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Greatest Basslines - Season 1 Episode 2 -
Melissa Auf Der Maur: Hole, The Smashing Pumpkins
Melissa Auf Der Maur: Hole, The Smashing Pumpkins
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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.
00:15A bass line is one note that leads to another note
00:21that creates perfect painting.
00:23I'm in the right place at the right time.
00:26The bass is the flavor.
00:28It's the juice, it's the seasoning, right?
00:32It'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 palms are shaking.
00:58My nose is tickling.
01:00I say yes.
01:02I like that.
01:04Fog horns.
01:05This boot...
01:07...booms and it carries for miles.
01:10Well, if I had it in bass, I don't know what is.
01:12It's all about the groove, baby.
01:14I'm Melissa Oftemauer, and in the 90s, I played bass in Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins.
01:23It was a raw, defiant decade of too much drugs and fame that took down many of my peers.
01:29But I came out alive and forged a solo career, a redhead bass-playing warrior committed to putting more females on the male-dominated landscape of rock.
01:39Melissa Oftemauer, she's like one of my biggest inspirations.
01:43I think she, like, became so iconic, really, for the way that she played her bass and the sound it had.
01:49You hear her play when you see her play.
01:52It's very primal.
01:53She was out there, of course.
01:55I mean, she was so badass.
01:56I have mad respect for her.
01:58I saw her playing the pumpkins, but she was killing it.
02:01If you can get the instrument to speak the way you want, there's no rules.
02:04Melissa's great.
02:05I don't know if you know much about redheads, but apparently redheads are like a phenomenon.
02:14She's a power horse.
02:17After a bass sabbatical to become a mother, I'm now on a journey to reconnect with my instrument and the bass lines that fueled my musical adventures.
02:25I'm going back to the studio, visiting my rock roots, playing loud,
02:33and along with a cast of bass explorers, I'm going to uncover the magic, mystery, and sonic power of my beloved bass, the mother of all instruments.
03:03Montreal is a city that makes you.
03:05Its soul or its spirits, whatever it is, are so deep that it forms the very people who live here, especially if you're a creative,
03:13who's trying to be in the flow of what the universe is trying to teach you.
03:18And I have always listened to the city that made me.
03:22I was born here in Montreal, Canada in 1972.
03:26My parents were intellectual bohemians and somewhat rebels in their own ways.
03:32I'm visiting my childhood neighborhood, the Plateau Montréal, and I come here whenever I can as a touchstone of inspiration.
03:42We are on the corner of Saint-Urbain and Duluth in Saint-Tropole Café.
03:49It's a healthy hippie café that I've been coming to since I was a kid, around the corner from my family's home.
03:55The neighborhood was a bohemian utopia.
04:00So the French cheese shops, the Polish fish markets, the bagel shop, these places have just been here since everyone first arrived.
04:09It always feels like I'm going back to the womb of the place that loves me.
04:14It makes me want to cry, actually.
04:16And it's hard for me to not live here, but that's why when I visit, my family is here, my friends are here, my café is here, my neighborhood is unchanged.
04:28The loyalty and love I feel for it expands every decade.
04:35We grew up in a very traditional, grey stone triplex.
04:39It was where my teenage bedroom was and where all of the magical things happened when I listened to the music,
04:44and I found my calling and I wrote in my diary and I cried.
04:47Ah, the sadness and the melancholic power of the UK.
04:53All of my favorite music of the 80s, People I Worship, Joy Division and The Cure and The Smiths.
04:59The bass is huge in the high melodic bass thing.
05:03That's a very unique style.
05:05Actually, the bass player for The Cure is really great.
05:08I mean, that whole jar of 80s melodic, melancholic vibes, they all have really great high bass playing notes.
05:17The hypnotic bass line that kicks off The Cures Just Like Heaven captures it all, brings back memories of teenage longing and joy that still have me crying and dancing all at the same time.
05:31It's an amazing bass line that you could listen to forever.
