The bass player's function, along with the drums, is to be the engine that drives the car... everything else is merely colours.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The bass should be the note of the bass drum, and then you've got the engine of the band that everything else builds on. Everything else, the guitar, the keyboards, is a colour.
It's really important for the bass and the drums to somehow blend.
The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.
Bass players are always the intellectual kind, but nobody knows it.
I wasn't originally a bass player. I just found out I was needed, because everyone wants to play guitar.
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've been in a band, so I understand the politics. Sometimes the bass player doesn't like what the guitar player is doing, and you have to sort of even that out.
I listened to many different types of instruments and music, and have always tried to look at the bass as an instrument as opposed to only a bass.
Bass guitar is the engine of the band.
A bass player has to think and play like a bass player. A drummer has to play and think like a drummer, and stay out of the way of the vocalist. The guitar player has to respect everybody else.