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00:00What is a bass line?
00:12What is a bass line?
00:14No, a bass line to me is something that has groove
00:17and that carries the song that makes you wanna dance.
00:22A bass line is one note that leads to another note
00:26that creates perfect painting.
00:28I'm in the right place at the right time.
00:31The bass is the flavor.
00:33It's the juice, it's the seasoning, right?
00:38It's a melody down low.
00:40It's the roots from which the plant of the song grows.
00:46If you were from space and you wanted to know what a bass line was...
00:50It's the hands on the wheel of the car.
00:53Sexy, rude, low notes.
00:57Bass is a physical thing.
00:59It kind of hits you in the gut.
01:01My palms are shaking, my nose is tickling.
01:06I say yes.
01:07I like that.
01:09Fog horns.
01:10This boot...
01:12...booms and it carries for miles.
01:14Well, if I had it in bass, I don't know what is.
01:16It's all about the groove, baby.
01:21I'm Nate Mendel, bass player and original member of Foo Fighters.
01:25And along with Dave, the only one that's been along for the whole ride.
01:28Nate Mendel plays fucking bass and Foo Fighters always have.
01:31Look at that guy.
01:33Creating the bass lines that glue our songs together is a job I've loved for over 30 years.
01:41It's the bass that lies at the heart of the songs we all cherish.
01:48Cementing the foundation that is Foo Fighters rhythm section and creating something meaningful that the audience can physically and emotionally feel is my prime motivation.
01:56Along with a stellar lineup of four string heroes, I'm going to explore the vital power of bass in music.
02:05Nice cup of tea there.
02:07I'll take you to the studio where Foo Fighters' bass lines are born.
02:10A lot of heavy recordings were done on this.
02:14Nate, how are you doing?
02:16And swap some stories with friend and Nirvana bassist, Chris Novoselic.
02:21It's a simple song.
02:22We're going to celebrate our favorite bass lines.
02:28Psycho Killer is one of the most iconic bass riffs in history.
02:33This bass line has all the things.
02:36And explore the unique sonic element of the low end.
02:40Never quite sure whether it's going to explode.
02:42I didn't think I would appreciate living in Los Angeles because I grew up in the Northwest and I need trees and rain and mountains.
03:00And this is kind of the opposite of that.
03:01But there's definitely beauty up here. You just got to search for it a little bit more.
03:06One of the reasons I love playing bass is it's like a meditation.
03:10I'm so focused on the thing.
03:11Everything else just gets cleared away.
03:12And those moments are so rejuvenating.
03:13And those moments are so rejuvenating.
03:18My role serves as both the backbone supporting and the heartbeat propelling Foo Fighters forward.
03:23All my life I've been searching for something.
03:24It's all my life.
03:25I love that one because it's a great one to start with.
03:26Because you've got that turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn.
03:29Like this propulsive thing.
03:30And like, okay, when's it going to hit?
03:31And then bam, on that downbeat.
03:32I love that one because it's a great one to start with.
03:36You've got that turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn.
03:41Like this propulsive thing and like, okay, when's it going to hit?
03:44And then bam on that downbeat.
03:45You got to go in that riff with everybody going full speed.
04:00Kind of awesome.
04:01It's well-known that many of the best bass lines can be spare.
04:06And here you go.
04:07I play this one on one string.