05:36Where does it end? Where does it begin?
05:38It's just one of those brilliant loops, it's just always at a good moment and always you're waiting for the next good moment.
05:43That idea of like the trance, that idea of like the spell you cast someone under.
05:50Those were like the songs that I would sit alone in a bathroom stall avoiding going to class or walking home from a bad day at school and just thinking,
06:05oh, thank goodness these guys are here with me.
06:08I think it's trying to take four chords that sound kind of blocky usually if you're playing them and make it sound like a big circle, like it'll never end.
06:22Like that snake that eats its own head or its own tail.
06:25That was a big influence on us for I Love You.
06:32I was thinking I'm going to hold down the melancholy and keep that trance going.
06:48If I played the normal root notes it'd be like...
06:50It feels like everything's going up all the time.
06:54I get to kind of keep everyone under the spell a little bit and it ties the sections together to keep what I'm doing.
06:59I think it's really nice for that more jangly, cure-ish verse, you know, to just be like...
07:07I could have, you know, by right, if I really wanted to follow that in an obvious way,
07:12I could have tried to make it very hard for the harder part and go like...
07:16Or something, but I just felt like, no, I'm going to hold it and I'm going to keep it pensive and then try and glue it all together some way.
07:24I don't want to, like, completely give up the melancholy when it's getting rageful, you know what I mean?
07:29This is, as I was growing up, called the sex district.
07:42Downtown is right on the other side of that street.
07:45From here down, it's...
07:47The history is sex cinemas, prostitution, and the gay village is right beyond.
07:52In the early 90s, Montreal's alternative music scene was fierce and thriving.
07:58So where better to get my first weekend job as a ticket girl than the city's haven for all the punks, goths, and headbangers?
08:05Electric buttocks, legendary rock venue in Canada, Montreal.
08:11This is where all the magic and all the punk and all the dark began in my heart.
08:17This venue was living on the edge. It was everything to me.
08:21Travel back in time, circa 1991.
08:25Baby Scrabble.
08:30In 1991, I could feel this, like, wave of something happening in our generation.
08:37Because I was working as a teenager at pretty much the CBGBs of Canada.
08:42And it was that summer that I saw both Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins in the same month.
08:51I got to witness the pioneers of the new alternative rock scene, which literally changed my life.
08:56The Smashing Pumpkins playing for a dollar to 20 people felt like the initiation into a new sonic universe.
09:02Even in a shitty club in front of 20 people, there was a grandiosity.
09:11It felt like this, like, universe, like an ocean wave vibe of like, wow, I want to, like, bathe myself in these sounds.
09:21So I was instantly excited.
09:23And they fucking kick in into the song, I am one.
09:38And it starts with the bass.
09:39And then the drums come in.
09:41And then the wailing guitars come in.
09:43The epic guitars and drums are mind-blowing, but it was the bass, the heart of the song, that captured me.
09:53Point being is that that bass line did change me.
09:57I felt like I needed to play that type of rhythm, that type of heavy.
10:02And that was it.
10:04I'm like, okay, now you're talking.
10:07Now I have something to live for.
10:13All right, all right.
10:17Three girls and a boy.
10:21This awesome bass player on stage, like me, owes it all to the wave of kick-ass women who made the instrument their own in the late 80s and 90s.
10:31Amazing.
10:32Never before or since have so many women carried the low-end heartbeats of the coolest bands of the day.
10:39I had begun to notice girl bass players, of course, you know, Kim Gordon, obviously, and then Kim Deal from the Pixies.
10:46And like I said, all in one week, I saw the Pumpkins and Hole, and they both had girl bass players who seemed really cool and stoic.
10:53They were just fucking cool girls who, like, were like me, wallflowers who just wanted to, like, be in a band.
11:02I don't even know if I looked at their fingers.
11:04Those women seemed like they could be me.
11:07And the moment I discovered what it feels like to teach yourself a fucking riff that you love, I was hooked.
