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JJ's Bizarre Blog #63 - All Your Bass are Belong to Us
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Salutations, all! It is in fact ya boy, the Bizarre one back at it again. Today, as we transition between months, I'm starting another mini series within the Bizarre Blogs that I hope you'll all appreciate. As we explore music, we all establish our own favourite musicians and artists across various categories, so I will now begin to present you some of my personal favourites. And with this blog, we begin with bass guitar! Why bass? Well, because it's my instrument of choice, a criminally underrated one and we bass players never get to be first at anything, so I consider this a little bit of redemption. Get ready for some good low vibrations as I present to you a collection of my favourite bass players of all time. I'm gonna assume you all already know what a bass guitar is and what it does, so without further ado, let's jump right in!
We begin with a band that has been foundational to my entire music journey - Deep Purple and their most iconic bassist, Roger Glover! These English veterans are some of the most influential across all of rock and metal and they were the first band that really enchanted me into rock music as a whole. Glover himself is a classic master bass man. You don't notice him much and he never tries to stand out, but his grooves are catchy, infectious and really elevate the songs to another level, being one half of the amazing rhythm section that acts as foundation for the wild improvisations on the guitars and keyboards. He's a student of oldschool blues and prog and brings that powerful rhythm to his playing. While I love Glenn Hughes too, Glover will forever be the true bass player of Deep Purple and an inseparable part of their iconic sound.
A similar case can be made for his compatriot Geezer Butler of the one and only Black Sabbath! When you add Zeppelin's John Paul Jones to the mix, it's no exaggeration to say that these three defined what heavy metal bass playing should be! Butler is an even more stout student of blues, playing a loud, melodic and energetic style that's equal parts funky and whimsical. As Iommi lays down the most iconic riffs of all time, Butler is over there dancing all over his strings and dropping some of the most incredible bass grooves ever heard by man. In fact, the two almost play as equals most of the time, creating a rich and captivating sound! The classic Sabbath lineup are a perfectly oiled machine of fun and dark mysticism and Butler's bass is an inseparable part of that.
Onto another legendary English band, it's the one and only Iron Maiden and their main man Steve Harris! He is one of those bassists who you can immediately recognize in a song. His rhythms are played high and are fast and very uplifting. He's known for his iconic galloping style riffs that really make you wanna rush into battle, a style that still inspires heavy and power metal bands (and me) to this day! Not only is his bass playing a foundational and irreplaceable element of Maiden's style, but Harris is also a founding member, the only constant member and the most vital songwriter within their midst. Look deeper and you'll find that all of Maiden's most legendary songs have been penned by him, so it should come as no surprise that his galloping bass is leading the charge!
Hopping across the pond and onto the next generation of bands, we have the world conquering Metallica and specifically their original bassist, the late great Cliff Burton! A brilliant musician with a very unique style that revolutionized the electric bass in many ways with his techniques still being studied to this day. His riffs are likewise quite gallopy and tend to really utilize the entire melodic range at his disposal. He's known for playing a "lead bass" style with lots of melodic phrasing, advanced harmonics and bountiful use of effects pedals, things previously only reserved for guitar players. He stands toe-to-toe will both axemen in his band, while also laying down incredible grooves rooted in jazz and blues that really drill the songs into your memory forever. Cliff was a genius who's life was cut tragically short. One can only imagine what he and Metallica would've achieved if he were still around. Cliff 'em All!
Moving on to a proggier direction, we have the legendary weirdos from Tool and their iconic bass maestro Justin Chancellor! Despite their significant success, Tool are a very complex and sophisticated band and one that is studied by all kinds of musicians. However, bass is easily among the most recognizable aspects of their music. After joining on their second album, sir Chancellor has really moved the needle in the bass world with his advanced technical playing, melodic passages and wacky time signatures. The "Schism" riff alone continues to melt people's brains whenever they hear it for the first time. It's not uncommon for him to play more complex and intricate things than the guitarist and his bass is often allowed to take center stage as the lead instrument. Every bassist worth their salt is a huge Tool fan because of this man and I am no exception!
A similar case can be made for the quiet yet mindblowing master John Myung from the prog metal Gods themselves, Dream Theater! Standing on stage like a support column, face obscured by hair and laying down some of the most incredible bass playing of all time, Myung is an enigmatic genius. Complex, yet melodic, sophisticated, yet catchy, these are just some of the epithets that can be used for his bass playing. It takes a special kind of talent and skill level to share a band with one of the most incredible guitarists to ever live and still keep up with him with relative ease, but he absolutely does that! Each member of Dream Theater easily stands at the zenith of musical excellence, the peak that all musicians in their respective fields strive to achieve and Myung really is the wise old sensei atop the mountain waiting for young talents to challenge him! Yet still for many, he's unmatched!
