My dad was a bass player in a Latino band when I was growing up. So we always had musical instruments in our basement.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Music has always been in my family, but it was mainly keyboards. I learned to play classical piano, but when I first heard the amazing bass guitar of James Jamerson, who played on all the big Motown hits of the '60s and '70s, I knew bass guitar was my instrument.
My dad taught me to play bass. He's a bass player; he still plays in a band in Michigan to this day. He taught me to play bass when I was about 6. I used to just go to band practice with him, and whoever didn't show up for rehearsal that day, I would take their spot.
From the first moment that I can remember, I had identified myself as a bass player and it had everything to do with my father, who was a bass player. And he loved music, you know, as much as anybody I've ever seen. And that dynamic I just thought as somehow was a straight pass to me.
I have seven uncles, and my dad played bass, they had a band together, that was the family band. And of course as the cousins got older, including myself, we joined a family band. All the cousins played. That's my heritage.
I play bass. I play a bit of guitar. I've never been to a lesson, so my theory of music is non-existent in any instrument, but we always had guitars around.
My dad loved black singers. So listening to New Orleans music, eventually I wanted to play an instrument.
I realized pretty soon that I have to do more than just play bass in the background way. So, I developed a kind of playing which only a handful of musicians accepted.
A lot of times, I played bass on songs. Gene plays guitar on some songs.
I came from a huge extended family of musicians.
My parents were very musical in the sense that they were, you know, music lovers and avid buyers of records, but none of them actually play an instrument.