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00:00What is a bass line?
00:07What is a bass line?
00:09No, a bass line to me is something that has groove
00:12and that carries the song that makes you want to dance.
00:17A bass line is one note that leads to another note
00:21that creates perfect painting.
00:24I'm in the right place at the right time.
00:27The bass is the flavor, it's the juice, it's the seasoning, right?
00:33It's a melody down low.
00:35It's the roots from which the part of the song grows.
00:41If you were from space and you wanted to know what a bass line was...
00:45It's the hands on the wheel of the car.
00:48Sexy, rude, low notes.
00:52Bass is a physical thing.
00:54It kind of hits you in the gut.
00:57My puns are shaking, my nose is tickling.
01:00I say yes.
01:02I like that.
01:04Fog horns.
01:05This boom...
01:07...booms and it carries for miles.
01:09Well, if I didn't bass, I don't know what is.
01:11It's all about the groove, baby.
01:13I'm Nate Mendel, bass player and original member of Foo Fighters.
01:19And along with Dave, the only one that's been along for the whole ride.
01:22Nate Mendel plays fucking bass and Foo Fighters always have.
01:26Look at that guy.
01:28Creating the bass lines that glue our songs together
01:30is a job I've loved for over 30 years.
01:32It's the bass that lies at the heart of the songs we all cherish.
01:42Cementing the foundation that is Foo Fighters' rhythm section
01:45and creating something meaningful that the audience can physically and emotionally feel
01:49is my prime motivation.
01:54Along with a stellar line-up of four-string heroes,
01:56I'm going to explore the vital power of bass in music.
02:00Nice cup of tea there.
02:02I'll take you to the studio where Foo Fighters' bass lines are born.
02:05A lot of heavy recordings were done on this.
02:09Nate!
02:10How are you doing?
02:11And swap some stories with friend and Nirvana bassist Chris Novoselic.
02:16It's a simple song.
02:19We're going to celebrate our favorite bass lines.
02:23Psycho Killer is one of the most iconic bass riffs in history.
02:28This bass line has all the things.
02:31And explore the unique sonic element of the low end.
02:36Never quite sure whether it's going to explode.
02:52I didn't think I would appreciate living in Los Angeles,
03:02because I grew up in the Northwest, and I need trees and rain and mountains.
03:07And this is kind of the opposite of that.
03:12But there's definitely beauty up here.
03:13You just got to search for it a little bit more.
03:16One of the reasons I love playing bass is it's like a meditation.
03:22I'm so focused on the thing, everything else just gets cleared away.
03:29And those moments are so rejuvenating.
03:35My role serves as both the backbone supporting and the heartbeat propelling Foo Fighters forward.
03:41All my life, I've been searching for something.
03:44It's all of my life.
03:45I love that one because it's a great one to start with.
03:47You've got that dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun, like this propulsive thing.
03:50I'm like, okay, when's it going to hit?
03:51And then, bam, on that downbeat.
03:53Fire!
03:57You've got to go in that riff with everybody going full speed.
04:00It's kind of awesome.
04:02It's well known that many of the best bass lines can be spare.
04:05And here you go.
04:06I play this one on one string.
04:10But it's what the song needs here.
04:11A relentless pace at the low frequency to rumble and plow through the speakers.
04:16And then you throw an audience on top of that, and that's when it becomes something that truly transports you.
04:25For me, playing bass with Foo Fighters, it's flow state.
04:28So when you're in a flow state, you could be writing.
04:31You could be a poet.
04:32You're in your element.
04:33Things are working.
04:34It's coming together.
04:35And you're able to, like, ply your craft in a way that resonates with your soul.
04:41Because when you're feeling it and then you notice that the crowd is too, you're all part of the same animal.
04:47And then it snowballs.
04:51And that can be pretty magical.
04:58Yeah, it's crazy when we play, like, big gigs, you can really see the effect it has on the crowd.
05:02So sometimes playing even one simple riff, and you really see the crowd react to that.
05:08Then you can really tell, like, how they can, like, feel the bass vibrating through them.
05:14Makes you just want to get lost in the music.
05:16A good bottom end has a profound physical effect on people.
05:20As a DJ, I can see it when the bass kicks in.
