I don't look at my instrument as having one specific role; I was raised to go as far as you can. But Raphael Saadiq hated my bass. He told me to throw it away. And playing in Snoop's band, there was a time when my bass was more annoying to everyone than helpful. They would get on my case: 'Can you make your bass sound like more of a bass?'
At the time, I didn't know that bass would not be enough for me. I'm not a bass player because bass is always a background instrument even to this very day.
I often use a return channel to get some shape out of the bass. It's a good way to split the frequencies of the bass so that the sub bass is clean and in mono and the higher end of the bass sound can be filtered off - have it on an audio channel and that's where you can use effects.
In 1972, I got my first electric bass and started playing the kind of instrument I play now. I found that the majority of musicians couldn't bear that. They are not used to listening to the bass because they think the bass is in the background to support them.
Ben was more improvisational, and relied less on methodology, and basically is a guitarist who switched to bass, whereas Jeff has a more traditional approach to playing bass in a band, and has a great sense of what his band sounds like, and we lock up nicely.
You have to understand that the bass guitar is the party instrument. It only has four strings. If you see a bass player playing five strings, take your shoe off and throw it at him.
My dad taught me to play bass. He's a bass player; he still plays in a band in Michigan to this day. He taught me to play bass when I was about 6. I used to just go to band practice with him, and whoever didn't show up for rehearsal that day, I would take their spot.
I set myself up to be a bass guitarist and bass players get a lot more work than people like me.
Later in high school, I met Hillel Slovak, who was the original guitar player of the Chili Peppers, and we became really close. We had a band, and we didn't like the bass player, so I started playing bass, and I got a bass two weeks later.
A lot of other bass players have told me I'm the only bass player who plays with a pick but sounds like he's playing with the thumb and fingers, which is a great compliment.
I listened to many different types of instruments and music, and have always tried to look at the bass as an instrument as opposed to only a bass.
I'm 13 to 17, 18 years old; I thought that's what the world was like. It never occurred to me that this was a very unusual period in music history. So I went on assuming that one day I'm going to have my band like my heroes had their own band. So people ask me this question all the time - they go, "Bass is basically a background instrument." The other thing is that in urban music, Black music, the bass has a much higher profile.
When you listen to a symphony orchestra, and the basses don't - there's no bass part, there's not that much depth. That's why I'm attracted to the instrument, the bass. It brings depth. It's like playing in a rainforest.
The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.
The bass and drums are the engine, and the key to good bass playing is it's not what you play, it's what you DON'T play that counts. You leave the spaces, they're more important than anything.
Boy you got my heartbeat runnin away
Beatin like a drum & it's comin your way
Cant you hear that
Boom badoom boom boom badoom boom bass
He got that super bass
Boom badoom boom boom badoom boom bass
Yeah that's that super bass
My first instrument was bass, and the first thing that I remember learning to play that was better than a few notes was Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain.' If you're the guy who penned that bass riff, then you should probably be in some sort of fantasy band.