04:10But in those kind of setups, there are also references and references,
04:14but it's what the song needs here a relentless pace at the low frequency to
04:18rumble and plow through the speakers and then you throw an audience on top of
04:22that and that's when it becomes something that truly transports you
04:29for me playing bass with Foo Fighters it's flow state so when you're in a flow
04:34state you could be writing you could be a poet you're in your element things are
04:39working it's coming together and you're able to like apply your craft in a way
04:42that resonates with your soul because when you're feeling it and then you
04:47notice that the crowd is to you you're all part of the same animal and then it
04:53snowballs and that can be pretty magical
05:02yeah it's crazy when we play like big gigs you can really see the effect it has on
05:07the crowd so sometimes playing even one simple riff and you really see the crowd
05:11react to that then you can really tell like how they can like feel the bass
05:18vibrating through them makes you just want to get lost in the music a good
05:22bottom end has a profound physical effect on people as a DJ I can see it when
05:27that when the bass kicks in because it does it vibrates you like you're a good
05:30bass line goes down your rib cage and ends up in your stomach
05:34that frequency seems to affect this region of the body when that bass plays they have to move their
05:52your waistline
05:58sonically it's the heaviest thing in the world it's like a fucking lion moving like a tiger
06:05that is how it's not scared of anyone it's moving its own half-time pace yeah
06:10there's a primeval power there you know
06:16jack bruce sunshine of your love it's so on the money you know
06:21that riff has like a certain forbidding quality you know it's heavy it's a heavy riff
06:31the simplicity is fantastic
06:36that riff I'm loud and I'm proud and I'm dark right in this way of I'm it's a minor key this is not
06:51happy and uplifting so there's a lot of blues and I love it already it's like there's several
07:02statements in there right so this is a statement and then where could it go from there it doesn't
07:11get any sunnier it's so the whole thing it's darker
07:16I mean you can't imagine a time when that riff didn't exist can you
07:33get out of bed and wait till it goes on
07:37I wanted to see the cream up in Birmingham
07:40everybody was there to see Eric Clapton there was hardly anybody where Jack Bruce was playing so I was
07:47standing next watching Jack Bruce and I'd never thought about bass before
07:51and I was just absolutely mesmerised on what Jack Bruce was doing
07:59bending the notes and I'd never heard the bass player do that
08:03it was sort of like lead guitar on bass
08:07which is so different normally the rhythm guitarist would like sort of drown out what the bass was
08:15playing you didn't really notice what the bass was playing when I saw Jack Bruce he just had this
08:20whole new way of playing Jack Bruce incidentally always said that the greatest bass player of all
08:26was J.S. Bach when you listen to orchestral pieces composed by Bach you get these wonderful
08:34do do do do do do do do do do do these wonderful walking bass lines that are sometimes can be sort of
08:42quite atonal but they oh my goodness it that's what's driving this whole thing
08:47ask a lot of bass players I know I've heard you know Flea has said this lots of people say this
08:56Jack Bruce always used to say that yeah the father of the bass as we know it is Bach that idea of a
09:03piece of music that is scaffolding the basis of bass playing as we know it is Bach cello
09:07the Pacific Northwest in the mid-80s was home to a thriving underground DIY music scene
09:16and it was this that provided my first insights into what a great bass line could be
09:21I was maybe 11 or 12 I had a friend and he was a guitar player and we're just hanging I was like
09:29we should start a band and he said I'm already playing guitar so that leaves you with bass it's
09:34like great so I got a got a bass and tried to kind of figure out what was going on I was really
09:43into the police's ghost in the machine record it's fronted by a bass player great bass lines
09:48amazing record so in the back of my mind I was like oh Sting's cool I'll I'll do that
09:54spirits in the material world is one of the police and therefore Sting's greatest bass lines
10:04masterful in its simplicity it plays with rhythm to create tension against the syncopated synth line
10:19syncopated up note stuff that they borrowed from reggae and then come down on the downbeat for the chorus
10:27it was cool there wasn't a lot of complicated stuff with Sting he wasn't like a prog guy you want
10:38to write a catchy bass line and he was great at that
10:41although Sting was a jazz player at heart the police had enough punk attitude that it was a natural
10:55evolution for me to gravitate to the hardcore scene springing up around me I gravitated towards
11:00punk rock really early on and let's print the t-shirts let's print the stickers let's figure out
11:06how to buy a van book shows and do a band and go out there and not worry about the musicianship so much
11:13but go out and have a good time and be weirdos always remember the moment that it clicked for me
