Anders Lundquist caught up with Sting earlier this year in Stockholm for an interview for SingingBassist.com.

When SingingBassist met Sting, it was February 12, and he was about to play a comparatively small 3000-seater, a new concert hall in Stockholm, Sweden, that’s part of the Waterfront – a new conference centre. The show will be an intimate one. All music, a little light show. No pyrotechnics or dancers. The emphasis will be on Sting’s solo career, with very few Police songs, and he will throw in quite a few songs that were never released as singles. He will sing and play as good as ever, and legendary drummer Vinnie Colaiuta was one fire throughout.
I met Gordon ”Sting” Sumner at about two hours ’til showtime. Sting politely answers my questions (apart from the most equpiment-related ones, for which he refers to his longtime bass tech), but his body language is not entirely relaxed. The latter may be due to the fact that a lot of music journalists and critics have given him a hard time over the last 30 years, often for reason that have nothing to do with his obvious abilities as a songwriter and – the reason we’re sitting here – a singing bassist. He needn’t have had to worry. There will be no questions about tantra sex, or the supposed ”pretentiousness” of playing the lute – or trying to save the rainforests. This conversation is to be all about music. It is only when our talk is over that he really starts to loosen up, have his picture taken together with my intern, Cornelia, and sign my treasured copy of his first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles from 1986. ”I really miss vinyl” he sighs before saying ta.
-Anders Lundquist

Singing Bassist: You have chosen to call the tour Back To Bass…
Sting: Yes. It was supposed to be ”Back To Base” but the guys who did the posters got it wrong! (Yes, a joke from self-confessed control-freak Sting, who would never let a mistake like that slip through unnoticed).

SB: Was the name of the tour meant to be a celebration of bass playing, a reaction against the big arena and stadium gigs that you’ve done in recent years, including the Police reunion – or perhaps both?
Sting: You know, it’s really a reaction against my last tour, which was with a huge symphony orchestra with 55 people on stage. I always feel like I need to do something at the opposite end of the spectrum when I’ve done something big. This time, there are six of us on stage, and I play the bass and sing. I enjoy that. But I also like just singing. It’s more difficult to play the bass and sing – but that’s why we get paid!

SB: Do you remember the first time you sang and played the bass simultaneously?
Sting: Yeah – the first time I played the bass, I sang! I worked it out. I didn’t want to be a ”guitar hero”. I was a guitar player, but I thought it was a much cleverer thing to control the harmony of the band from the bottom. You know, the piano player can play a C chord on the piano, but it’s only a C chord if I play C on the bass. If I play something else, it’s a totally different chord. For instance, an A. So you control the harmony. If you are also a singer, you control the top – yes, I’m a control freak! So everybody performs within your parameters. So, as a band leader it’s a very good position to be in.

SB: Did you think in those terms, even back in the early 70’s?
Sting: Yes, I did. Well, maybe I’d like to think that I was cleverer than I was, but I actually think so. I thought ”what strategy do I need to get on in this world. Everybody wants to be Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page”. Maybe there’s another route that’s more…me?” More stoic. Quieter. But, nonetheless, powerful. I had played guitar from the age of seven, in 1969. I played classical guitar – Spanish guitar. Then I played double bass at school, and after that I joined a band. But I didn’t join a rock band, I joined a jazz group, and played in a big band, a mainstream jazz group, and a jazz-rock group. So the first rock band I was in was The Police in 1977. I’d never really played rock’n’roll. But I think, again, that was a good education. To have a wider experience of music than just three chords. I like rock’n’roll, but my musical background is much wider.

SB: Did you have any problems singing and playing at the same time?
Sting: No, because I figured it out. I figured you can do anything if you slow it down. So I would learn bass lines through playing 45 RPM singles and speed them up to 78, so I could hear the bass. And then I played it very slowly, And I had to sing I’d sing in the ”holes”. You can play and sing anything, it’s just a question of application. It’s not like strumming a guitar and singing, which is very natural. Playing the bass, you play counterpointed lines against the vocals, so you have to do some work.

