Reader Spotlight: Mike Hall

Mike Hall

Meet Mike Hall, a bassist from New Jersey who has an interesting story on how he became a bassist and has had a great run over 19 years of playing.

Mike is this week’s No Treble reader in the spotlight. Here’s his story…

Bio:

I’m a bassist out of New Jersey that has recently been featured in Bass Musician Magazine and gotten endorsed to Skjol Design Guitars (whose roster includes Damian Erskine). I’ve toured throughout the east coast under the independent label Canadian-American Records with the project “Running Late” while sharing the stage with some of the biggest names in the music industry; including Blondie, Lifehouse, the Plain White T’s, Joan Jett, and the Blackhearts, Collective Soul, MGMT, America (The Band), Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Third Eye Blind, Gin Blossoms, Hot Chelle Ray, Vertical Horizon, Three Doors Down, Sugar Ray, Neon Trees, and numerous other major label artists.

Location:

Madison/NJ/US

Years experience:

19 years.

Why I play the bass:

My orchestra teacher… by pretty much force: Throughout elementary school, my orchestra teacher hated how bad my posture was on the cello (due to having some pretty bad scoliosis). Once I got into middle school; stand-up basses started to get introduced to students, and my orchestra teacher pushed me onto the bass as being “more comfortable to play” than the cello. Even though she wasn’t wrong, I always took it as the greatest cop-out of not having to continue to endure my poor posture on the cello. However; I stuck with it all the way through high school, and once I got into college, I switched to electric and never looked back.

Gear:

  • Schecter Stargazer 4 string bass – decked out with piccolo bass strings
  • Ibanez acoustic 4 string bass
  • Ernie Ball Music Man Stingray
  • BigSkye Reverb Pedal
  • Ampeg Bass Cab
  • Hartke Preamp

My Influences:

Cliff Burton, Larry Graham, Flea, and Victor Wooten.

My bass superpower/claim to fame:

I would have to say my claim to fame is my technique of incorporating percussive muting in tandem with utilizing harmonics.

More on the web:

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