11:18it was a black flag record Damaged
11:20and I'm just sitting in my buddy's room or listening to it like what is this what is this and all of a sudden it was like
11:29this is going to be my life from here on out it was like that I love this and it fit in really well with
11:36skateboarding it's like almost everyone was doing hardcore was on a skateboard skateboarders were all
11:40listening to hardcore and it was like the perfect soundtrack and I loved it
11:44that's a minor threat baseline well it's really fast right a lot of root notes a lot of falling what
11:57the guitars are doing primarily like really fast pick work that's why I started playing with a pick
12:02you're trying to play those those lines and it's just it's doable with your fingers but because
12:09it's a softer tone and it's harder to maybe play as fast with your fingers I kind of gravitated towards
12:15the pick so it's just a lot of like playing fast before long my high school band diddly squat were
12:21playing throughout the northwest we had all the punk prerequisites snarling guitars and a fully
12:26ignited crowd slam dancing along it was furious and weird and I loved it the crowd was slam dancing
12:33people are throwing elbows I mean the whole idea is that like the music is at best it's it's really
12:40explosive and just like creates this well of energy within you and so that's that's where slam dancing
12:45came from I was like how are we going to react to this we're not going to be doing this you know why
12:50don't we just get a big circle pit going and try to mimic the energy that's coming off the stage
12:55it was like loose and small and energetic so it was exciting
13:01having grown up emulating the raw energy of punk rock that was Tony the singer diddly squat I began
13:11finally to understand what diddly squats guitar player Jason Cobb had been trying to tell me all
13:15along I should be taking cues from the likes of Geddy Lee Steve Harris and of course the goat or should I
13:22say ox John Entwistle I was trying to learn my generation bass solo the bass solo my generation is
13:41just insane about you know that they they thought of that you can't really talk about bass playing
13:48without mentioning John Entwistle he's doing this like triplet thing so instead of doing this he's going
13:57he's doing all three and they'll like kind of this weird triplet thing with it I still don't get this
14:10three finger thing that he can do and I've seen other players demonstrating it but for me that's
14:17where the symmetry goes goes off for me can't think in threes also up here and he had his bass set up to
14:25where it was the strings are really close to the frets so he would barely have to touch it he was
14:30almost like happy I don't know how he did it but he was able to get that thing that's very like
14:37signature and to us all where you got a ring around and he was like I mean he's he's a master I think
14:46Entwistle was unique because he had this deep musicality we came from being a horn player and
14:53then he had this just male aggression and and that's what makes it amazing he has so many
14:59techniques he had a very particular like a typewriter thing a certain way of attacking the fretboard and
15:05the strings uh which I loved and which made perfect sense because not only was he in a band with Pete
15:11Townes he was a band with Keith Moon so he's got to be heard
15:15Entwistle invented the idea of the bass kind of as a weapon you know rather than being a polite boy at
15:25the back of the class man what a guy the ox was absolutely astounded really admire like I love the
15:33who I said I'm a bit of a moddy boy got my scooters in the shed I'd like to borrow your bass for a minute
15:42the dawn of the 90s I packed up my bass and headed to the epicenter of post-punk Seattle grunge was
15:49about to blow the doors off the mainstream and my then new band sunny day real estate was signing to
15:54the same label that had released early Nirvana and Soundgarden records we had this house I had like
15:59seven guys living in it and jam forever in the basement and it became a kind of a good band
16:11seeking a detour from the blunt aggression of hardcore I found a better fit in the more
16:16melodic sounds in the d-rock's early days I had a lot of things that were helpful to me as a bass player
16:28in that band there these arpeggiated like wide open guitar lines so there's a lot of space to kind of
16:37structure the song around what the bass is doing because the guitars were a little bit more nebulous
16:43just from in circles I don't know I like always think if there's anything close to like a signature
17:04bass line that I've ever had I think that might be it
17:07it felt like a progression and just like was where I wanted to go at the time I just wanted to get lost
17:16in the song you know that song's got that kind of circular movement where you can kind of get lost in
17:23a trance with it which is ultimately where I wanted to go where I did go next was somewhere I'd never
17:30expected the trailblazing Nirvana had shot to fame then crashed down with the tragic death of Kurt Cobain
17:35and what seemed like the blink of an eye we were all in shock for Dave Grohl healing meant writing a