SB: So, you are a trained musician, then?
Sting: Yeah, my reading is pretty good.

SB: Who were your favorite singing bassists back then?
Sting:; Jack Bruce, Paul McCartney and Phil Lynott. And they were all good singers as well as bass players.

SB: As well as being charismatic frontmen.
Sting: Yeah, well, I don’t have that – but I have the rest (smiles).

Sting’s Fender Precision Basses, photographed by Cornelia Andersson
SB: Was Fender Precision always your ”weapon of choice”?
Sting: Yes, I’ve played the P-bass since the late Sixties. I’ve tried other basses. I had a Gibson for a while, but I like Fender. I like the old ones. Mine are from 1955 and 1957. Those are the two that I use, really. The old ones were made by Leo Fender, physically handled by one guy. There’s a sense of history and love there. They weren’t made on an assembly line. They were made by one man who chopped a piece of wood and shaped it, wound the coils and the pickup himself. When you hold it in your hand it feels like a weapon. It’s a piece of work. And there’s something powerful about playing the bass. The root. Something simple and fundemental. It doesn’t have to be flashy. Of couse there are some flashy bass players out there, but it’s not what I do. I like putting it on every night – even though it fucks up my shoulder!

SB: Do you feel naked without the bass?
Sting: No, I don’t mind singing without it, and I play a little guitar at the end of the show. But I guess people are used to seeing me with the bass, so by now it looks like it’s part of me. Which is nice. But I don’t need anything to hide behind.

SB: Did you ever collect?
Sting: No. I like my basses, but I don’t have a room full of basses. There’s no point!

SB: What advice would you give to singing bassists?
Sting: (Laughs out loud, like this is starting to become too nerdy, or that he runs the risk of being accused of becoming pretentious. Which wouldn’t be the first time). Just practice, you know. Slow it down. Work out where you can sing and where you can play. You can do anything, you can play Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto if you slow it down. Though it may take a while to speed it up… We create new pathways in our brains through using our fingers. Muscle memory.

SB: I always hesitate to call myself a musician, but I have no problem referring to myself as a songwriter. It’s just that I can’t play some of
my own songs in real time.
Sting: Haha. Well, it’s a different talent. I know some fantastic musicians, and I work with great musicians, but they would never consider themselves songwriters. And I’m lucky that I teach my musicians the song when I’ve written it – and then I forget it. I truly forget. I suppose it’s so I can write new songs. But luckily I have (guitarist) Dominic Miller, who remembers everything. He has amazing memory. You know, it’s a different part of the brain the writes songs, to the part that plays.

SB: In your recent box set “25 years”, which sums up your solo career so far, you have written a moving piece about your father’s hands. Can you tell us the story?
Sting: Very late in life I realized that my hands looked just like my father’s. We have working man’s hands. I mentioned this when he was dying, and he said ”you used your hands better than I did”. And I think that was the first compliment he’d ever paid me. So that was a very emotional moment for me. And, of course, I do use my hands every day, like a working man. I make something. I think that’s rare in modern life. We don’t use our hands very much. And I think the way we’ve evolved as a species, involving using hands to make things, makes us cleverer. I’m not sure how working a Blackberry makes you cleverer, you know.

SB: That depends what you write.
Sting: Yeah, I guess so.

SB: If you had to lose the playing, the singing or the writing – what would you do without?
Sting: Do I have do do without anything? I’m struggling as it is! I don’t need to lose anything: But you know, I often wondered… if I couldn’t sing, I’m not sure I would write. It’s just a happy combination of things that I can do that makes me a writer. So I really don’t want to think about that.

SB: Was there any period where you felt jaded? Like you had done it all, or that you discovered that you were starting to repeat yourself as a songwriter?
Sting: Luckily, I do music as an endless study. I consider myself a student of music, so I’m always practicing, always try to play new things. I like classical music very much. I tend to learn more from classical music than anything else.

SB: Who are your favorites?
Sting: My favorites tend to be French piano music of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Impressionistic composers, like Ravel, Debussy – that kind of thing. But I also like modern pieces by Ludoslawski and Schnittke. I like difficult music, because it challenges me.