But let's settle down a bit. Complexity is cool and all and it's always impressive but that's not all that makes a good musician! In fact, I'm a man that appreciates simplicity and attitude just as much, if not more. On that note, nu metal has always been known for having some of the greatest bass players of all time and king among them is the bass monster Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu of the genre's own founders KoRn! He's another guy you can immediately recognize in a song. His bass tone is loud, metallic and clattery, with tons of distortion and every single knob turned all the way up. Combine that with his love of slapping and palm muting and you have an iconic sound like old rusty machinery banging against each other in perfect rhythm! Fieldy's unique style is the perfect funky backdrop for the wild and chaotic genre-pushing mayhem of KoRn and he's inspired a whole generation of bassists after him!
Thus we get to one of my own personal heroes and prime reason for me picking up a bass, the one and only Tony Campos! Naturally, my first introduction to him was from his work in Static-X, but having played for Ministry and currently rocking with Fear Factory as well, Campos has solidified himself as the go-to industrial metal bass guy! His pick-driven style is percussive, precise and powerful, being the perfect mold for this biomechanical genre. You'd think it's a machine playing, but no, Tony is just that finely tuned!
Tony's also a stalwart of the death metal scene too, providing both his powerful rumble and his recognizable growls to many icons like Brujeria and Soufly, as well as his own band Asesino! Campos is a legend on many levels and his contribution is always felt in the head and the heart!
Speaking of death metal, let's get extreme now, shall we? One icon of the genre that has cemented himself as a favourite bassmaster of mine is the incredible Steve DiGiorgio. He's a versatile and multi-faceted player that freely mixes influences from classic metal, punk, extreme metal, jazz and prog into one free-flowing sound that can be adapted to any band that obtains his services. And Steve has definitely taken full advantage of this as he's been a member or a session musician for well over a dozen bands of varying genres but mostly in the death, thrash and progressive metal spheres, currently being a part of the iconic Bay Area thrash titans Testament! My favourite performances from Steve are definitely from his time in the immortal Death, specifically their middle era. He played on the only Control Denied record, was a founding member of Swedish supergroup Soen, doing some quality Tool-worship on their debut record and he is also probably the first bassist to bring fretless bass into metal music, a vastly more advanced version of the instrument allowing for a more free-flowing and amorphous sound. From complex techniques to aggressive simplicity, DiGiorgio somehow manages to adapt his style to any band he plays with and always deliver the perfect performance to every album, pushing the envelope for all bass players in the process.
We have to give a special shoutout to one specific record though - the debut album of the mighty Autopsy, Severed Survival! This is a classic death metal album through and through and with it's incredible speed, relentless heaviness and potent riffs, it's one of the finest albums of the genre's formative years and a classic to this day. But what truly elevates it is DiGiorgio's performance. The bass is easily the loudest instrument in the mix, the tone is loud, thick and metallic, each pluck of the strings shaking the Earth itself. It's incredibly powerful and enveloping without overpowering the rest of the instrumentation. It sounds like a shovel hitting the lid of a coffin while you're trapped inside said coffin. This incredible tone along with the songwriting taking inspiration from both oldschool death metal and slow doom metal create one of the most unique sounding albums ever, suffocating and invigorating at the same time. Without even being a permanent member of the band, Steve left an immortal mark that has never been repeated since.
Steve may have introduced fretless bass to metal, but it was another that mastered it, Dutch phenomenon Jeroen Paul Thesseling! Utilizing colossal axes with 6, 7 or even 8 strings, an advanced finger picking style and incredible legato riffs, Thesseling is one of the most unique bass players of all time! He uses the full sonic range of his instruments to go from booming infrasound to enveloping leads and everything in between, playing these complex multi-layered melodies that make any song something truly special. By far his finest work comes with tech death master Obscura, as well as his jazz-influenced oldschool work with Dutch death metal legends Pestilence and some various other phenomenal outputs like his work with Sadist. Among all, Thesseling has been fortunate enough to play alongside some of the most gifted and technically proficient guitarists in the world, and yet he not only manages to consistently keep up with them, but even outshines them on more than one occasion!
Fun fact, you can hear DiGiorgio and Thesseling shred together on the newly formed instrumental prog project Quadvium! Which is a dream collaboration for me as you can imagine! Although honestly, leaving these two together is a bit of a risk. The brain-melting things they'll play might be beyond what humanity can fathom.
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While we're on the topic, I must shoutout another master of the fretless, Thesseling's successor in Obscura, Linus Klausenitzer! Likewise playing some quite advanced instruments and taking advantage of their full capabilities, Linus nonetheless has managed to craft a unique sound that can blow your mind and soothe your soul all the same. Through his work in Obscura and his later projects Alkaloid, Obsidious, Noneuclid and more, he has cemented himself as one of the key figures in the technical/progressive death metal scene!
But enough of that fancy nonsense, let's get extreme! When you want your song to blow some eardrums and break some necks, you hire one man - Shane Embury! As the longest serving member of the incredible Napalm Death, Shane has pushed the envelope for extreme metal and along with a sleuth of other bands, including once again Brujeria all the way in Mexico, he is undoubtedly the Godfather of grindcore. Or the Grindfather if you will. His bass playing is chaotic, relentlessly heavy and distorted almost beyond recognition. I really wanna know how or if he notices if a cable in the system isn't plugged in correctly. Shane brings the exact type of controlled noise and ruthless aggression that grindcore needs and he has kicked the door down for whole entire genres to follow in his path. And yet, his own work remains unmatched!