17:42collection of songs that become the first Foo Fighters album I finally got the nerve to ask him
17:48it's like hey I heard you might be putting a band together so we got together at us and jammed and we went
17:55upstairs to grab a sandwich or something and sitting around the table and Dave goes like you guys want to start
18:00your band none of us had a clue what this band would become stadiums Grammy trophies and the Rock
18:09and Roll Hall of Fame still feels surreal I always thought that there should be like like a guidebook
18:20when you move from like playing clubs like operating at a higher level where you've got managers and agents
18:27and publicists and like there's this whole operation that happens and no one's ever like oh by the way
18:33this is how things work you just start doing it and so you kind of have to like get your sea legs a
18:41little bit figure out how you're gonna deal with it definitely early on it was pretty disconcerting just
18:47operating at this level the best way that we found to manage this life that we found ourselves in
18:53is to not take it too seriously this is my exact commute to work
19:02we were like not really a hundred percent LA based until like the early 2000s
19:09and we were practicing at this place called mates which is here in the valley and it was fine but wanted
19:20to do a place that was like ours you know like a studio a place to rehearse
19:24and it's just kind of like a hangout place we'll do like everything there we've recorded videos
19:35there parties there it's just kind of like home base the video for white limo was an homage to the
19:45lo-fi super 8 videos we'd grown up with we filmed it just outside the studios I love this song all the
19:52more because despite my steady diet of punk rock I developed an up-down picking style and ignored the
19:58power of the downstroke until I discovered it during this recording like I said it's self-taught so I
20:15never did downstrokes which sound are kind of a you know principal way of hitting the hitting the
20:21string with a pick weird for me it always be it sort of moves back and forth it's not as as percussive
20:31with a great bass line it can be as much about how you hit the strings as it is the writing of the
20:45notes themselves heavy downstrokes with a pick work great for rock but there are myriad different
20:50ways to express yourself through these four strings one of my all-time favorite bass players is Tina
20:57Weymouth whose fingers brought so much feel and creativity to her playing with talking heads
21:02they've got this concert from Rome in like 1980 we can kind of see her doing that bass line
21:12and that's the foundation of the song it like starts with a jam and her just doing that like
21:24voodoo it's kind of like spooky it's like a spider crawling up your arm I love I love that bass line
21:31she's using a pick but she managed to get all these different sounds out of it that I can't recreate
21:47you know like like that's almost like a pop but she's not popping but if you watch her she's going
21:57which kind of makes all the difference and makes it good very often in in the world of bass people can
22:08have exactly the same equipment but their fingers are different they just get a different sound I thought
22:15Tina Weymouth was extraordinary for such a petite waif like person she could find ways of of of just
22:26finding these quite simple rhythms and quite you know minimal parts that just kind of punch through and
22:33carried the whole song along it's really difficult to copy another player's instinctive style and this
22:41becomes even more elusive when as with so many of the greatest bass lines it's paired down to just a
22:46few simple notes of course we all know it it's like three notes sit really simple but effective
23:07bass line that people still will respond to Tina she's of course like such a legend and she's like
23:16way more precise and clean and like technical she always brings this like sexy groove into the songs and
23:24many of the songs of talking heads have this like super hooky bass lines that really makes you want to dance
23:31like psycho killer I think it's one of the most famous riffs and it just comes from the bass line
23:40this is like the main thing that I loved about Tina that really stuck with me and that inspired me a lot to also try to
23:51bring that energy that dance the and sexy feeling into our tracks
23:55here we are 606 studios Foo Fighters lair
24:06we're deep in LA San Fernando Valley but as you go in you may notice a slight nod to Stockholm Sweden
24:18it's kind of a low-rent version of ABBA's studio when we were putting it together I think Dave had
24:27a book of ABBA's studio I forget what it's called it's beautiful it's all this woodwork and very brown
24:32and looks like a you know like a Scandinavian beautiful studio so we tried to mimic that as
24:38best we could but we're ding dong so this is what you get the vintage Neve console was brought in
24:44from legendary sound city studios a few miles away the birthplace of everything from rumors to never
24:49mind a lot of heavy recordings were done on this definitely some Fleetwood Mac you got Stevie Nicks a
24:57signature here it's beautiful sounding board it's very finicky twist the knob you're going to find a