SB: Do you think the classical composers you just mentioned have inspired you when it comes to finding new bass lines?
Sting: Everything you listen to, you learn from, yes. You absorb, you learn, you steal. And it comes out in a different way, once the ideas have come through you. I couldn’t give you an example, but you always learn about bass lines listening to Johann Sebastian Bach.

SB: Around the release of Ten Summoner’s Tales you said that part of the reason you tried to make interesting music musicians was so that your top class musicians would stay with you. Is that still the case?
Sting: Yeah I still have the best musicians in the world – they’re still with me. Yeah, you have to challenge them. And you have to give them things that aren’t too easy for them.

SB: But is that always such a good thing for songwriting?
Sting: Well, you know, every musician on the stage performing a song, is telling a story. Sometimes musicians can forget that, and just play their thing. They want to show off, and think ”I’m gonna play that fill, and everybody’s gonna be impressed by that”. Which, if it doesn’t tell the story, is of no interest to me. It’s just distracting, it’s just egoistic and stupid. So everyone knows that I’m telling a story, and each intrument is adding to that story, not taking away from it. So that’s what I demand and my musicians are smart enough to understand that.

SB: And popular music?
Sting: I hear pop music, and I know it – where it comes from. I’m not surprised by it very often. I need constant surprise when I’m listening, or I listen to nothing. Silence. I don’t like hearing music in restaurants.

SB: Unfortunately, silence is very hard to come by these days.
Sting: I know. It’s too much. And, as a musician, you tend to analyze what you’re hearing. When all I want to do is eat my fish! And this fucking music comes on, and it’s something horrible with flattened fifths. But I still analyze it. I think music is overrated – as a constant thing. It shouldn’t be constant, it should be something that you specifically listen to. I sound like a fascist now, but I want to listen to a piece of music for a reason. Not while I’m shopping, of in a cafeteria. Then it’s just noise. Pollution.

SD: Do you still listen to other singing bass players?
Sting: Occasionally I hear someone, like Esperanza Spalding, an American jazz singer who plays double bass as well as electric. She’s fantastic.

SB: What type of songwriting moves you these days?
Sting: It’s difficult to write a song that hasn’t been done before, and it gets more difficult as you get older. Because your standards get higher, and because you filter much. Your self-judgment and self-criticism gets harder, whereas when you’re youger, you just write anything and it’s fine. So it gets more difficult, but it’s still possible. There are still good songwriters out there, like Leonard Cohen, and he’s…ancient. And he’s still great. So it’s possible.

SB: Any younger songwriters that you like?
Sting: Of course there are. But I’m not sitting here to make a list for you. I hear a lot of stuff that I’m impressed by, but it gets more and more difficult in the modern age to be original. We’re in a crisis, we don’t know what the future is. Economics, philosophy, politics, art. I’m not despondent by that. I think the only progress, the only evolution comes from crisis, so we have to solve the problems.

SB: Your children, Joe and Coco, are artists and musicians as well. Did you give them any advice?
Sting: Just ”practice”. They’re both serious musicians, they know they’re not there to be famous or make money. They’re there because they love music, which means that no harm will come to them. If you set out to become famous, or become a millionaire, you won’t.

SB: Do you think your son Joe, who sings and plays bass in Fiction Plane, tried to avoid doing the same thing as you do?
Sting: Not really. It feels natural to him, and he lives his life without reference to me, and I’m proud of him. He doesn’t live off my back or live on my name. He’s very independent.

SB: Do you miss the naivité of the early Police days, where you could play a bum note during the studio recording of ”So Lonely” and keep it?
Sting: Do I miss it? I don’t miss anything about The Police, actually! (laughs). Regarding bum notes, I can still do that, but it doesn’t matter it’s just the feel, you know? I’m a 60-year old musician, and that’s what you get. I don’t want to be 17 again, you know?

SB: After such a varied career, and the dialectics of moving between opposites, what is left for you to discover?
Sting: Oh, there’s plenty to discover. I’m writing a play at the moment, with songs. It’s for other people to sing. Mostly new songs. Writing in different keys for women to sing and how that fits. It’s quite a difficult process, but I like it.

