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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.
07:49And it was sort of like lead guitar on bass.
08:02It was just so different than normally.
08:07The rhythm guitarist would like sort of drown out what the bass was playing.
08:11And he didn't really notice what the bass was playing.
08:13When I saw Jack Bruce, he just had this whole new way of playing.
08:17Jack Bruce, incidentally, always said that the greatest bass player of all was J.S. Bach.
08:23When you listen to orchestral pieces composed by Bach,
08:28you get these wonderful...
08:31These wonderful walking bass lines that are...
08:36Some of us can be sort of quite atonal, but they...
08:39Oh, my goodness, 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.
08:50Lots of people say this.
08:51Jack Bruce always used to say it.
08:53That, yeah, the father of the bass as we know it is Bach.
08:56That idea of a piece of music that is scaffolding.
08:59The 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 bass line could be.
09:16I was maybe 11 or 12.
09:20I had a friend, and he was a guitar player, and we're just hanging out.
09:24I was like, we should start a band.
09:25And he said, I'm already playing guitar, so that leaves you with bass.
09:28I was like, great.
09:29So I got a bass and tried to kind of figure out what was going on.
09:34I was really into the Police's Ghost on the Machine record.
09:40It's fronted by a bass player.
09:42Great bass lines.
09:43Amazing record.
09:44So in the back of my mind, I was like, oh, Sting's cool.
09:48I'll do that.
09:55Spirits 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.
10:17Syncopated, up-note stuff that they borrowed from reggae and then come down on the downbeat for the chorus.
10:28It was cool.
10:29There wasn't a lot of complicated stuff with Sting.
10:31He wasn't like a prog guy.
10:33You want to write a catchy bass line.
10:35And he was great at that.
10:46Although Sting was a jazz player at heart, the Police had enough punk attitude that it was a natural evolution for me to gravitate to the hardcore scene springing up around me.
10:54I gravitated towards punk rock really early on, and let's print the t-shirts, let's print the stickers, let's figure out how to buy a van, book shows, and do a band.
11:04And go out there and not worry about the musicianship so much, but go out and have a good time and be weirdos.
11:10Always remember the moment that it clicked for me.
11:13It was a Black Flag record damaged.
11:19And 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, this is going to be my life from here on out.
11:26It was like that. I love this. And it fit in really well with skateboarding. It's like almost everyone who was doing hardcore was on a skateboard. Skateboarders were all listening to hardcore. And it was like the perfect soundtrack. And I loved it.
11:39That's a minor threat baseline. Well, it's really fast, right? A lot of root notes, a lot of following what 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 lines and it's just, it's doable with your fingers, but because it's a softer tone and it's harder to maybe play as fast with your fingers.
12:08I kind of gravitated towards the pick. So it's just a lot of like playing fast.
12:14Before long, my high school band diddly squat worked playing throughout the Northwest.
12:17We had all the punk prerequisites, snarling guitars and a fully ignited crowd slam dancing along. It was furious and weird and I loved it.
12:27The crowd was slam dancing. People are throwing elbows.
12:30I mean, the whole idea is that like the music is, at best, it's, it's really explosive and just like creates this well of energy within you.
12:38And so that's, that's where slam dancing came from. I was like, how are we going to react to this? We're not going to be doing this.
12:43You know, why don't we just get a big circle pit going and try to mimic the energy that's coming off the stage.
12:49It was like loose and small and energetic. So it was exciting.
12:56Having grown up emulating the raw energy of punk rock.
13:03That was Tony, the singer, diddly squat.
13:05I began finally to understand what diddly squats guitar player, Jason Cobb had been trying to tell me all along.
13:10I should be taking cues from the likes of Geddy Lee, Steve Harris, and of course, the goat, or should I say ox, John Entwistle.
13:21I was trying to learn my generation bass solo.
13:23The bass solo in my generation, it's just insane that, you know, that they thought of that.
13:41You can't really talk about bass playing without mentioning John Entwistle.
13:45He's doing this, like, triplet thing.
13:48Brr, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr.
13:50So instead of doing this, da-da-da-da-da-da, he's going.
13:55He's doing all three.
13:56And they'll, like, kind of do this weird triplet thing with it.
14:04I still don't get this three-finger thing that he can do.
14:08And I've seen other players demonstrating it.
14:11But for me, that's where the symmetry goes off for me.
14:14Can't think in threes.