25:06decent spot in the knob where it's like it's clear and then you're good to go onwards we're set up here
25:15for rehearsal right now with roughly this the setup that we'd have on stage I've got the big cabinets
25:22for the tiny speakers I had these made recently just kind of for fun really this is an SVT speaker and
25:30ordinarily they've got eight speakers and this has got nine yeah what's the difference between eight and nine
25:36um one I don't know it's beyond that I don't yeah so Pat's over there I'm here we've got uh TBD drummer to
25:48be there and uh Dave's on either side of the drummer here and then Chris is over there who likes to have
25:54a menagerie of amplifiers because he's very particular about his sound world is hammering away and Chris is
26:01like hey hang on a second I want it to sound like nuanced and Foo Fighters I think the role of the
26:06bass is to is to be that that glue you know it's stability like you've got it you got to be solid
26:14Dave's playing guitar and running and singing still remarkably tight but there's a lot going on Pat's
26:24got amazing feel and a great ear but he gives very few fucks about hitting the note at the right time
26:32Chris Shifflett he's the only guy in the band that reads music he's excellent guitar player he's very
26:39tight but he's all the way on the other side of the stage he's competing with these other two guitar
26:43players Taylor Hawkins playing drums excellent drummer but very frenetic it's going to be maybe a little
26:49bit different every night which is cool and exciting but it adds an element of chaos so whenever
26:55that kick drum hits I need to be on it if the kick drum is hitting with what I'm playing then there's
27:00going to be a foundation that's going to read out in the audience and the guitars can be a little
27:05looser and it can it'll be okay I just didn't want it to turn into a cacophony
27:16here's a good example our song the pretender for my part there's not a lot of notes here
27:23but this song relies on the timing of those notes if you've seen the movie whiplash you'll know what
27:29I mean like you can play behind the beat you can play on top of the beat you know there's basically
27:34a pulse of where the song is and different players will play around with that
27:38Taylor grew up with Stuart Copeland from the police as a big influence and Stuart's on top
27:49so he's like almost anticipating the beat and moving the song for you're still in you're still
27:55in time you're just kind of slightly ahead of it it creates this tension in the music and Taylor was
28:03like that so I just I was locked into him that that was my thing is like I'm gonna play the best
28:10I can play as interesting as I can but what I'm really trying to do is when he goes I'm gonna be
28:15right there with him well Taylor and I were the odd couple right so I'm more quiet and withdrawn not
28:24moving through the world with a big ego or a loud voice whereas Taylor was you know a bit of a bull
28:30in a china shop and so I think that we balanced each other well and had a lot of respect for each
28:36other once we kind of got to know who we were and it was uh it was it was fantastic it was really really
28:43great and I just I admired him so much as a musician we found a real love for each other over the years
28:48and it was great because of that yin and yang when we lost Taylor we lost a brother and our band will
29:03never be the same for me I now have to forge that almost telepathic bond with someone new
29:09and as every bassist knows this very special connection between bass and drums is the driver
29:16of any band the connection between bass and drum is one of the most important things with Ethan we
29:26really just like locked with each other since the start it's really easy and we have a lot of fun like
29:35jamming just me and him many times and many tracks were born just from me and him like creating
29:42the bass groove you know of the song and creating the foundation yeah we have such a strong and special
29:47bond and that's I think what makes the core of of our music you know I don't have a really better
29:56way to say it than what Keith says about you know the bass and the drums are like the engine room
30:00while Charlie loved blues music and loved you know rock and roll the thing closest to his heart was jazz
30:14music and uh we've had that in common he collected antique cars but he didn't drive you know what I mean
30:21he was really a kind of really interesting interesting fellow I listened to him very very carefully early
30:28on I learned a lot from him about not being too precious about certain things it's difficult for
30:36me to talk to talk about because I think it it's beyond the realm of words in a way
30:42bass and drums are usually inseparable locked in tight for the good of the other instruments in the
30:51band but on occasion us bass players will quietly come up with a line that's so inescapably good
30:58it can carry the rhythm and the melody and with it the song a bass line that you could play it anytime
31:05anywhere any party and it'll probably get it cracking right so when I play those three notes what do you
31:13hear boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom I think that most great
31:31bass lines however you want to define great they have an element of boldness if you're noticing and
