about what all the hype was about. Playing a Musicman Stingray, he was pretty much sought after by most of the bands in the story. It pretty much reshaped my entire idea behind what bass was all about. After I finished watching the series, I borrowed an Ibanez PJ from my church a couple of days later Bass was my first love before I turned into a guitard... but even to this day I still love bass!
In the real light of things, most of the soundtrack was done by a Japanese band called Beat Crusaders, so I guess the one who REALLY got me started was their bass player, who is Masahiko Kubota.
This is the guy who started it all for me. Taira Yoshiyuki, a fictional character from the manga / anime Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad. I was around 15 years old (19 now), with no interest in music whatsoever. This anime pretty much gave me a glimpse about what all the hype was about. Playing a Musicman Stingray, he was pretty much sought after by most of the bands in the story. It pretty much reshaped my entire idea behind what bass was all about. After I finished watching the series, I borrowed an Ibanez PJ from my church a couple of days later
Bass was my first love before I turned into a guitard... but even to this day I still love bass! In the real light of things, most of the soundtrack was done by a Japanese band called Beat Crusaders, so I guess the one who REALLY got me started was their bass player, who is Masahiko Kubota.
Jack Bruce. Crossroads in particular. The fact that Clapton played not one, but two if his best solos ever, yet what Jack was doing was even better sealed it for me.
John Entwhistle has to be the first. One listen to "Who's Next" when it was released (1971) and I was hooked on The Who and John's masterful bass playing. I don't know why I waited until 2004 to start playing bass. 
I was playing guitar for 30 years before that. Again, !!!!
I was playing guitar for 30 years before that. Again, !!!!
Jason Newstead of Metallica. They did a cover of the Wait by Killing Joke and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever heard. It was the first song that the bass really spoke to me.
I really dig this thread. A lot of variety.
My bass muse kicked me in the ass when new wave was just getting off the ground and late 70s British punk rock scene was dying out. It wasn't until later in the 80s when I started searching for my influences' influences..
I think I posted this on another thread, but there was a show hosted by Herbie Hancock called 'Rock School', and the lesson on funk got me hooked.
My bass muse kicked me in the ass when new wave was just getting off the ground and late 70s British punk rock scene was dying out. It wasn't until later in the 80s when I started searching for my influences' influences..
I think I posted this on another thread, but there was a show hosted by Herbie Hancock called 'Rock School', and the lesson on funk got me hooked.
I was 10 in 1976. I wanted to be Gene Simmons even though I didn't know what a "bass guitar" was. Once I figured it out, I told my older brother, who was a drummer, that I wanted to play bass like the guy in KISS.
He told me to listen to a "real bass player" and gave me his copy of Quadraphenia by The Who. That pretty much killed the KISS stuff.
A year or so later, he gave me another album called All The World's a Stage. That pretty much sealed the deal. So, put me down as one of the Gene/Ox/Geddy guys.
He told me to listen to a "real bass player" and gave me his copy of Quadraphenia by The Who. That pretty much killed the KISS stuff.
A year or so later, he gave me another album called All The World's a Stage. That pretty much sealed the deal. So, put me down as one of the Gene/Ox/Geddy guys.
The 3 J's
First Entwistle through "Can't Explain". Made me think it might be better than guitar
James Jamerson( although it was a few years until I had the name to go with the sound) and finally a meeting with Jaco's solo album in 1976
First Entwistle through "Can't Explain". Made me think it might be better than guitar
James Jamerson( although it was a few years until I had the name to go with the sound) and finally a meeting with Jaco's solo album in 1976
John Taylor started it for me. After listening to "Nightboat"(Duran Duran, Duran Duran) I realised I wanted to to able to write and sound basslines like that. I was 13 at the time.
Yep! Nightboat is a great track. And creepy too.
The bass line is really menacing, and for a while I thought he was trying to mimic a fog horn - I think it's on the bridge section? lol
The bass line is really menacing, and for a while I thought he was trying to mimic a fog horn - I think it's on the bridge section? lol
I started playing drums when I was 12 and never touched a bass until I was 27. I always loved the sound of the bass and understood that the bassist and the drummer were a two piece machine. I would say that Harris, Avery, and McKaggin were the ones who stuck out the most. But it wasn't until I joined the Jazz band I high school that I wanted to play bass. This kid named Anthony Perez was the bass player and was a beast. He made that beat up Precision do things I never heard before. He was the reason I wanted to play bass, but I didn't act on it for many years later. I believe he lives in NYC and is a studio/broadway artist. Who knows, he may be on this forum.
Anyways, Thanks Anthony.
Anyways, Thanks Anthony.
Mel Schacher of Grand Funk was the guy that made me want to take up bass. Of course I also loved McCartney, Jack Bruce, Felix Pappalardi, Larry Taylor and many other great bass players of the 60's and later during the 70's. It was Mel that made me go crazy for bass when I was just a young punk kid blasting those GFR records in my bedroom, on my crappy Columbia Masterworks stereo record player.
Hi!
For me, it was some bass-player in a band who came to our highschool for us to watch in music class.
After this, I listened to (and watched) Sting, Flea, Fieldy and lots of others.
My latest attatchments are Stanley Clarke, Jaco, Ozomatli, Bootsy, Les Claypool, Louis Johnson, Mark King, Aston Barrett, Billy Sheehan, Tony Kanal, Marcus Miller, Esperanza Spalding, and many others.
Ultimately, I tend to find it an endless journey, and I think it was Sting and the Police which got me listening to music in the first place - listening to it growing up when I was a kid.
Cheers, good question!
JOHN
For me, it was some bass-player in a band who came to our highschool for us to watch in music class.
After this, I listened to (and watched) Sting, Flea, Fieldy and lots of others.
My latest attatchments are Stanley Clarke, Jaco, Ozomatli, Bootsy, Les Claypool, Louis Johnson, Mark King, Aston Barrett, Billy Sheehan, Tony Kanal, Marcus Miller, Esperanza Spalding, and many others.
Ultimately, I tend to find it an endless journey, and I think it was Sting and the Police which got me listening to music in the first place - listening to it growing up when I was a kid.
Cheers, good question!
JOHN
Please don't laugh at me too hard
This is the guy who started it all for me. Taira Yoshiyuki, a fictional character from the manga / anime Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad. I was around 15 years old (19 now), with no interest in music whatsoever. This anime pretty much gave me a glimpse about what all the hype was about. Playing a Musicman Stingray, he was pretty much sought after by most of the bands in the story. It pretty much reshaped my entire idea behind what bass was all about.
That's no reason to be ashamed, man. Taira's a great bassist. the first time I watched Beck I already played bass, but he still was somewhat inspirational to me.
I only realised it when I picked a bass for the first time, but the low-end was always the thing I liked the most. I tried to play guitar, a few years back, but the 6 strings were to many and to much for me. As soon as I started playing something clicked inside my, and there I went, up the funky road.
Flea was the first "bass-idol" I had, so I guess he was the one for me
Flea was the first "bass-idol" I had, so I guess he was the one for me
Although I had been playing bass for at least a year, maybe two, Cliff Burton was responsible for my awakening into bass. The bass intro to For Whom the Bell Tolls revitalized my bass playing and got me where I am now. I don't draw as much influence from his playing now, but I have to give credit where it's due.