05:23Because it does it, it vibrates you like a good bass line goes down your ribcage and ends up in your stomach.
05:29That frequency seems to affect this region of the body.
05:43When that bass plays, they have to move their waistline.
05:47Sonically, it's the heaviest thing in the world.
05:56It's like a fucking lion moving like a tiger at its own.
06:01It's not scared of anyone.
06:02It's moving its own halftime pace, yeah?
06:05There's a primeval power there, you know?
06:08Jack Bruce, the sunshine of your love.
06:13It's so on the money, you know?
06:20That riff has, like, a certain forbidding quality.
06:24You know, it's heavy. It's a heavy riff.
06:28The simplicity is fantastic.
06:31And then Jack starts singing.
06:33It's getting it done.
06:36That riff, I'm loud and I'm proud and I'm dark, right?
06:42In this way of, it's a minor key.
06:46This is not happy and uplifting.
06:51So there's a lot of blues, and I love it.
06:56Already, it's like there's several statements in there, right?
06:59So this is a statement.
07:00And then, where could it go from there?
07:05It doesn't get any sunnier.
07:07It's...
07:09So the whole thing, it's darker.
07:11I mean, you can't imagine a time when that rift didn't exist, can you?
07:27I went to see the cream up in Birmingham.
07:33Everybody was there to see Eric Clapton.
07:35There was hardly anybody where Jack Bruce was playing.
07:37So I was standing next, watching Jack Bruce.
07:39And I'd never thought about bass before.
07:43And I was just absolutely mesmerising what Jack Bruce was doing.
07:45Bending the notes, and I'd never heard the bass player do that.
07:49It was sort of like lead guitar on bass.
08:01This is so different.
08:05Normally, the rhythm guitarist would like sort of drown out what the bass was playing.
08:11You didn't really notice what the bass was playing.
08:13When I saw Jack Bruce, he just had this whole new way of playing.
08:17way of playing jack bruce incidentally always said that the greatest bass player of all was
08:21uh j s bach when you listen to uh orchestral pieces that composed by bach you get these
08:29wonderful these wonderful walking baselines that are sometimes can be sort of quite atonal
08:38but 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
08:52jack bruce always used to say that yeah the father of the bass as we know it is bach
08:57that idea of a piece of music that is scaffolding the basis of bass playing as we know it is bach cello
09:02the pacific northwest in the mid 80s was home to a thriving underground diy music scene
09:12and it was this that provided my first insights into what a great baseline could be
09:19i was maybe 11 or 12. i had a friend and he was a guitar player and we're just hanging i was like we
09:24should start a band and he said i'm already playing guitar so that leaves you with bass
09:28it's like great so i got a got a bass and tried to kind of figure out what was going on
09:37i was really into the police's ghost in the machine record
09:41fronted by a bass player great bass lines amazing record so
09:46in the back of my mind i was like oh sting's cool i'll i'll do that
09:49spirits in the material world is one of the police and therefore stings greatest bass lines
10:09masterful in its simplicity it plays with rhythm to create tension against the syncopated synth line
10:14they subjugated up note stuff that they borrowed from reggae and then come down on the downbeat for
10:22the chorus
10:28it was cool there wasn't a lot of complicated stuff with sting he wasn't like a prog guy you
10:33want to write a catchy bass line um and he was great at that
10:45although sting was a jazz player at heart the police had enough punk attitude that it was a natural
10:50evolution for me to gravitate to the hardcore scene springing up around me i gravitated towards punk rock
10:56really early on and let's print the t-shirts let's print the stickers let's figure out how to buy a van
11:02book shows and do a band and go out there and not worry about the musicianship so much but go out
11:08and have a good time and be weirdos always remember the moment that it clicked for me that was a black
11:14flag record damaged and i'm just sitting in my buddy's room or listening to it like what is this
11:23what is this and all of a sudden it was like this is going to be my life from here on out it was like
11:27that like i i love this and it fit in really well with skateboarding it's like almost everyone was
11:33doing hardcore was on a skateboard skateboarders were all listening to hardcore and it was like
11:37the perfect soundtrack and i loved it
11:46that's a minor threat baseline well it's really fast right a lot of root notes a lot of following
11:52what the guitars are doing primarily like really fast pick work that's why i started playing with a pick
11:57you're trying to play those those lines and it's just it's doable with your fingers but because
12:04it's a softer tone and it's harder to maybe play as fast with your fingers i kind of gravitated towards
12:10the pick so it's just a lot of like playing fast before long my high school band diddly squat worked