11:14It's like feels like you're riding the universe, like you just, you're in with the magic.
11:21I always enjoyed female players when they emerged, partly because they don't have that testosterone macho-ness in what they do.
11:33And, you know, I think as, you know, bands have progressed, it makes a lot of sense to have more female energy around.
11:47Melissa Aufdemauer and Kim Gordon, they were like my biggest inspiration being female bass players.
11:53Cool Thing by Sonic Youth was actually one of the first songs I learned to play on the bass,
11:58because it's super simple but it has, like, such a strong drive to it and such a strong character.
12:06And I love that Kim plays, like, the bass almost as if it was like a guitar,
12:11so the riff is, like, super simple but super distorted.
12:22That's kind of the main part of the song, so it's just three notes but they have a lot of attitude.
12:28I love that she's just, like, there hitting on the bass.
12:45Cool Thing, written by Kim Gordon, was their breakthrough hit and with lyrics that flipped the script on the misogyny that was so prevalent in pop culture.
12:52I just wanna know, what are you gonna do for me?
12:56I mean, are you gonna liberate us girls from male, white, corporate oppression?
13:02The lyrics and the whole, like, meaning of the track is something that, of course, resonates a lot with me.
13:07I just want you to know that we can still be friends.
13:10It's such a cool way of, like, talking about female empowerment but not having to do it in a super polished and low-key way but saying it, like, with anger even, you know?
13:22And I think that song just expresses that and it's such a strong message.
13:27I think that the bass was always the thing I felt the most.
13:37It really is about feeling.
13:39It's not about thinking.
13:40It's not about technique.
13:41It's not about anything but feeling.
13:44So, it was probably building in me for years subconsciously.
13:50The whole world or universe of a song is what I wanted to live in and the closest, the easiest place to occupy the whole universe of a song is a bass.
14:00In the clubs where I was working, these sort of older dude mentors who were all in rock bands, just, like, cool dudes who love music, were like,
14:08oh, this young girl is interested, let's educate her.
14:11And they brought me to a rehearsal space to, like, plug into my first giant bass amp, the Ampeg 8x10 cabinet.
14:18And that's when I really felt the power and understood, okay, I need this in my life all the time.
14:25My 21st birthday was around the corner and they said, you know, we'll bring you to a pawn shop and just see, you know, what they have.
14:32And then there she was.
14:33She was just sitting there, well, hanging there.
14:36And I was like, what about that one?
14:38They're like, oh, that's a great one.
14:40Classic.
14:41Sunburst, precision, and it's a squire, which means she'll be cheaper.
14:45So, this is her.
14:46And within two years, this was with me at the Reading Festival.
14:50I had only played six concerts with her ever.
14:53So, it worked out great.
14:55I definitely consider her to be the first support animal that I needed to get me started.
15:01Every time Blur get back together, I try every combination of bass and amplifier just to see.
15:13And I always end up with this and this.
15:16And this was basically, Fender Precision was basically the first bass guitar, and the first one they made was the best one.
15:23Are we plugged in here?
15:33I am devoted to the Fender Precision.
15:36I have never strayed from the ultimate rock bass.
15:39There is nothing like this classic icon.
15:43You don't need six strings.
15:45You don't need to be fretless.
15:47You just need a Fender Precision and a nice big amp with a lot of warmth at the bottom end.
15:52Me amp, me lead, and a Fender P.
15:56You know, volume and tone, that are doing me.
15:59There was something about the Precision.
16:01It was like four strings, two knobs.
16:05What could possibly go wrong?
16:07I've tried out quite a few different basses over the years, and I end up with the Precision.
16:12It's kind of reliable, good, simple.
16:16It's a bass, and there's a tool to getting on in the world.
16:22Me, my new bass, and my camera found ourselves thrust onto the world stage when I was plucked from Montreal obscurity
16:29and joined Hole alongside Courtney Love in the summer of 1994.