14:17Also, up here, and he had his bass set up to where it was...
14:21The strings were really close to the frets, so he would barely have to touch it.
14:25He was almost, like, happy.
14:30I don't know how he did it, but he was able to get that thing that's very, like, signature.
14:33And so it's all the way.
14:34He got a...
14:36And he was just like...
14:38I mean, he's a master.
14:41I think N Twistle was unique because he had this deep musicality.
14:46He came from being a horn player.
14:48And then he had this just male aggression.
14:51And that's what makes it amazing.
14:53He has so many techniques.
14:55He had a very particular, like, a typewriter thing.
14:58A certain way of attacking the fretboard and the strings.
15:02Which I loved and which made perfect sense.
15:04Because not only was he in a band with Pete Townsend, he was in a band with Keith Moon.
15:08So he's got to be heard.
15:10This is my generation, baby.
15:14N Twistle invented the idea of the bass kind of as a weapon.
15:18You know, rather than being a polite boy at the back of the class.
15:22Man, what a guy.
15:23The Ox was absolutely astounded.
15:26Really admired.
15:27Like, I love the Who.
15:28Like I said, he was a bit of a moddy boy.
15:30Got my scooters in the shed.
15:32I'd like to borrow your bass for a minute.
15:37At the dawn of the 90s, I packed up my bass and headed to the epicenter of post-punk, Seattle.
15:43Grunge was about to blow the doors off the mainstream.
15:46And my then-new band, Sunny Day Real Estate, was signing to the same label that had released early Nirvana and Soundgarden Records.
15:52We had this house, I had like seven guys living in it, and jammed forever in the basement.
15:58And it became kind of a good band.
16:06Seeking a detour from the blunt aggression of hardcore, I found a better fit in the more melodic sounds in the D-Rock's early days.
16:14I had a lot of things that were helpful to me as a bass player in that band.
16:28There were these arpeggiated, like wide open guitar lines, so there's a lot of space to kind of structure the song around what the bass is doing,
16:35because the guitars were a little bit more nebulous, just from in circles.
16:39I don't know, I like, always, like, if there's anything close to like a signature bass line that I've ever had, I think that might be it.
17:02It felt like a progression.
17:07It just like was where I wanted to go at the time.
17:10I just wanted to get lost in the song.
17:11You know, that song's got that kind of circular movement where you can kind of get lost in a trance with it,
17:19which is ultimately where I wanted to go.
17:22Where I did go next was somewhere I'd never expected.
17:26The trailblazing Nirvana had shot to fame, then crashed down with the tragic death of Kurt Cobain in what seemed like the blink of an eye.
17:32We were all in shock.
17:34For Dave Grohl, healing meant writing a collection of songs that would become the first Foo Fighters album.
17:40I finally got the nerve to ask him.
17:43I was like, hey, I heard you might be putting a band together.
17:46So we got together at his house and jammed.
17:49And we went upstairs to grab a sandwich or something and sit around the table and Dave goes like, you guys wanna start a band?
17:55None of us had a clue what this band would become.
18:00Stadiums?
18:01Grammy trophies and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
18:04It still feels surreal.
18:07I always thought that there should be like a guidebook when you move from like playing clubs to like operating at a higher level where you've got managers and agents and publicists and like there's this whole operation that happens and no one's ever like, oh by the way, this is how things work.
18:31You just start doing it.
18:34And so you kind of have to like get your sea legs a little bit, figure out how you're gonna deal with it.
18:38Definitely early on it was pretty disconcerting just operating at this level.
18:44The best way that we found to manage this life that we found ourselves in is to not take it too seriously.
18:51This is my exact commute to work.
18:54We were like not really 100% L.A. based until like the early 2000s.
19:08And we were practicing at this place called Mates which is here in the valley and 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.
19:27We'll do like everything there.
19:29We've recorded videos there, parties there.
19:33It's just kind of like home base.
19:35The 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.
19:44I love this song all the more because despite my steady diet of punk rock, I developed an up-down picking style and ignored the power of the downstroke until I discovered it during this recording.
19:55Like I said, it's self-taught, so I never did downstrokes which are kind of a, you know, principle way of hitting the string with a pick.
20:17For me, it would always be .
20:22It sort of moves back and forth.
20:23It's not as percussive.
20:32It's just not as good.
20:34With a great bass line, it can be as much about how you hit the strings as it is the writing of the notes themselves.
