Podcast Archives - Page 5

There’s crazy stories and then there’s really crazy stories. The timeline of Arthur Barrow’s success falls into the “really crazy story” category (without question). Barrow – a young musician trying to find his way – decides to teach himself the electric bass in 1974 while attending the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. He was studying composition and organ,...

Tony Levin is a bass specialist. Pure, simple, and rhythmic. Bass players know how hard it is to find one’s voice. Levin has not only found his voice but a very distinct sound, playing style, and groove, whether he’s playing electric, upright, or the Chapman Stick. It would be easy to lump him into the progressive rock genre (consider his...

Who is Divinity Roxx? Musician? Bassist? Rapper? Singer? Producer? Performer? Composer? Musical director? Much more. Divinity Roxx is a true artist. The electric bass is her tool to get her message out. She mixes and crosses genres (from rock to rap to funk to jazz). She was both the bassist and Musical Director for Beyonce from 2006 – 2011. She’s...

Jeff Berlin had a moment that he describes as “the dark night of the soul” at the age of sixty. Now, he’s 63 and he’s reflecting. He’s reflecting on his career as one of the most influential electric bass players who has ever lived, and he’s being critical of just how critical he has been about the state of the...

Imagine playing the bass when your last name is Pastorius. Many of us might think that this is a blessing. There is no question that Jaco Pastorius is one of (if not THE) founding fathers of the modern electric bass. His son, Felix Pastorius, has no desire to carry-on the legacy, other than to find his own path with the...

When I was growing up – and was a young and impressionable musician – every bass player wanted to be Jaco Pastorius (that’s not true, the rockers wanted to be Billy Sheehan). These virtuosos seemed unreachable. There was no Internet. There was no Twitter. No Skype. All we knew about these icons was what we heard on vinyl, cassettes and...

The Music Lesson is a book that will forever change you. Not because it was written by one of the world’s greatest bass players but because the message is core to living a life worth celebrating. Music is all over Victor Wooten. He was bathed in it from the womb (that’s not a clever play on words, just ask him)....

Lamb of God was one of the headliners at this year’s three-day hard music festival known as Heavy Montreal. Bassist John Campbell was willing and able to sit down in the blazing sun to talk about everything from why he used to play with only three strings on his bass, to the sad situation that found his singer Randy Blythe...

Juan Alderete doesn’t remember me. Fair ball. The last time I saw him, he had long hair, tight jeans and was playing bass for a hard rock band called The Scream back in the early nineties. That band is most notable because frontman, John Corabi, later went on to replace Vince Neil in Motley Crue. Back then, Juan was known...

From a commercial standpoint, Gary Willis is mostly known as the co-founder of Tribal Tech (the jazz fusion band that includes Scott Henderson). The life of a jazz musician is never easy… no matter how much hype and excitement there is surrounding your band (and, Gary had plenty of that with Tribal Tech). Like most bass players, Gary has paid...

“Who is that bass player with the long beard?” That was my initial reaction when I first saw the video for Phil Collins’ smash hit, “Sussudio”, in 1985. I did not know Leland Sklar’s pedigree as a bass player before that (and, what happened after is a journey of impressive artists and songs that continues to expand to this day...

There is a memorable scene in the Modern Electric Bass instructional video from 1986, when Jerry Jemmott asks Jaco Pastorius who really influenced the development of his playing style. Without missing a beat, Pastorius starts riffing on some of Jemmott’s classic funk bass lines. He talks about how he would listen to the radio, and try to emulate the sounds...