16:34I have obsessively documented my life, and I've photographed every day of my life.
16:41With Hole, I actually, on the rider, it was a roll of 35mm film.
16:46I set timers, foot switches, and I took a photo of every single audience we ever played to.
16:53I knew I was witnessing rock history in the making, and I knew I would have no time to really process it then.
16:59I just knew collect, collect, collect.
17:02When Courtney asked me to join Hole, my initial reaction was,
17:05no thank you, death, drugs, destruction, what?
17:10But as the offer sort of landed in me, and I understood being committed to putting female on a male-dominated landscape
17:18is the foundation of my relationship with this instrument.
17:23That's okay, Torgos.
17:25And I understood that our generation was entering this sort of, like, higher and higher mainstream platform.
17:32I had a role to play that was just an obvious, like, fine.
17:36Now I get it, that's what this is doing, this is what the bass wanted me to do,
17:40this is what these weird messengers in this band want me to participate in.
17:45I joined Hole in the wake of death.
17:50The original bass player, Kristen Pfaff, had just died of an overdose,
17:54and Courtney had just lost her husband, Kurt Cobain, to suicide.
18:01This was no ordinary experience for a bass player.
18:04For anyone who ever saw Hole play, the shows were very unpredictable.
18:08Chaos was real.
18:09And, you know, there was also a lot of animosity often from the crowd.
18:14Shotgun shells being thrown up on the stage.
18:16You killed Kurt.
18:17I mean, this is, like, not a chill band to be in.
18:21More surprises.
18:23So, this is a typical day.
18:28A day in the life, backstage with Hole, I was doing my vocal warm-ups.
18:32First time I've seen this footage since I shot it in 1998.
18:39Bands are like families, so you fit into certain roles within a family dynamic.
18:46I was the replacement, healer, visitor.
18:50The foremost role was I have to help keep this band alive,
18:54and the light after the death.
18:58So, back to my, the bass is the mother of all instruments theory,
19:02is that a bass line connects and supports everything.
19:07And whatever is happening around it is what it has to respond to.
19:12So, it's, you know, a power of something unseen in a way that's,
19:16I obviously love that mystery of it.
19:20I think the bass is a very feminine instrument.
19:23It's like the mother.
19:24It's the thing that holds and nurtures the music.
19:27And I don't mean that in, like, it just has to be a soft sense of feminine.
19:31Feminine can be very powerful.
19:37I feel, you know, Larry in our band is very much the masculine force.
19:43And I'm, I'm a sort of feminine force.
19:46So, he'll dictate the rhythm, the terms.
19:49And, you know, I, I arrive a little bit late sometimes.
19:53I arrive a little bit early sometimes.
19:55But as long as he's right in the right spot,
19:58you know, it kind of works together.
20:00The bass leads the band.
20:01Because, uh, if we look at the elements of music,
20:05harmony, melody, and rhythm,
20:08the bass is really at the cornerstone of all three of those
20:11in a way that other instruments may not be.
20:14It requires very strong listening skills.
20:18Because you are in charge.
20:20And so, you have to be, you're responsible for everybody else, in a sense.
20:25I'm listening to everyone.
20:27I'm listening to the drummer for the, you know, for the, for the pulse.
20:31I'm listening to the piano player to, to, to understand what harmony he's using.
20:36I'm listening to pretty much everybody in the rhythm section.
20:39If the guitar player's comping, I'm listening to what he's doing
20:42and, and trying to find a way to, to glue all those things together.
20:47The bass, as mother, selflessly takes care of a band.
20:52But as players, we all need to satisfy our own musical desires once in a while.
20:57If I isolate just the music, the most powerful experience of music I had in whole
21:02was making celebrity skin.
21:04There's a song on the album that, um, it's called Use Once and Destroy.
21:08I think it was called on the board forever Melissa's song that stemmed out of a bit,
21:13more like the way I described that if I was in my own band with a drummer,
21:17me and the drums would start, uh, a song.