SB: You do like a challenge, don’t you?
Sting: Yeah, I do. I get bored very easily.

SB: What kind of strings do you use?
Sting: The ones that are given to me for free. When you’re rich and famous people want to give you things. It’s a wonderful irony that amuses me. And now I’ve run out of wisdom of charisma. But if you want to know more about my equipment I can make sure you get to speak to my Danny, who handles that.

DANNY QUATROCHI, BASS TECH

SB: Ten minutes later, I am talking to Danny Quatrochi, who has been Sting’s personal bass and guitar tech Sting since 1979, right before The Police releaed their third album Zenyatta Mondatta, which made them one of the biggest acts in the world.

Danny shows me the Fender Precision ’55 and one from ’57 that Sting previously mentioned.
Danny Quatrochi: When he got the ’55 bass, he only wanted to play this one, nothing else. If anything, he wanted another one just like it. But they are really hard to come by. He’s had the ’57 bass for around 23 years. He’d just done a video for a movie called ”Demolition Man”, for which he hired this bass in California. It was all beat up, a complete mess. Really noisy. But he bought it, and we did some emergency wiring to make it work right away.

DQ: We use DR strings. 40/60/80/100 in gauges. Avalon preamps. I have a switching unit that switches between basses, made by a British electrical engineer called Pete Cornish. The amp is Lab.gruppen and the speakers are Clare Brothers Audio. The bottoms have 18” speakers, and the top have 12” and a front driver. They’re internally crossed at the amplifiers. Sting doesn’t use any effects, apart from a little octave divider at the close of ”Demolition Man”, and that’s only about eight bars during the guitar solo. I can just turn it on and off here. That’s it. Otherwise it’s straight bass.

SB: What instructions do you get from Sting?
DQ: I don’t get instructions. Usually we have a soundcheck, and if he’s not happy with the sound, we’ll fix it then. We set the equalizers, and the only thing I really change during the show is the volume.

SB: What’s Sting like as an employer?
DQ: He’s great. I mean, I’ve known him and worked with him for 33 years now. I started around the time Zenyatta Mondatta came out. The Police had just fired a guy and were looking for somebody new, and I knew a girl at the record company. She called me and asked me if I was interested in working for a group. I applied for the job and started working the next day. I had no idea how big it was going to get, but I knew he had something from the first night I saw The Police. The band in general, and Sting in particular. I enjoyed the reunion tour. Of course everything was on a much bigger scale compared to back then. In those days, we were seven people working with them. This time it was 70. Even in 1983, when they were at their original peak, it wasn’t on the same scale at all. Compared to bands like U2, and The Stones today, where there are hundreds of people involved it was still not that
huge.

Colin with Prince Robinson (RBC) aged 58.

This writer discovered Colin Bass’ tasteful playing and singing when the latter joined seminal British progressive rock outfit Camel for their 1979 album I Can See Your House From Here. This was during a period when Camel were going through quite a few line-up changes. Since then, Colin has played on almost everything Camel has done, and has remained a consistent member for the last 30 years (only founder member Andy Latimer has been in the band longer). Apart from his extensive work with Camel, Colin has played with several acts within the world music field (for example 3 Mustaphas 3) as well as releasing a fine solo album, An Outcast of the Islands. A few years ago he formed the trio RBC (Robinson Bass Clement), releasing an album in the process. In addition to the recent projects that Colin mentions in the following interview, there are subtle indications that Camel may be up and running again next year, following Andy Latimer’s rehabilitation from a severe illness.