31:36you're paying attention to that bass line it's because it was played with attitude another one bites the dust
31:45was written around the bass line right sometimes that happens where the bass player comes up with
31:49something great and everyone joins in and this bass line has all the things I think context construction
32:03like how it's built in terms of the chord changes tone and his tone on that is perfect I think the feel
32:11you could have all the other elements but if the feel is not right the feel is missing something's
32:16missing it's the space it's the space between the note it can do very little but imply a lot and I
32:28don't know how that magic happens but to me it seems like it's like it's what's not there it kind of sparks you
32:33to feel something and then you're kind of waiting for it to land or something and so it so that becomes more
32:41engaging than something that's just kind of relentless that's a super famous bass line and the whole song
32:47is built around that whole riff and nothing else
33:00coming up on the west coast of the 80s punk shot through our world like a lightning bolt it was new and
33:07it was ours and at that very same moment in New York another music revolution was underway hip-hop channeled
33:16the same angst and energy into its lyrics but a sonic power was fueled by big bass lines there's so much
33:23great music created in the 60s and the 70s but what hip-hop did was go back to all those records just to find
33:31those dope samples in order to create new music and a lot of those best samples had the fattest bass lines
33:41the SP-1200 this is the same kind of machine that a tribe called Quest used RZA Wu-Tang he actually signed
33:51this one they used SP-1200 so many people use this this is the machine that sampled older records to make new
34:00music so what does that mean you can get a record right you put it on and you play the record and you
34:08find that one cool part on the record and it might be like a six second loop you plug it into here and
34:16then you press record and it'll sample those six seconds let's just say on here and I could play those six
34:24seconds I could slow it down speed it up I could play play play play play those six seconds and make
34:32something new with it one of the earliest examples of the power of sampling was when Sugar Hill Gang
34:40created Rapper's Delight by upcycling the bass line to Chic's good times the result landed in an iconic song
34:46was born Bernard Edwards wrote possibly what is the greatest bass line ever good times it's part of
34:56the fabric of every every bass player I think that's a groove and it's possibly the groove of all grooves
35:02it makes you move makes you feel happy makes you feel positive and it's just like an old friend you're
35:10gonna sing with me yes like everyone everywhere knows that bass lines the original track when you
35:38think of that song you think of that bass line and it's because it's not a small piece of the song
35:45again it's one of those words like hmm is this song written around this bass line because it is so
35:53crucial and I think when it comes to hip-hop now I mean even you know growing up in the 90s and
36:01hearing all these great songs sampled in hip-hop bass lines not only are they very functional but
36:08but also they now they carry memories so it's like a functional bass line for the song that has
36:14different meanings for different generations and that's a beautiful thing if you can pull it off
36:18I look at records as time capsules waiting to be discovered the soul is captured on wax those
36:28the spirit is embedded whether they're dead or alive and it becomes reborn once it's sampled
36:40hip-hop's sampled bass lines allowed creators to tap into the superpowers of funk and soul masters shaping
36:49the tone and feel of a new song or sound and here's one of the great originators of a new sound put your
36:57hands where I can see them put your hands where I could see them ladies and gentlemen the one and only
37:03mr. Chris Novoselic I like you know I'm best as the man who formed Nirvana want to play some bass alongside
37:11his high school friend Kurt Cobain have you ever played in here before or like new jam room I've been in
37:29many many times yes yes I have when did you start playing like bass I started playing bass in 1985 or
37:38six okay when do we start Nirvana I think in 86 and I was a guitar player and then Kurt had a guitar and
37:45an amp I'll just play bass for me the bass is like what's my job as the bass player it's like so what
37:51does this song need so it's not about me and a lot of it's just dramatic because we're doing like the
37:57music it's kind of like the song has a personality and we are performers right yeah yeah so here's the
38:03soundtrack to our performance bass doesn't have to be just like a guitar like you're just you know
38:09you're stuck on bass and you're following the guitar players like oh no no no no you don't have to do
38:14that and if you can make a bridge between like what the guitar is doing and the vocals are doing and
38:19that kick drum the musical like grow boom all of a sudden you sound big see if you can find that then
38:25you've done your job so I was listening to Bleach the other day and there's a great bass riff that