21:20And it would, you know, go something like this.
21:27So then Patty the drummer came in with like rolling toms
21:30and then Eric came in with glassy textural guitars
21:33and we were able to make a song, a cool rock song.
21:37One of my favorites on the record, out of a drum and bass tune.
21:50In Use Once and Destroy, you're like using the space in between
21:54as a jagged rhythm addition.
22:02Tracking my bass on that record was when I actually stepped into my power
22:06and I understood, wow, if I really am given proper attention,
22:09I will achieve great things.
22:11And I expanded my palette in being more of an artistic bass player within pop music.
22:15Well, that's just about it for Channel B's Big Day Out coverage for $19.99.
22:25It's been absolutely awesome.
22:27But to finish off, absolutely, without a doubt, the undisputed queen of grunge.
22:31It would have to be Courtney Love and her band Hole.
22:33So enjoy.
22:38It was 1999.
22:39Celebrity skin when platinum, we had achieved all we had set out to do.
22:43Top billing festivals, Grammy nominees.
22:46But the world was changing and so was the music.
22:49It was my last escapade in Hole when we were at the top of our game.
22:53We were co-headlining a lot of the big summer festivals.
22:57I remember setting off into a side dance tent on the big day out in Australia and New Zealand.
23:04And Fatboy Slim were on that tour.
23:07And that captured me.
23:14Right here, right now, grab my ear instantly.
23:16A live electronic person with a dedicated throbbing dance floor.
23:24And that was very powerful.
23:26I remember thinking, okay, the future has arrived.
23:29And then I found out it was the bass player of the House Martins.
23:31I'm like, oh my God, that's so cool that that guy, a bass player, a real musician,
23:35is offering the public a new way of experiencing live music.
23:41It was profound.
23:46There's a moment, hopefully, in most of my DJ sets where the whole crowd hits a groove.
23:56When there's like a strong bass drop, you really see the crowd's reaction.
24:00And it's all about, you know, keeping the suspense until that moment.
24:03So it's almost as if you're playing them as an instrument.
24:08The build is like their kind of foreplay.
24:10But when there's a point where you just see everybody dancing as one
24:14and the crowd becomes one big organism.
24:20That's when music unites us the best, the most perfect, purest example of a whole load of disparate people
24:27united by one nation under a groove.
24:30And it's interesting, I've only just realised, talking to you now, that on pretty much every fat whistle in the record,
24:36the only thing that's played properly is the bass line.
24:41I just realised, because all the drums are, you know, break beats that are programmed,
24:45all the guitars are normally just little loops of guitars, the vocals are all sampled.
24:50But pretty much most of the songs, I then played the bass line on a keyboard, or sometimes on a real bass.
24:56So, I don't know why, all that says probably says you're a bass player.
25:02Even though you don't want to be, you're still a bass player at heart.
25:05Hull had eclipsed and defined all that I was as a woman in music, and the time had come to break free.
25:15Just then, destiny came calling again.
25:24Complete coincidence, it had been the week I had decided I was done with Hull,
25:28and I had started writing my resignation letter.
25:31My rotary phone in Los Angeles rang, and there was Billy Corgan.
25:35Hey, the stars have lined up.
25:37It's time for you to join my band.
25:39Like, how the fuck did you know I was about to leave the band?
25:44There's the big Billy.
25:45Looks like we're about to go on stage.
25:48This is part of the big international tour.
25:51Right, and just the fact that I was walking up with this camera,
25:54let's remember, someone is filming this, it is the bass player.
25:57I am filming this.
25:59Where have you just put it?
26:00I put it on my bass amp, as I do.
26:04Now I've picked up my bass, and I am about to perform.
26:10This is better than some YouTube footage, eh, that you could find.
26:17Makes me love the bass and my journey in it.
26:20Hull was my master's in humanity, and when I joined the Pumpkins,
26:25it was my PhD as a bass player and a musician.