And in a similar line of extremeness, let's travel to the Land of the Rising Sun and meet Japanese metal mainstay and fellow Hagrid lookalike Haruhisa Takahata from the relentless storm that is Gotsu Totsu Kotsu. This band of warriors who I've mentioned plenty before play a fast and merciless death metal style retelling the unforgiving tales of the legendary samurai and all manner of stories from Feudal Japan and Takahata's furious bass playing is at the center of it. Like Embury, his style is blisteringly fast, mixing in lots of multi-finger strums and slapping, which combined with ludicrous amounts of distortion for a sound of pure combat frenzy. He makes sure to bless almost every song with an insane bass solo and he consistently matches and even outpaces the guitarists he plays with. Truly, like the samurai warriors of old dutifully mastered their katanas, so too has Takahata-sensei mastered the bass and reached a level unmatched under heaven!
Too fast for you? Alright then, let's slow down. Waaaaaaaaaay down. Now we meet one of the most unique examples in this blog, doom phenomenon Bell Witch's own Dylan Desmond. What's curious about this duo is that they don't have a guitarist at all! All the string sounds you hear are produced on a single multi-stringed bass using advanced finger picking techniques and the most complex pedalboard array ever conceived. I mean, Desmond has basically invented a whole new way of playing the instrument! Somehow, he covers lead guitar licks, rhythm guitar riffs, bass foundation and varying flourishes all by himself, all on one instrument. It's downright sorcery and an enchanting experience to see in person. Can we even call him a bassist anymore at this point? I don't know, but what we can call him is incredible!
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Alright, that's enough mindbending for now. So lastly, a couple of popular, but still underappreciated mentions. Firstly, Flea from the unforgettable Red Hot Chili Peppers! Another quintessential bassist's band thanks to this man's work, RHCP's funky rock is fun and upbeat, ready to make anybody move at a moment's notice and Flea is one of the key culprits behind this. His bouncy bass that often gets more attention than the guitar is a pure groove and an absolute jam that flows through you like electricity. And you just can't help but move! Despite this, he can be melancholic and introspective all the same. No matter the song, Flea always delivers!
And a very special man, the one and only Leland Sklar! Apart from having one of the coolest names ever and the appearance I strive to have fifty years from now, he is one of the most prolific session bassists of all time. I personally most enjoy his work with the legendary Phil Collins, but Sklar has also played for the likes of Toto, Cher, Joe Cocker, Julio and Enrique Iglesias, Kris Kristofferson, Mariya Takeuchi and many many more! Some of the most iconic artists from all kinds of genres and from all corners of the world. For Sklar, music is just music and whatever the song needs, he delivers it every time!
To wrap up, some quick honourable mentions. Doom metal is a low and thick genre to begin with, so naturally the bass plays a key role there and pioneers of it like Paradise Lost, Candlemass, Moonspell and more have blessed us with many iconic bass performances that leave you shaken!
To really hammer the point home that nu metal has some of the best bassists, here's some more! We have to mention the late great Paul Gray, co-founder of SlipKnot and his thunderous riffage. Rage Against the Machine's Tim Commerford that brings the funky beats, heavy enough for the band's aggression, but groovy enough for the rapping to flow like honey. And of course, Mudvayne's Ryan Martinie, mixing flamenco riffage with slapping and plucking for an eclectic and hard-hitting style. I mean, BR BR DENG BR BR DENG, that's all I have to say about that.
Lastly for some off-the-wall mentions, regardless of who's playing, comedy kings Psychostick always have some of the most exquisite bass performances out there, being especially big slap aficionados. And no matter what, any tune that Frank Klepacki composes, regardless if for a game or one of his albums, is always blessed with some incredible bass riffage that just injects pure adrenaline into the veins!
So there you have it, a collection of my personal favourite bass guitarists! Hope you enjoyed the ride. Bass is such an underrated instrument. It's foundational, being part of the rhythm section that songs are built on. It's a fundamental component of any guitar driven genre. For most songs, it's like seasoning. You may not notice it when done well, but it's absence is always felt. But despite us bassists stereotypically being less talked about and sitting more in the background of live performances, it's so cool to see the special few that take this instrument to new heights and make it a central and obvious part of every song. Regardless, laying down a nice groove, leading the rhythm of the song and making sure that low end is rich and powerful, these are just some of the wonderful qualities that make the bass guitar worth it and probably what drew me to it as well. So go and appreciate the unsung heroes of rock and metal and in this era of synthesized wobbles and wubs, show respect to the madmen out there making subwoofers rock with fat strings, galloping fingerplucking and vigorous slapping. Cuz when it it's just right, oh boy, nothing does it better! Take care and catch you all next time!