12:16playing throughout the northwest we had all the punk prerequisites snarling guitars and a fully ignited
12:21crowd slam dancing along it was furious and weird and i loved it the crowd was slam dancing people
12:29are throwing elbows i mean the whole idea is that like the music is at best it's it's really explosive
12:35and just like creates this well of energy within you and so that's that's where slam dancing came from
12:41i was like how are we going to react to this we're not going to be doing this you know why don't we just
12:45get a big circle pit going and try to mimic the energy that's coming off the stage
12:52it 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
13:06finally to understand what diddly squats guitar player jason cobb had been trying to tell me all along
13:11i should be taking cues from the likes of getty lee steve harris and of course the goat or should i say
13:17ox john entwistle i was trying to learn my generation bass solo the the the bass solo of my generation
13:36it's just insane that that you know that they they thought of that you can't really talk about
13:43bass playing without mentioning john entwistle he's doing this like triplet thing so instead of doing
13:51this he's going he's doing all three and they're like trying to do this weird triplet thing with it
13:57i still don't get this three finger thing that he can do and i've seen other players demonstrating it
14:11but for me that's where the symmetry goes goes off for me can't think in threes also up here and he
14:18had his base set up to where it was the strings were really close to the frets so he would barely
14:24have to touch it he was almost like happy i don't know how he did it but he was able to get that
14:31thing that's very like signature and so it's always got a ring and he was like i mean he's he's a master
14:40i think entwistle was unique because he had this deep musicality he came from being a horn player
14:48and then he had this just male aggression and and that's what makes it amazing he has so
14:54many techniques he had a very particular like a typewriter thing a certain way of attacking the
14:59fretboard and the strings uh which i loved and which made perfect sense because not only was he
15:05in a band with pete towns he was a band with keith moon so he's got to be heard
15:14entwistle invented the idea of the bass kind of as a weapon you know rather than being a polite boy at
15:20the back of the class man what a guy the ox was absolutely astounded really admired like i love
15:28the who like to tell him he's a bit of a moddy boy got my scooters in the shed i'd like to borrow your
15:36bass for a minute the dawn of the 90s i packed up my bass and headed to the epicenter of post-punk
15:43seattle grunge was about to blow the doors off the mainstream and my then new band sunny day real
15:48estate was signing to the same label that had released early nirvana and soundgarden records
15:53we had this house had like seven guys living in it and jammed forever in the basement and it became
15:59kind of a good band
16:06seeking a detour from the blunt aggression of hardcore
16:10i found a better fit in the more melodic sounds in the d-rock's early days
16:20i had a lot of things that were helpful to me as a bass player in that band
16:28there are these arpeggiated like wide open guitar lines so there's a lot of space to kind of
16:33structure the song around what the bass is doing because the guitars were a little bit more nebulous
16:38just from in circles
16:56i don't know i like always like if there's anything close to like a signature bass line that i've ever
17:00had i think that might be it
17:06it felt like a progression and just like was where i wanted to go at the time i just wanted to get lost
17:11in the song you know that song's got that kind of circular movement where you can kind of get lost in
17:18a trance with it which is ultimately where i wanted to go where i did go next was somewhere i'd never
17:25expected the trailblazing nirvana had shot to fame then crashed down with the tragic death of kurt
17:30cobain in what seemed like the blink of an eye we were all in shock for dave grohl healing meant
17:37writing a collection of songs that become the first foo fighters album i finally got the nerve uh to ask
17:43him it's like hey i heard you might be putting a band together so we got together at this house and
17:49jammed and we went upstairs to grab a sandwich or something and sitting around the table and dave
17:53goes like you guys want to start a band
17:58none of us had a clue what this band would become stadiums grammy trophies and the rock and roll hall of
18:04fame it still feels surreal i always thought that there should be like like a guidebook when you
18:16move from like playing clubs like operating at a higher level where you've got managers and agents
18:22and publicists and like there's this whole operation that happens and no one's ever like oh by the way
18:29this is how things work you just start doing it and so you kind of have to like get your sea legs a
18:36little bit figure out how you're going to deal with it definitely early on it was pretty disconcerting