26:29So I got to do the euphoria in the pocket, in the flow as a bass player once I joined the Pumpkins.
26:37I did it for the bass, 100%.
26:39I did it so that I could actually do what I had come here to do, which was play bass to the people, and I knew it would be the best music lesson in my life.
26:51Everlasting Gaze definitely, to this day, is one of my favorite Pumpkins songs, but mainly because it's all about how cool the riff is.
27:10Riffs that are heavy and rhythmic, I like to play along with, and that's what I got to do in the Pumpkins.
27:33The bass line is front and center of this track, and while the guitar riff doubles up and joins in and out, it's a steady bass that keeps you riding hard.
27:47And I got to play up to three to four-hour shows a night just on bass, no backing vocal, no stage banter, just...
27:57Ugh, that was the best bass ride of my life.
28:03Low, heavy, driving bass riffs are my happy place, but that is not the genre that many people associate with the bass.
28:10Oh, man, a little thumb magic.
28:19Can I just quickly get my thumb tape?
28:27Slap bass is basically where you use your thumb to slap the bass or thump.
28:32The Americans call it thumping, we call it slapping.
28:35So how do you slap? Well, this is the secret. It comes from the thumb bone, the magical thumb bone.
28:44And what you do is you strike the string against the fingerboard and then move away, allowing the string to vibrate.
28:53You know, different players do it in different ways. My way has always been to play it this way, because where my arm is parallel with the strings.
29:02Yeah, lessons in love. So we've got...
29:11I'm not proud I was wrong
29:20And the truth is hard to take
29:24I felt sure we had enough
29:28But our love went overboard
29:32I had that riff
29:34And that sort of chugging it along
29:39It was a really, really big hit for us, you know, it got us our first number one
29:53All the things that we were building
29:57Mark King is especially awesome
30:00He wasn't just slapping, he was slapping in his own way
30:04He's playing not just slap, he's playing beautiful melodic lines
30:09And singing!
30:11Yes!
30:13Part of the success that Level 42 had with the Brit funk scene in 1980 when we came out
30:19Was the fact that Varna was only put out as a white label
30:22And it went round to certain DJs
30:24And so the DJs had no idea who you were, where you came from, or everything
30:28And there was an assumption that we were an American band
30:31And that we were black guys doing this, because it sounded funky
30:36And, of course, wrong
30:38It's the same in America, that they thought the same thing
30:41It was no wonder there was confusion
30:44And that's because this style of bass playing is about as funky as it gets
30:48And until the likes of Mark King came along, it had been the preserve of a small group of American funk players
30:54And the man whose thumb led them all
30:58And there you have it
30:59Larry Graham is the father of this style
31:01Basically, you know, Larry Graham came up with this style because he was working with his mom
31:05And there was no drummer
31:07And his mom was playing keyboards, I believe
31:09And so he came up with this very percussive style, which kept the rhythm strong
31:14Just bass
31:16So he's famous for kind of playing the bass almost like it's a drum, you know
31:24Plucking
31:26And, you know, thumping and plucking
31:28But that technique, we really do, we give credit to Larry Graham about that
31:33Now there are arguments that there were other guys who were doing it
31:37But he's the one who really popularized it
31:39And who we all looked at and went, oh my God, I didn't know you could play an instrument like that
31:45Depending on your own personal taste, you may be thinking nobody should be playing an instrument like that
31:50You're either into slap bass or you're very much not
31:57Mm-mm, don't do any slapping
31:59No matter what you do, don't do not slap
32:01It's not really something that's even in my wheelhouse anymore
32:03Because the time has come and gone
32:06It just became a very cliché sound
32:10And I would say that, unlike Mark King and some of the other people we've mentioned
32:15It wasn't done in a really musical way
32:18It's kind of like Seinfeld
32:22Right?
32:23No!