SingingBassist: Who inspired you to pick up the bass guitar, and why?
Colin Bass: Jimi Hendrix, he was just too good.
SB: Please give us a brief history as a bass player. When did you start playing and how did it develop?
CB: I was a guitarist but there was a bass job going with The Foundations that paid regular money, so I bought a Futurama bass from a friend of mine. Then, learning all the soul/pop repertoire of the Foundations, I found the way to admire the fabulous economic but tough playing of Donald “Duck” Dunn of Booker T & the MGs, the amazing ability of Tamla-Motown’s great James Jamerson to place notes in exactly the right, unexpected places to make the groove come alive and, from a host of others, the wonderful world of funky bass. At the same time I was thankful to learn about jazz players like Ron Carter and Charles Mingus from the guys in the band, some of whom were very proficient jazzers.
SB:Do you have formal training, and do you think that’s important?
CB: No and yes.
SB: With whom have you played since?
CB: Let me see… Clancy, Steve Hillage, The Casual Band, Camel, Tim Hardin, Jim Cuomo, Gasper Lawal, Orchestre Jazira, 3 Mustaphas 3, Ofra Haza, Dembo Konte & Kausu Kouyate, Tarika Sammy, The Rinken Band, Sabah Habas Mustapha & the Jugala Allstars, Oumou Sangare, Stella Chiweshe, Maurice el Medioni, Prince Robinson, Josef Skrzek, RBC and probably a few more…
SB: When did you start playing fretless?
CB: I started when I joined Camel in 1979 and bought a WAL fretless bass. The whole approach is different. It’s more to do with tonality and timbre.
SB: When did you start to sing and play bass at the same time? Can you describe how you approached it, and how you overcame any difficulties?
CB: Well, I guess that’s the important question. I think it’s a question of practising so you can get to the place where you can concentrate on the singing and play the bass part automatically. For I believe that if you’re going to sing, it should be the central point of the sound canvas and you should be able to articulate any meaning encased within the words.
SB: Do you have any advice on how to ”separate” playing and singing in your mind?
CB: Not really, because I don’t really know how I do it myself. It helps to practise and keep calm.
SB: Do you feel like a bassist who sings, a singer who plays bass, or an overall musicians who just does what’s required to make things work?
CB: I feel like I am both of the first two and would like to be the third.
SB: Are there any songs that you’ve found it difficult, or even impossible, to both play and sing?
CB: Yes of course, especially if the rhythms run completely counter to each other.
SB: You always seem to play what suits the song. Was there any period when you, in retrospect, feel that your playing was too busy?
CB: No, I was never that good.
SB: Do you play every day?
CB: Yes.
SB: Do you write songs on the bass?
CB: Sometimes an idea for a song will come from a bass-line.
SB: What equipment have you used over the years, and what are you using now?
CB: I’ve used a lot of equipment over the years. There are so many good amps available these days. I do wish I still had my old Acoustic amp with the 18” reflex cabinet. That was the best. My main instruments are a 1979 WAL Pro 2 bass, a 1992 Zon fretless and a 1986 Fender Jazz played through a choice of Ashdown, Trace-Elliot and Ampeg combos. I refuse to lift heavy bass cabinets any more.
SB: What are you up to next, musically?
CB: I’m writing some songs, doing some production work for other artists and whistling quite a lot. I’m putting together a few new tunes inbetween producer projects. In the last months i have been finishing the mixing on albums by the Krar Collective (dynamic Ethiopian electric krar power-trio based in london), a solo album by Alhouis from Etran Finatawa (from Niger) and a most amusing album by Berlin’s own Lord Mouse & the Kalypso Kats.
-Anders Lundquist

SB: As a bonus, we’d like to present you with some of the more laconic answers that give examples of Colin’s typically British wit:
You’ve played with quite a few different drummers, with different styles. What type of drummer do you feel most comfortable playing with, and how you collaborate.
CB: On the whole, I much prefer playing with good drummers.
SB: Which singing bassists do you feel related to?
CB: Well, there’s my Uncle Cuthbert who was in the famous flower-power group, Ash-Khan and the Cosmic Pork Pies. Erm, that’s it.
SB: Do you have any general advice for aspiring singing bassists?
CB: Don’t give up your day-job.

Colin’s web site: http://colinbass.com/static,Home_en.htm

Colin with Camel aged 28.

Anders Lundquist interviewed Graham Gouldman in Stockholm on November 4, 2011.