18:42just operating at this level the best way that we found to manage this life that we found ourselves in
18:48is to not take it too seriously this is my exact commute to work
18:58we were like not really 100 l.a based until like the early 2000s
19:09and we were practicing at this place called mates which is here in the valley
19:12and it was fine but wanted to do a place that was like ours you know like a studio a place to rehearse
19:20and it's just kind of like a hangout place we'll do like everything there we've recorded videos there
19:32parties there it's just kind of like home base
19:37the video for white limo was an homage to the lo-fi super 8 videos we'd grown up with
19:42we filmed it just outside the studios i love this song all the more because despite my steady diet
19:49of punk rock i developed an up-down picking style and ignored the power of the downstroke
19:54until i discovered it during this recording
20:08like i said it's self-taught so i never did downstrokes which sound are kind of a you know
20:14principle way of hitting the hitting the string with a pick where for me it always be
20:20it it sort of moves back and forth it's not as as percussive
20:32it's just not as good
20:35with a great bass line it can be as much about how you hit the strings as it is the writing of
20:40the notes themselves heavy downstrokes with a pick work great for rock but there are myriad
20:45different ways to express yourself through these four strings one of my all-time favorite bass
20:52players is tina weymouth whose fingers brought so much feel and creativity to her playing with talking
20:56heads
21:01they've got this concert from rome in like 1980 we can kind of see her doing that bass line
21:07and that's the foundation of the song it like starts with a jam and her just doing that like
21:19voodoo oh man oh man oh man oh it's kind of like spooky it's like a spider crawling up your arm i love
21:25that bass line
21:37she's using a pick but she managed to get all these different sounds out of it that i can't recreate
21:42you know like like that's almost like a pop but she's not popping
21:45but if you watch her she's going
21:55which kind of makes all the difference and makes it good
21:59very often in in the world of of bass people can have exactly the same equipment um but their fingers
22:07are different they just get a different sound i thought tina weymouth was extraordinary
22:13for such a a petite waif-like person she could find ways of of of just finding these quite simple
22:23rhythms and quite you know minimal parts that just kind of punch through and carried the whole song
22:30along it's really difficult to copy another player's instinctive style and this becomes even more elusive
22:37when as with so many of the greatest bass lines it's pared down to just a few simple notes
22:44of course we all know it it's like
22:59three notes really simple but effective baseline that people still respond to
23:07so
23:08tina she's of course like such a legend and she's like way more precise and clean and like technical
23:16she always brings this like sexy groove into the songs and many of the songs of talking heads have
23:21this like super hooky bass lines that really makes you want to dance
23:26like psycho killer i think is 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
23:45lot to also try to bring that energy that dancey and sexy feeling into our tracks
23:58here we are 606 studios foo fighters lair
24:01we're deep in la san fernando valley but as you go in you may notice a slight nod to stockholm sweden
24:15it's kind of a low rent version of abba's studio when we were putting it together
24:21i think dave had a book of abba's studio i forget what it's called it's beautiful it's all this woodwork
24:26and very brown and looks like a you know like a scandinavian beautiful studio so we tried to mimic
24:33that as best we could but we're ding dong so this is what you get the vintage neve console was brought
24:39in from legendary sound city studios a few miles away the birthplace of everything from rumors to
24:44never mind a lot of heavy recordings uh were done on this definitely some fleetwood mac you got stevie
24:52nix's signature here it's beautiful sounding board it's very finicky twist the knob here until it
25:01finds a decent spot in the knob where it's like it's clear and then you're good to go onwards
25:09we're set up here for rehearsal right now uh with roughly this the setup that we have on stage
25:15i've got the big cabinets with the tiny speakers i had these made recently
25:19just kind of for fun really this is an svt speaker and ordinarily they've got eight speakers and
25:28this has got nine yeah what's the difference between eight and nine one i don't know it's beyond that
25:37yeah so pat's over there i'm here we've got uh tbd drummer to be there and uh dave's on either side of
25:45the drummer here and then chris is over there who likes to have a menagerie of amplifiers because
25:51he's very particular about his sound we're all just hammering away and chris is like hang on a second i