20:41Heavy downstrokes with a pick work great for rock, but there are myriad different ways to express yourself through these four strings.
20:50One of my all-time favorite bass players is Tina Weymouth, whose fingers brought so much feel and creativity to her playing with Talking Heads.
20:57They've got this concert from Rome in, like, 1980, where you can kind of see her doing that bass line.
21:15And that's the foundation of the song.
21:16It, like, starts with a jam and her just doing that, like,
21:19.
21:22It's kind of, like, spooky.
21:23It's like a spider crawling up your arm.
21:25I f***ing love that bass line.
21:38She's using a pick, but she manages to get all these different sounds out of it that I can't recreate, you know?
21:43Like, .
21:44Like, that's almost like a pop, but she's not popping.
21:46.
21:51But if you watch her, she's going .
21:53.
21:56Which kind of makes all the difference and makes it good.
21:58Very often in the world of bass, people can have exactly the same equipment, but their fingers are different.
22:07They just get a different sound.
22:09I thought Tina Weymouth was extraordinary.
22:12For such a petite, waif-like person, she could find ways of just finding these quite simple rhythms and quite, you know, minimal parts that just kind of punch through and carried the whole song along.
22:30It's really difficult to copy another player's instinctive style, and this becomes even more elusive when, as with so many of the greatest bass lines, it's pared down to just a few simple notes.
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22:44Of course, we all know it.
22:45It's like .
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24:38The vintage Neve console was brought in from legendary Sound City Studios a few miles away,
24:42the birthplace of everything from rumors to nevermind.
24:45.
24:46A lot of heavy recordings were done on this.
24:50Definitely some Fleetwood Mac.
24:52We've got Stevie Nicks' signature here.
24:55It's a beautiful sounding board.
24:57It's very finicky.
24:58You twist the knob and you're like .
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25:28And this has got nine.
25:29Yeah, what's the difference between eight and nine?
25:32One.
25:33I don't know.
25:34It's beyond that.
25:35I don't...
25:36Yeah, so Pat's over there.
25:39I'm here.
25:40We've got TBD, drummer, to be there.
25:44And Dave's on either side of the drummer here.
25:46And then Chris is over there who likes to have a menagerie of amplifiers
25:51because he's very particular about his sound.
25:54We're all just hammering away.
25:55And Chris is like, hang on a second.
25:57I want it to sound, like, nuanced.
26:00And Foo Fighters, I think the role of the bass is to be that glue.
26:05You know, it's stability.
26:07Like, you've got to be solid.
26:09Yeah!
26:12Dave's playing guitar and running and singing.
26:15Still remarkably tight, but there's a lot going on.
26:19Pat's got an amazing feel and a great ear,
26:22but he gives very few fucks about hitting the note at the right time.
26:28Chris Shifflett.
26:29He's the only guy in the band that reads music.
26:31He's an excellent guitar player.
26:33He's very tight.
26:35But he's all the way on the other side of the stage,
26:36and he's competing with these other two guitar players.
26:38Taylor Hawkins playing drums.
26:40Excellent drummer, but very frenetic.
26:43It's going to be maybe a little bit different every night,
26:45which is cool and exciting, but it adds an element of chaos.
26:49So whenever that kick drum hits, I need to be on it.
26:52If the kick drum is hitting with what I'm playing,
26:55then there's going to be a foundation that's going to read out in the audience.
26:58And the guitars can be a little looser, and it'll be okay.
27:07I just didn't want it to turn into a cacophony.
27:13Here's a good example.
27:15Our song, The Pretender.
27:17For my part, there's not a lot of notes here.
27:19But this song relies on the timing of those notes.
27:22If you've seen the movie Whiplash, you'll know what I mean.
27:25Like, you can play behind the beat, you can play on top of the beat,
27:28you know, there's basically a pulse of where the song is.
27:31And different players will play around with that.
27:37Taylor grew up with Stuart Copeland from The Police as a big influence.
27:43And Stuart's on top.
27:46So he's, like, almost anticipating the beat and moving the song forward.
27:50You're still in time.
27:51You're just kind of slightly ahead of it.
27:56It creates this tension in the music.
27:58And Taylor was like that.
27:59So I just, I was locked into him.
28:02That was my thing.
28:03It's like, I'm going to play the best I can, play as interesting as I can.