65-year-old Graham Gouldman has played in bands for more than a half century. He started out playing in different beat bands in his hometown of Manchester, England. At the age of 17, he penned hits for big names like The Hollies, The Yardbirds, and Herman’s Hermits. But it was with the 1973 release of 10cc’s first album that he became a household name, as one quarter of the british super group. While every member of the band was a multi-instrumentalist, Gouldman’s main thing was always singing and playing bass. At the same time. Which means that he’s not very surprised when SsingingBbassist.com asks for an interview.

Graham Gouldman is not one for resting on his laurels. When 10cc had three months off from touring, he recorded a new solo album, Love And Work, which will be out sometimes in 2012. He also occasionally writes with formerd 10cc colleague Kevin Godley for an upcomingfuture release. With 10cc, Gouldman has played together with famous session players like Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro, and Simon Phillips. But Paul Burgess, who’s played with 10cc since 1973, first as additional drummer, and since 1977 their main drummer, remains one of Graham’s favourites to this day. ”Paul is rock solid, very reliable, and very tasteful. No ego. His playing reflects his personality. In fact, I sometimes encourage him to do more”, Gouldman smiles.
Singing Bassist: Did you start out as a bassist?
– No I started with the guitar, like everybody else! And I started playing the bass out of necessity. I had a Revox tape recorder, and I could bounce tracks so I wanted to make demos. On the first track I put the guitar and vocal. On track two I added bass. And on the third track I added tambourine, or maybe a harmony vocal. I started playing in different bands in the early 60’s, and it was around that time I started making demos.
SB: Did you enounter problems singing and playing at the same time?
– The only time that happened was when we recorded something, and then decided to do it on stage. Sometimes the bass parts were very complicated and you had to divide your head from your hands. But it’s possible, all you need to is practice. I never had a formula or recipe for it. All I know is that if you play and play and play, it gets ingrained. The same thing actually goes for lyrics. Some people have the lyrics on stage, and then they always rely on the piece of paper or tele prompter. But if you take it away, you’ve GOT to do it . There’s kind of a life lesson there as well, ha ha.
SB: Did you take music lessons?
– No. I know people who are really good players, but they can only play if they have the music in front of them. And that, to me, is missing the whole joy of music. It’s nice be able to sight- read, of course. But to improvise, be able to bounce ideas back and forth, and be able to reach a (state of) flow – like in jazz or whatever you want to call it – is a fantastic thing.
SB: In the 70’s, you always played a Rickenbacker 4001, and your solo on Feel The Benefit was one of the things that turned me on to that sound and instrument. What do you use these days?
– When we do our main show, I use two basses. One is still the Rickenbacker, the other one is a Fender ’63 Jazz Bass, which is fantastic. I’m not sure what they call the colour, but it’s like sky blue. It’s very battered, but I haven’t had anything done to it. But we’ve had a bit of a weight problem, so I somethimes have to bring only one bass, and then I end up using a Duesenberg bass . It’s very light, and versitile – kind of in the middle. So even though there are practical reasons, it’s great, and it looks nice as well. But the Rickenbacker has more character. It’s got more of that ”thunk” to it.
SB: What about amps?
– I usually use an Ashdown rig consisting of one 1×15” speaker cabinet and one 4×10” speaker cab. But because we’re using in-ear – and even if we didn’t, actually, because it’s got nothing to do with it – my bass guitars go directly to the board at the front . Because I use two basses, I’ve got this unit where there’s one goes out to the board where I control the sound. Then there’s one direct injection into the small board, there’s one with EQ and volume, so I can match up the levels. I use the Fender direct, and the Rickenbacker I add a little treble. And I have to increase the volume a little bit, as well. In the past I’ve also used Music Man Sting Ray and Trace Elliot amps.
SB: Do you use any effects?
– No, the only effect I can remember using is a wah-wah pedal, and that was on Rubber Bullets.
SB: Did you admire any particular singing bassist when you first started out?
– Of course. The one.
SB: Paul McCartney?
– Yes. I later loved The Police as well. Other great players, who didn’t necessarily sing, are – in some cases, were – John Paul Jones, Jaco Pastorious, and James Jamerson. They all went beyond what most bassists do. They created melodies that enchanced the songs. Some of the bass lines, are, in fact, integral parts of the songs. Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott I think was a great singing bassist. Actually, I’ve got one of his basses: a six-string Fender Jazz bass from 1966. Every guitar I’ve got, whey’re all working guitars. I never bought anything as an investment, only instruments I can use. One guy I’mof working with, he never lets them out. He has mint condition Stratocasters and Telecasters. I have to force him to use them. I tell him ”it’s not fair, they need to be played. They need the love and warmth of a human body!” And they do get better when you use them. Otherwise they go dry, like anything would.
SB: Have your tastes changeds over the years regarding bass sounds?
– The sound comes from here (points at fingers) and here (points at heart). I see bands change basses for every song, and I usually can’t hear any difference. Well, you can hear the difference between a Fender with round-wound strings and a Rickenbacker with flat-wound strings. Then you have a real difference in sound. But of course it’s nice visually, to have different instruments. But so much is about how you actually approach the string, and which part of the neck.
SB: Do you switch between fingers and using a pick?
– I play with one finger a lot in the studio. But I always use a pick on stage, probably because I started out as a guitar player.