25:57want it to sound like nuanced and foo fighters i think the role of the base is to is to be that that glue
26:05you know it's stability like you've got it you've got to be solid
26:09dave's playing guitar and running and singing still remarkably tight but there's a lot going on
26:19pat's got amazing feel and a great ear but he gives very few fucks about hitting the note at the right
26:27time chris shifflett he's the only guy in the band that reads music he's excellent guitar player he's
26:34very tight but he's all the way on the other side of the stage and he's competing with these other two
26:37guitar players taylor hawkins playing drums excellent drummer but very frenetic it's gonna be maybe a
26:44little bit different every night which is cool and exciting but it adds an element of chaos so whenever
26:50that kick drum hits i need to be on it if the kick drum is hitting with what i'm playing then there's
26:55going to be a foundation that's going to read out in the audience and the guitars can be a little looser
27:01and it can it'll be okay i just didn't want it to turn into a cacophony
27:13here's a good example our song the pretender for my part there's not a lot of notes here
27:19but this song relies on the timing of those notes if you've seen the movie whiplash you'll know what i
27:24mean like you can play behind the beat you can play on top of the beat you know there's basically
27:29a pulse of where the song is and different players will play around with that
27:37taylor grew up with stewart copeland from the police as a big influence and stewart's on top
27:46so he's like almost anticipating the beat and moving the song for you're still
27:50you're still in time you're just kind of slightly ahead of it
27:53it creates this tension in the music and taylor was like that so i just i was locked into him
28:02that that was my thing is like i'm gonna play the best i can play as interesting as i can but
28:07what i'm really trying to do is when he goes i'm going to be right there with him
28:11well taylor and i were the odd couple right so i'm more quiet and withdrawn uh not moving through
28:20the world with a big ego or a loud voice whereas taylor was you know a bit of a bull in a china shop
28:27and so i think that we balanced each other well and had a lot of respect for each other once we
28:31kind of got to know who we were and it was uh it was it was fantastic it was really really great
28:38and i just i admired him so much as a musician we found a real love for each other over the years
28:43and it was great because of that yin and yang
28:55when we lost taylor we lost a brother and our band will never be the same
29:00for me i now have to forge that almost telepathic bond with someone new
29:04as every bassist knows this very special connection between bass and drums is the driver of any band
29:16the connection between bass and drum is one of the most important things
29:20with itan we really just like locked with each other since the start
29:24it's really easy and we have a lot of fun like jamming just me and him many times
29:33and many tracks were born just from me and him like creating the bass groove you know of the song
29:39and creating the foundation yeah we have such a strong and special bond and that's i think what
29:44makes the core of of our music you know i don't have a really better way to say it than what keith says
29:52about you know the bass and the drums are like the engine room
30:03while charlie loved blues music and loved you know rock and roll the thing closest to his heart was
30:08jazz music and uh we had that in common he collected antique cars but he didn't drive you know what i mean
30:16he was really a kind of really interesting interesting fellow i listened to him very very carefully early
30:23on i learned a lot from him about not being too precious about certain things i it's difficult for
30:31me to talk to talk about because i i think it it's uh beyond the realm of of words in a way
30:37the bass and drums are usually inseparable locked in tight for the good of the other instruments in the band
30:49but on occasion us bass players will quietly come up with a line that's so inescapably good
30:54it can carry the rhythm and the melody and with it the song
30:58a bass line that you could play it anytime anywhere any party and it'll probably get it cracking
31:03right so when i play those three notes what do you hear boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom
31:24i think that most great bass lines however you want to define great they have an element of boldness
31:30if you're noticing and you're paying attention to that bass line it's because it was played with
31:35attitude another one bites the dust was written around the baseline right sometimes that happens
31:43where the bass player comes up with something great and everyone joins in
31:50and this bass line has all the things
31:52i think context construction like how it's built in terms of the chord changes tone and his tone on
32:03that is perfect i think the feel you could have all the other elements but if the feel is not right