28:07But what I'm really trying to do is when he goes,
28:09I'm going to be right there with him.
28:14Well, Taylor and I were the odd couple, right?
28:16So I'm more quiet and withdrawn,
28:19not moving through the world with a big ego or a loud voice.
28:22Whereas Taylor was, you know, a bit of a bull in a china shop.
28:27And so I think that we balanced each other well
28:29and had a lot of respect for each other
28:31once we kind of got to know who we were.
28:33And it was, uh, it was, it was fantastic.
28:36It was really, really great.
28:38And I just, I admired him so much as a musician.
28:41We found a real love for each other over the years.
28:43And it was great because of that yin and yang.
28:54When we lost Taylor, we lost a brother.
28:58And our band will never be the same.
29:00For me, I now have to forge
29:02that almost telepathic bond with someone new.
29:06As every bassist knows,
29:07this very special connection between bass and drums
29:10is the driver of any band.
29:13The connection between bass and drums
29:18is one of the most important things.
29:20With Ethan, we really just, like,
29:22locked with each other since the start.
29:27It's really easy and we have a lot of fun,
29:30like, jamming just me and him many times.
29:33And many tracks were born just from me and him,
29:36like, creating the bass groove, you know,
29:38of the song and creating the foundation.
29:40Yeah, we have such a strong and special bond
29:43and that's, I think, what makes the core of our music.
29:49You know, I just don't have a really better way to say it
29:51than what Keith says about, you know,
29:53the bass and the drums are like the engine room.
29:56I was old
29:57and I was by a hurricane
30:00While Charlie loved blues music and loved, you know, rock and roll,
30:06the thing closest to his heart was jazz music and we had that in common.
30:11He collected antique cars, but he didn't drive, you know what I mean?
30:16He was really a kind of really interesting fellow.
30:20I listened to him very, very carefully early on.
30:23I learned a lot from him about not being too precious about certain things.
30:29It's difficult for me 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 band.
30:46But on occasion, us bass players will quietly come up with a line that's so inescapably good,
30:53it can carry the rhythm and the melody, and with it, the song.
30:57A bass line that you could play anytime, anywhere, any party, and it'll probably get it cracking.
31:04Right?
31:05So, when I play those three notes, what do you hear?
31:08I think that most great bass lines, however you want to define great, they have an element of boldness.
31:29If you're noticing and you're paying attention to that bass line, it's because it was played with attitude.
31:35Another One Bites the Dust was written around the bass line.
31:41Right? Sometimes that happens where the bass player comes up with something great and everyone joins in.
31:49And 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 that is perfect.
32:04I think the feel, you could have all the other elements, but if the feel is not right, the feel is missing, something's missing.
32:11It's the space. It's the space between the note.
32:16It can do very little, but imply a lot.
32:22And I don't know how that magic happens, but to me it seems like it's what's not there.
32:27It kind of sparks you to feel something and then you're kind of waiting for it to land or something.
32:34And 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 riff and nothing else.
32:45Coming 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.
33:06And at that very same moment in New York, another music revolution was underway.
33:10Hip-hop channeled the same angst and energy into its lyrics, but its sonic power was fueled by big bass lines.
33:17There's so much great music created in the 60s and the 70s.
33:21But what hip-hop did was go back to all those records just to find those dope samples in order to create new music.
33:32And a lot of those best samples had the fattest bass lines.
33:37The SP-1200. This is the same kind of machine that A Tribe Called Quest used.
33:45RZA Wu-Tang, he actually signed this one. They used SP-1200.
33:49So many people use this. This is the machine that sampled older records to make new music.
33:55So 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
34:14and it'll sample those six seconds, let's just say on here.
34:18And I could play those six seconds. I could slow it down, speed it up.
34:22I could play, play, play, play, play, play those six seconds and make something new with it.
34:29One of the earliest examples of the power of sampling was when Sugarhill Gang created Rapper's Delight by upcycling the bass line to Chic's Good Times.
34:39The result landed and an iconic song was born.
34:42Bernard Edwards wrote possibly what is the greatest bass line ever, Good Times.
34:50It's part of the fabric of every bass player. I think that is a groove and it's possibly the groove of all grooves.
34:57It makes you move, makes you feel happy, makes you feel positive and it's just like an old friend.
35:04You gonna sing with me? Yes.
35:06Yes.
35:25Like everyone everywhere knows that bass line.