38:32starts on the starts record I'm gonna fucking butcher it but what is it the bass line from Blue is
38:46quintessential crest turned way down it's a big crushing groove that churns away ramping up the
38:52momentum it doesn't seem complex but there's something of a swagger to it with that bent note at
38:58the end of the phrase if you can get it oh no wow now now okay I'll do it so it's tuned it's actually
39:06you want to play it on your bass so it's gonna sound good I'll play this one I'll play with no this sounds great
39:10it's never it's it's it's a slide and that's one of the tricks but you are bending in there somewhere
39:23it's a it's a it's not a bend it's a slide because you can go it just goes
39:28I had four SVTs like just cranked it would just blast I'd feel it in my feet and then basically on
39:46the side fill give me the kick drum boom boom boom boom and just like if you just then you're tight
39:52wait for it there she goes do you recognize this ding oh did I do that did I borrow your guitar and
40:04fuck it up what did I yes you did the story that I heard was that you were playing and then threw the
40:10thing up in the air and caught it but not quite before it hit the edge of the amp I bet it sounded
40:16cool yeah I can take it they're durable it's fine well how old is that bass is that like a 71 71 this
40:24is my main this is my main bass that I played on all my all my early records I never played
40:29Fender basses I'm a die-hard Fender P bass player but Chris prefers something better suited to his
40:35personal geometry the scroll remember those yeah that's a cool one oh look at this one my signature
40:42bass what do you know yeah I play those Gibson basses because they're big like a lot of people
40:50don't like them because they're too big but they fit my frame this is as the great bassist Mike Watt
40:56would say Thunder broom that brought grunge its ultimate anthem I usually like it's a simple song
41:04Nirvana smells like teen spirit is a pivotal five minutes of music for our generation
41:15it put three punks to the top of the charts and smash the ceiling of our formerly underground music
41:19scene without it there would be no Foo Fighters and it's the brooding hypnotic heaviness of the bass
41:25sound that works to both propel and ground the song you could hear like the the hooks in the vocals and
41:33then you could just kind of like then you could respond like oh I hear that then you could respond
41:38to that or you could follow it like the vocal goes and you're like I would hear Kurt's guitar riffs we
41:44wouldn't slow down enough to like what are you playing there I would just kind of play it why didn't you
41:49tell me that like 20 years ago and the guitar is doing this and all of a sudden you you're like
41:53you're bigger and you'd have they were like in Nirvana there's just three of us right
41:57that's always worth for me maybe that was my secret so Chris tell me what for you makes a great
42:09bass line what makes a great bass line is I'm dying for this it's let me know this position in the in the
42:18music in the composition it's just like because it could be too much or it can be not enough yeah so
42:27you've got to find a sweet spot good vibrations right it's just kind of holding you know it's that
42:36part of the symphony with a part of the symphony that does that you know does that plays that role
42:42in the audio and the for the listener it's just trying to find that spot do you have any favorites
42:49like us that's like my smile so many one great good vibrations there you go
42:57you can never have two record producers in the same room at the same time ever
43:12doesn't work guitar players get on if one of them like idolizes the other one but bass players is
43:20kind of it's kind of a brotherhood actually the camaraderie is amazing nothing like a room full of
43:27guitar players so I'm just saying bass players are very sensitive very artistic people bass players tend
43:40to be pretty steady not so easily you know rattled and their personality seems to match that you
43:48know bass players are generally cool guys maybe that's maybe why I was destined to be a bass player
43:54all along because I would I always had that personality I'm pretty I'm pretty quiet I'm pretty
43:59organized and kind of you know meticulous man I think everybody should play the bass I really do it's
44:06like a horse it's good for the inside of the man and for the outside bass players always tend to be
44:10the most thoughtful uh dependable imaginative but quite um happy to take the backseat happy to know
44:22that they're in control without you know wanting the limelight I once poked fun at arena rock bands but
44:30care for what you don't wish for or maybe secretly do I found myself playing these same venues thanks
44:36to the energetic talent of one of the great rock and roll front men in truth I cherish my place on that
44:42stage sitting just outside the spotlight I don't think I'm alone in that it's where most of us space
44:47players find our home I feel like I kind of have the best world for me which is I get to go out and do
44:55this thing at a high level and then go home and go to soccer practice and no one gives a fuck
45:25you
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