32:10the feel is missing something's missing it's the space it's the space between the note it can do very
32:18little but imply a lot and i don't know how that magic happens but to me it seems like it's like it's
32:26what's not there it kind of sparks you to feel something and then you're kind of waiting for it to
32:33land or something and so it so that becomes more engaging than something that's just kind of relentless
32:39that's a super famous bass line and the whole song is built around that whole
32:44riff and nothing else
32:57coming up on the west coast of the 80s punk shot through our world like a lightning bolt
33:01it was new and it was ours and at that very same moment in new york another music revolution was
33:09underway hip-hop channeled the same angst and energy into its lyrics but its sonic power was fueled by big
33:15bass lines there's so much great music created in the 60s and the 70s but what hip-hop did was go back
33:23to all those records just to find those dope samples in order to create new music and a lot of those best
33:34samples had the fattest baselines the sp 1200 this is the same kind of machine that a tribe called quest
33:44used rizza wu-tang he actually signed this one they used sp 1200 so many people use this this is the machine
33:52that sampled older records to make new music so what does that mean you can get a record right
34:00you put it on and you play the record and you find that one cool part on the record
34:07and it might be like a six second loop you plug it into here and then you press record and it'll sample
34:15those six seconds let's just say on here and i could play those six seconds i could slow it down speed
34:21it up i could play play play play those six seconds and make something new with it
34:31one of the earliest examples of the power of sampling was when sugar hill gang created rapper's
34:35delight by upcycling the bass line to chic's good times the result landed and an iconic song was born
34:42bernard edwards wrote possibly what is the greatest bass line ever good times it's part of the fabric of
34:52every every bass player i think that is a groove and it's possibly the groove of all grooves it makes
34:57you move makes you feel happy makes you feel positive and it's just like an old friend you're gonna sing with
35:05me yes
35:25like everyone everywhere knows that bass line
35:27the original track when you think of that song you think of that bass line and it's because
35:37it's not a small piece of the song
35:43again it's one of those words like hmm is this song written around this baseline because it is so crucial
35:49and i think when it comes to hip-hop now i mean even you know growing up in the 90s and hearing all
35:56these great songs sampled in hip-hop bass lines not only are they very functional but also they now they
36:05carry memories so it's like a functional baseline for the song that has different meanings for different
36:10generations and that's a beautiful thing if you can pull it off i look at records as time capsules waiting
36:19to be discovered the soul is captured on wax those baselines they're captured on wax the spirit
36:28is embedded whether they're dead or alive and it becomes reborn once it's sampled
36:35hip-hop's sampled baselines allowed creators to tap into the superpowers of funk and soul masters
36:43shaping the tone and feel of a new song or sound is this the focus and here's one of the great
36:50originators of a new sound put your hands where i can see them put your hands where i could see them
36:57ladies and gentlemen the one and only mr chris novicelli
36:59me too how are you doing i like you know him best as the man who formed nirvana want to play some
37:05bass alongside his high school friend kurt cobain
37:20have you ever played in here before our like new jam room i've been in here many many times
37:26yes yes i have when did you start playing like bass i started playing bass in 1985 or six
37:35okay when did we start nirvana i think in 86 and i was a guitar player and then kurt had a guitar and
37:40an amp and i'll just play bass for me the bass is like what's my job as a bass player it's like so what
37:46does this song need so it's not about me and a lot of it's just dramatic because we're doing like the
37:52music it's kind of like the song has a personality and we are performers right yeah yeah so here's the
37:58soundtrack to our performance bass doesn't have to be just like a guitar like you're just you know
38:04you're stuck on bass and you're following the guitar players like oh no no no no you don't have to do
38:09that and if you can make a bridge between like what the guitar is doing and the vocals are doing and that
38:14kick drum the musical like grow a little boom all of a sudden you sound big see if you can find that
38:20then you've done your job so i was listening to bleach the other day and there's a great bass riff
38:26that starts on the starts record i'm going to butcher it but what is it
38:40the bass line from blue is quintessential crest turned way down it's a big crushing groove that
38:45churns away ramping up the momentum it doesn't seem complex but there's something of a swagger to it