SB: Any other advice for an aspiring bassist ?
– It’s about playing together with the drummer. The other players can do what they want, the guitarist can fly all over the place, go wrong – do almost anything. But the bass and drums have got to be the foundation. Rock solid, reliable and draw no attention to themselves. But, of course, without us you’d be lost. Another important thing is to look at each other. I played with an amateur band, and the drummer was in his own world. I said ”let’s watch each other”. And he had never thought about that, but it’s so important.

-Anders Lundquist, Stockholm, November 2011

Anders is a professional music journalist based in Stockholm. He contributed this interview with Glenn Hughes, and now sits on the other side of the recorder for this interview.

SingingBassist: What was the first musical instrument you played?
Anders Lundquist: A cheap, acoustic nylon string guitar that was actually my younger sister’s. This was in 1977. She took guitar lessons, I didn’t. When I teased her by learning her homework quicker than she did, she quit. I still feel guilty about that. I actually took over the guitar, and kept using it when writing songs for the next 30 years. Like Neil Young, I think you need an instrument that feels like a friend to be able to relax. Unfortunately, it broke and I’m still looking for an acoustic guitar that gives me the same vibe.
SB: When did you first pick up a bass guitar?
AL: In 1980/81, when Peder, the bass player of our band Maxiballés, left us for a cooler band. Until then we’d had the classic line-up of two guitars, bass, and drums. Since the other guitarist, Thorbjörn, was a superior guitar player, I switched to bass. I soon dicovered that I actually enjoyed it more, and had a pretty good rhythmic feel. I learned to appreciate the telepathic understanding you sometimes develop with a drummer. For the next band, Why Me (also a trio), that actually happened. Johan and I did the same things at the same time without ever having discussed it beforehand. That’s a great feeling. We were very much influenced by bands like Genesis, Camel, and Rush – and later U2.
SB: Do you prefer fingers or pick and why?
AL: I can’t say I ”prefer” pick, it’s more that I never learned to play with my fingers properly. This is why I still feel like a ”fake” bass player sometimes. Although some of the most famous players in the world use a pick, so I guess I’m in good company! As a listener, I find bass players who use their fingers and really knows their stuff a joy to listen to.
SB: Who are your favorite singing bassists?
AL: There are so many. In no particular order: Paul McCartney, Chris Squire, Jack Bruce, Geddy Lee, Gail Anne Dorsey, Colin Bass, Colin Moulding, Sting, Kasim Sulton, and Glenn Hughes. For bassists who do great backing vocals, Graham Maby deserves a honorable mention. Also, I always admired Phil Lynott as a writer/singer who also played bass. Even though his bass playing never really stood out, he always did what was right for the song. Which is more than you can say about some of the ”monster players” out there. Also, even though some people may find this hard to believe, I think that Gene Simmons is an underrated bass player.
SB: In what types of bands have you played?
AL: New wave, power pop, rock, and progressive rock. I’m not good enough to approach jazz or fusion, although I actually played in a band together with a true virtuoso, Morgan Ågren (Google him) in my teens. I played guitar in that band. Unfortunately – for me – he developed at a pace that mere mortals like me just couldn’t keep up with. At the age of 15, he was already way too good. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it was that same year I decided to become a writer instead, and remain a hobby musician. Last year, Morgan was voted best fusion drummer in the world by the readers of Modern Drummer Magazine, which kind of proves my point.
SB: Which song posed the greatest difficulty for you to sing and play, and why?
AL: Some Joe Jackson songs were challenging – I had to sing Joe’s parts and play Graham Maby’s. But most of the bands I was in mainly wrote original songs, so I never really had to learn anything that was too difficult. I’d say the most complicated song I ever performed as a bass player was YYZ by Rush. Luckily, it’s an instrumental!
SB: Anything else?
AL: My favorite bass to play is Fender Jazz, but I can’t get enough of the sound of a Rickenbacker. I own a Rickenbacker 4001 from 1978 that I bought in a pawn shop in Toronto, hoping that it once used to belong to Geddy Lee. The Fender is like a grand piano – it’s natural. The Rick is a completely different animal. Rickenbacker basses is like the movie stars who just don’t work in supporting roles, because they have too much charisma. The Rickenbacker takes over. It’s the revenge of the guitarist who had to switch to bass. Hmmm…that sounds familiar…