32:26Cut his thumb off
32:29No, each of their own
32:31It's got his place
32:33But that place isn't under my roof, you know
32:54Basilica Hudson is a platform for innovative, experimental music
33:02We fell in love with the building, with the infrastructure and the architecture
33:06And the first thing I deemed it was Temple of Sound
33:11For 15 years, this epic space of ours has showcased countless bands and artists
33:16But now I want to use it to travel back to when I first expressed myself fully through my base
33:20In 2004, I cut loose from other people's bands to go it alone
33:25But a bass player going solo was almost unheard of
33:32Bass players don't usually step out of the shadows
33:35And I remember when I was signed to Capitol Records
33:38The president at the time, when he came to see my showcase show in L.A.
33:43Where I was playing to some labels
33:45The first thing he said to me is
33:47Who knew the bass player had anything to say?
33:50Interesting
33:58I have a song called Follow the Waves
34:01Which I wrote on the bass and then put on the guitar
34:04And then that became the lead riff of the guitar
34:06But then I live played on the bass because I play bass live
34:08And in the song, the guitar starts it and then the heavy bass low D comes in
34:25And I basically alter between my high notes and my bass low notes of a guitar
34:29And then the bottom low string of a bass ends up just being the support to it
34:36Can't you see?
34:40Then my heart lies, my heart lies to you
34:43As much as I identify as a bass player, I really look for pushing the boundaries
34:50And obviously once I went solo and made a commitment to be a singer-bass player
34:53Which by the way is quite difficult
34:54I am not only stepping center stage out of, you know, behind the shadows of huge Courtney, Billie rock icons
35:02I am also staying true to my instrument, which is not a traditional lead singer's instrument
35:08Break my heart
35:11It's not fun to have to rhythmically
35:14It's like a head cut off, your head has to sing and be a front person
35:17While your body has to feel the rhythm
35:20He's just a drunk and gammering man
35:24Dealing with the hand of desire's name
35:27I would take my hat off to the dexterity of a lead singer who can play bass
35:32Because if you're playing guitar, you're just chugging along chords while you're singing
35:36But it's a bit like that to play a bass line that isn't the same as the top line that you're singing
35:43So Sting, Lemmy, all of you, I'd take my hat off to you
35:47Singing and playing the bass is an incredibly counter-intuitive thing to do
35:51Even if the bass part is the same as the guitar part, it's still not as natural
35:56You know, singing and playing bass is really not easy
36:01Singing and playing bass is hard enough at the best of times
36:04But imagine being asked to play one of the most legendary bass lines in rock
36:09And sing like Freddie Mercury while you're at it
36:11And on bass guitar, who's actually going to join me on this next song?
36:20Join me, it's not the word, takes this next song
36:23Gail Ann Dorsey
36:25It was more a matter of really trying to nail Freddie's vocal
36:31And his phrasing is kind of crazy on that song
36:36And so, you know, so this part was always, you know, it's not so...
36:40Let me see here
36:41Boomba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba
37:11I'm not talking to tell you what this world is about.
37:22Watching some good friends sing and let me out.
37:26Their tomorrow takes me higher.
37:30There's your own people, people on the streets.
37:34So there's a lot of that that's just sort of long notes,
37:41but getting the phrasing around Freddie's verse goes back to that song.
37:50I don't know if I can do this anymore.
37:54Kicking around, kick my brains around the floor.
37:57He's talking.
37:58These are the days it never rains.
38:00Oh, it's hard.
38:02I haven't done it for a long time.
38:04Since David passed, I don't do it anymore.
38:08I can't do it.
38:09I've been asked many times would I do it with another person, but I can't.
38:14It's special.
38:18When I went solo, I wrote most of my songs at home alone on a guitar.
38:23But for my second album, my concept was to write direct from the bass
38:27alongside some of my favorite drummers.
38:30My second solo album, Out of Our Minds, that I actually honed in to what would a bass player
38:38write as a song.
38:40Let's just take it from the top so that you can help me get into that first change accordingly.