38:52with that bent note at the end of the phrase if you can get it
38:58play it right okay i'll do it so it's tuned it's actually you want to play it on your bass
39:02so it's going to say this one i'll play with no this sounds great
39:04it's never it's it's it's a slide and that's one of the tricks you are bending in there somewhere
39:18it's a it's a it's not a bend it's a slide because you can go it just goes
39:23i had four svts like just cranked it would just blast i'd feel it in my feet and then basically
39:41on the side fill give me the kick drum boom boom boom boom and just like if you just then you're tight
39:47wait for it there she goes do you recognize this ding oh did i do that did i borrow your guitar and
39:59fuck it up what did i yes you did the story that i heard was that you were playing and then threw the
40:05thing up in the air and caught it but not quite before it hit the edge of the amp i bet it sounded
40:11cool yeah i could take it they're durable it's fine well how old is that base is that like 71 71
40:19this is my main this is my main base that i played on all my all my early records i never played
40:24fender bases i'm a die-hard fender p-bass player but chris prefers something better suited to his
40:30personal geometry the scroll remember those yeah that's a cool one oh look at this one my signature
40:37bass what do you know yeah it's trying to make you feel at home i play those gibson bases because
40:43they're big like a lot of people don't like them because they're too big but they fit my frame
40:49this is as the great bassist mike watt would say thunder broom that brought grunge its ultimate anthem
40:54i usually like it's a simple song nirvana smells like teen spirit is a pivotal five minutes of music
41:06for our generation they put three punks to the top of the charts and smash the ceiling of our formerly
41:13underground music scene without it there would be no foo fighters and it's the brooding hypnotic
41:19heaviness of the bass sound that works to both propel and ground the song you could
41:24hear like the the hooks in the vocals and then you could just kind of like then you could respond
41:31like oh i hear that then you could respond to that or you could follow it like the vocal goes
41:35and you're like i would hear kurt's guitar riffs we wouldn't slow down enough to like what are you
41:41playing there i would just kind of play it why didn't you tell me that like years ago and the guitar
41:45is doing this and all of a sudden you you're like you're bigger and you'd have they were like in
41:50nirvana there's just three of us right
41:57that's always worked for me maybe that was my secret
42:02so chris tell me what for you makes a great bass line
42:06what makes a great bass line is i'm dying for this it's let me know
42:10this position in the in the music in the composition it's just like because it can be
42:19too much or it can be not enough yeah so you got to find a sweet spot good vibrations right
42:29it's just kind of holding you know or it's that part of the symphony with a part of the symphony that
42:34does that you know does that plays that role in the audio and the for the listener and it's just
42:41trying to find that spot do you have any favorites like oh that's that's like my smile so many one
42:49great good vibrations there you go that was so much about you i've known you for 30 years
42:58you can never have two record producers in the same room at the same time ever doesn't work guitar players
43:11get on if one of them like idolizes the other one but bass players is kind of it's kind of a
43:16brotherhood actually the camaraderie is amazing nothing like a room full of guitar players
43:23so i'm just saying bass players are very sensitive very artistic people
43:34bass players tend to be pretty steady not so easily you know rattled and their personality seems to match
43:42that you know bass players are generally cool guys maybe that's maybe why i was destined to be a bass
43:48player player all along because i was i always had that personality i'm pretty i'm pretty quiet
43:54i'm pretty organized and kind of you know meticulous man i think everybody should play the bass
44:00i really do it's like a horse it's good for the inside of the man and for the outside
44:04bass players always tend to be the most thoughtful uh dependable imaginative but quite um
44:13happy to take the back seat happy to know that they're in control without you know wanting the
44:19limelight i once poked fun at arena rock bands but care for what you don't wish for or maybe secretly do
44:29i found myself playing these same venues thanks to the energetic talent of one of the great rock and
44:33roll front men in truth i cherish my place on that stage sitting just outside the spotlight
44:39and i don't think i'm alone in that it's where most of us space players find our home i feel like i
44:45kind of have the best world for me which is i get to go out and do this thing at a high level
44:51and then go home and go to soccer practice and no one gives a fuck
45:09so
45:13you
45:39You
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