35:27The original track, when you think of that song, you think of that bass line.
35:36And it's because it's not a small piece of the song.
35:44Again, it's one of those words like, hmm, is this song written around this bass line?
35:48Because 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 these great songs sampled in hip hop bass lines,
36:01not only are they very functional, but also they, now they carry memories.
36:06So it's like a functional bass line for the song that has different meanings for different generations.
36:12And that's a beautiful thing if you can pull it off.
36:14I look at records as time capsules waiting to be discovered.
36:21The soul is captured on wax.
36:23Those bass lines, they're captured on wax.
36:27The spirit is embedded, whether they're dead or alive.
36:31And it becomes reborn once it's sampled.
36:38Hip hop's sampled bass lines allowed creators to tap into the superpowers of funk and soul masters.
36:43Shaping the tone and feel of a new song or sound.
36:47Is this the focus?
36:49And here's one of the great originators of a new sound.
36:52Put your hands where I can see them.
36:54Put your hands where I can see them!
36:57Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Mr. Chris Novoselic.
37:00Nate!
37:02I, like you, know him best as the man who formed Nirvana.
37:05Want to play some bass?
37:06Alongside his high school friend, Kurt Cobain.
37:08Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be, as a friend.
37:21Have you ever played in here before or in like new jam room?
37:24I've been in here many, many times.
37:27Yes?
37:28Yes, I have.
37:29When did you start playing like bass?
37:30I started playing bass in 1985 or 6.
37:34Okay.
37:35When did we start Nirvana?
37:36I think in 86.
37:38And I was a guitar player and then Kurt had a guitar and an amp.
37:41Okay.
37:42And I just played bass.
37:43For me the bass is like, what's my job as a bass player?
37:45It's like, so what does this song need?
37:47So it's not about me.
37:49And a lot of it's just dramatic because we're doing like the music.
37:52It's kind of like the song has a personality and we are performers, right?
37:56Yeah.
37:57Yeah.
37:58So here's the soundtrack to our performance.
38:00Bass doesn't have to be just like a guitar.
38:03Like you're just, you know, you're stuck on bass and you're following the guitar player.
38:06It's like, oh no, no, no, no.
38:08You don't have to do that.
38:09And if you can make a bridge between like what the guitar is doing and the vocals are doing
38:13and then that kick drum, the music will like grow.
38:16It'll boom and all of a sudden you sound big.
38:18See, if you can find that, then you've done your job.
38:22So I was listening to Bleach the other day.
38:24Yeah.
38:25And there's a great bass riff that starts the record.
38:28I'm going to fucking butcher it, but...
38:32What is it?
38:33The bass line from Bleach is quintessential crest.
38:43Turned way down, it's a big crushing groove that churns away, ramping up the momentum.
38:48It doesn't seem complex, but there's something of a swagger to it, with that bent note at the
38:53end of the phrase, if you can get it.
38:58Play it right, dude.
38:59Okay, I'll do it.
39:00So it's tuned...
39:01You want to play it on your bass?
39:03I'll play this one.
39:04No, this sounds great.
39:13It's never...
39:14It's a slide.
39:16And that's one of the tricks.
39:17But you are bending in there somewhere.
39:18It's not a bend, it's a slide.
39:20Because you can go...
39:22It just goes...
39:25Okay.
39:30I had four SVTs, like, just cranked.
39:37It would just blast.
39:38I'd feel it in my feet, and then basically on the side fill, give me the kick drum.
39:43Boom, boom, boom, boom.
39:44And just like, if you just... then you're tight.
39:52Wait for it.
39:53There she goes.
39:56Do you recognize this ding?
39:57Oh, did I do that?
39:58Did I borrow your guitar and fuck it up?
39:59What did I hit?
40:00Yes, you did.
40:01The story that I heard was that you were playing, and then threw the thing up in the air, and
40:07caught it, but not quite before it hit the edge of the amp.
40:11I bet it sounded cool.
40:12Yeah.
40:13I could take it.
40:14They're durable.
40:15It's fine.
40:16Well, how old is that bass?
40:17Is that like a...
40:1871.
40:1971.
40:20This is my main bass that I played on all my early records.
40:23I never played Fender basses.
40:25I'm a diehard Fender P bass player, but Chris prefers something better suited to his personal
40:31geometry.
40:32The scroll.
40:33Remember those?
40:34Yeah, that's a cool one.
40:35Oh, look at this one.