38:46So, you know, the totem and title track of that album, Out of Our Minds, which came, like, just out of me
39:14with a drum beat that Ben started playing and, like, a field of sound where you're just sort of, like, tripping through it.
39:22And we just, like, fell into a chorus and the words just came out.
39:30And I was like, oh, this is me.
39:42So, in many ways, it was also my most soulful return to my true sort of hippie nature where I really just want to
39:51get into the flow of what my calling is in this world.
39:55I'm a woman who connects with the warrior in me, just like the warrior dude in the metal band connects with the witch in him.
40:09The wielding of an object is so big and chopping wood, wielding an axe, it's like a very physical engagement.
40:23It instantly activates my life force.
40:28I am alive.
40:29I am channeling the volcanoes, the angels, through the instrument.
40:36And then if you have an audience that is then receiving you and you are in charge of the low frequency,
40:43along with the drums, that make people feel in their body.
40:48Being an unstoppable force to feel, not think, not watch, feels like the roar of the ocean.
41:03It feels like a gallop of a horse, that you feel power beyond humans.
41:12Music is magical.
41:14It's a universal language that we all connect with.
41:18I've been drawn towards the big bass reflex speakers and I couldn't believe it.
41:25It was like a power of the universe. It was more than just sound. You could feel it in your guns.
41:32I grew up almost thinking that God is music.
41:41It's a spiritual thing. When there's going to be an earthquake,
41:45there are some animals that pick it up before us.
41:50Now you imagine that frequency.
41:52It's one of the most frightening frequencies.
41:56That is bass.
41:58When the thunder rolls and that low frequency hits,
42:03especially if you're a weak heart, you're going to run and hide.
42:07I'm an escape artist. I like escaping into the wild unknown and the cosmic universe if I can,
42:15and the bass helps me get there.
42:17Today I'm picking up where I left off before my motherhood sabbatical.
42:32And I'm heading back into the studio in Montreal to record new music for the first time in 15 years.
42:38I've changed. The musical landscape has changed. And I'm so excited to experiment with some new sounds and styles.
42:48Hey, Alex. You think I can fit here?
42:52Totally cool. Amazing. VIP parking without trying.
42:55This particular experiment was I'm really trying to merge the future and the past.
43:05Because yes, I am a 90s lover of distorted bass and guitar and real heavy drums.
43:12But I also am a child of the 80s and the sound of the 80s is really what seduced me.
43:18Processed things and beautiful glassy sounds.
43:22And then there's the 21st century back to like the kids making music on their computers alone in their room.
43:27Because that's their version of being punk in the garage.
43:35And that's what I love about some of the best 21st century new music I've heard.
43:40It's like you're mixing between synth and electronic and you have gothy, but you also have poppy.
43:46It's like such a cool world now. I am very inspired.
43:52Like I got invited to go see Charlie XCX and, you know, it's this one woman basically karaokeing
43:59the shit she makes at a home alone on a computer. And there's fucking heavy bass that makes me feel good.
44:06Charlie XCX is exciting and feels like she has fresh and urgent things to say to a new generation,
44:16just like we did in the 90s.
44:20But it's that huge, timeless bass line that drives her music and her message.
44:24There are distorted bass sounds on her songs that I am using as inspiration now of like,
44:32how can I play with that? Like, how can a 90s analog bass player play with that sound?
44:37I think the bass is the future of all cool, powerful music movements, because at this point,
44:53you've got to capture people. You can't just be a cool freaking shredder or a person who like,
45:00rehearsed a lot. So I think in a world full of garbage and distractions and endless content,
45:09too much information every second of every day, people are going to be numb. People are numb.
45:16And they need to feel.
45:23That's an actual, not just for the cameras, good additional situation. That's when the mystery
45:29of music proves itself. Bass has a power to cut through that I don't think other things do.
45:35So the future is bass, okay? Definitely use that.
45:46So the future is the future.
46:16Transcription by CastingWords
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