40:36My signature bass.
40:37What do you know?
40:38Yeah.
40:39It's trying to make you feel at home.
40:40There it is.
40:41I play those Gibson basses because they're big.
40:44Like, a lot of people don't like them because they're too big.
40:47But they fit it by frame.
40:49This is, as the great bassist Mike Watt would say, Thunderbrew that brought Grunge its ultimate
40:54anthem.
40:55I usually, like, it's a simple song.
41:00Nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit is a pivotal five minutes of music for our generation.
41:07They put three punks to the top of the charts and smashed the ceiling of our formerly underground
41:14music scene.
41:16Without it, there would be no Foo Fighters.
41:18And it's the brooding, hypnotic heaviness of the bass sound that works to both propel
41:22and ground the song.
41:23You could hear, like, the hooks in the vocals, and then you could just kind of, like, then
41:30you could respond, like, oh, I hear that.
41:32Then you could respond to that, or you could follow it.
41:34Like, the vocal goes, and you're like, I would hear Kurt's guitar riffs.
41:39We wouldn't slow down enough to, like, what are you playing there?
41:42I would just kind of play it.
41:43Why didn't you tell me that, like, five years ago?
41:45And the guitar is doing this, and all of a sudden you're, like, you're bigger.
41:49And you'd have, they were, like, in Nirvana, there was just three of us, right?
41:52That's always worked for me.
41:58Maybe that was my secret.
42:00So, Chris, tell me, what for you makes a great bass line?
42:05What makes a great bass line is it's...
42:09Oh, I'm dying for this.
42:10Let me know.
42:11It's position in the music, in the composition.
42:15It's just, like, because it can be too much or it can be not enough.
42:21Yeah.
42:22So you've got to find a sweet spot.
42:24Good vibrations, right?
42:26Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.
42:29It's just kind of holding, you know, or it's that part of the symphony,
42:33where the part of the symphony that does that, you know, does that,
42:37plays that role in the audio for the listener.
42:41It's just trying to find that spot.
42:43Do you have any favorites?
42:45Like, oh, that's, like, that's my whole time.
42:48So many.
42:49One great, good vibrations.
42:51There you go.
42:53I'm picking up good vibrations.
42:55That was fun, right?
42:56I've heard so much about you.
42:57I've known you for 30 years.
43:03You can never have two record producers in the same room at the same time ever.
43:08It doesn't work.
43:09Guitar players get on if one of them, like, idolizes the other one.
43:15But bass players is kind of a brotherhood, actually.
43:18The camaraderie is amazing.
43:21Nothing like a room full of guitar players.
43:24So I'm just saying.
43:29Bass players are very sensitive, very artistic people.
43:34Bass players tend to be pretty steady.
43:36Not so easily, you know, rattled.
43:40And their personality seems to match that.
43:42You know, bass players are generally cool guys.
43:46Maybe that's maybe why I was destined to be a bass player all along.
43:50Because I always had that personality.
43:52I'm pretty, I'm pretty quiet.
43:54I'm pretty organized and kind of, you know, meticulous.
43:57Man, I think everybody should play the bass.
44:00I really do.
44:01It's like a horse.
44:02It's good for the inside of the man and for the outside.
44:04Bass players always tend to be the most thoughtful, dependable, imaginative, but quite happy to take the back seat.
44:16Happy to know that they're in control without, you know, wanting the limelight.
44:20I once poked fun at arena rock bands, but care for what you don't wish for, or maybe secretly do.
44:28I found myself playing these same venues, thanks to the energetic talent of one of the great rock and roll frontmen.
44:34In truth, I cherish my place on that stage, sitting just outside the spotlight.
44:39And I don't think I'm alone in that.
44:41It's where most of us bass players find our home.
44:43I feel like I kind of have the best world for me.
44:48Which is I get to go out and do this thing at a high level, and then go home and go to soccer practice.
44:55And no one gives a fuck.
45:18It's where we are.
45:19All right.
45:20Let's go.
45:21Um...
45:22Now.
45:23Once again.
45:24How about a long time.
45:25You are.
45:27You are.
45:28You are.
45:29You are.
45:30You are.
45:31You are.
45:33You.
45:34You are.
45:35I'm.
45:36You are.
45:38You are.
45:39You are.
45:40You.
45:41You are.
45:42You are.
45:43You are.
45:44You.
45:45You are.
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