Many thanks to Anders for this discussion. We look forward to more of his insight and interviews in the future. If you can read Swedish, check out the music website for which he is a contributor: www.obladoo.se

I’m happy to announce an upcoming book detailing the history and evolution of bass guitar composition and performance in rock and roll, written by Dennis Alstrand.
Dennis has contributed a lot to the Singing Bassist project, in terms of detailed articles and an instructional video.

The book’s cover is being designed by my wife, who also designed the cover of the Singing Bassist DVD.

Barry Miles wrote his authorized Biography of McCartney in 1998, based on hundreds of recorded interviews with McCartney, and although it is a bit spooky to read a biography about somebody who’s still alive and producing, this book is anecdotally interesting. Unfortunately the concentration on musical aspects in the book was a bit thin, but what can a writer know about playing bass guitar? At least Mr. Miles didn’t speculate too much about musical aspects…and McCartney graciously expounds upon his performing and his songwriting in the many entertaining interview excerpts which are included in the book.

photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

Paul started playing guitar at the relatively late age of 14, compared to current children and current artists who start playing when they are 10 or even younger. When his mother passed away he concentrated his energy on music and obtained a Zenith acoustic guitar which he restrung for playing left handed. His father played piano by ear and despite his father’s expressed wish that Paul take proper Piano lessons, he taught himself piano, writing the tune for “When I’m Sixty Four” when he was 16 years old. Paul’s father worked in a music hall and heard the same song twice a night for a week. So Mr. McCartney brought this Vaudeville music home with him and also instructed the McCartney boys about identifying harmony. Paul attributes his ability to harmonize with John Lennon to lessons which he learned from his father. Paul’s grandfather played the “E-flat” bass and Paul’s father would point out the bass-lines on radio-songs to Paul during his childhood.
It was Paul McCartney who taught John Lennon how to tune his guitar, and it was he who taught John many guitar chords. Because Paul was left-handed and John right-handed, they could face each other with their guitar-necks at the same side, their fretboard-hands mirror-reflections of each other. This mirror-image of their fretboards meant that they were likely more focused and concentrated than, say, two right-handed or two left-handed guitarists would have been, having to look over to the opposite side of each fretboard to see the other. When writing a song, its useful to be able to look at one’s own fretboard, and when co-writing a song, it is very useful to have both fretboards close and within immediate visual range.
Fast-forward to the Beatles burgeoning career in Hamburg, Germany, in 1960, where their then bassist Stuart Sutcliffe decided to leave the Beatles. Paul had played his guitar until it broke, then played Piano as that instrument was on every music-hall stage. As he owned no instrument at all, it made logistical sense that Paul would man the newly vacated role of bass-player. In the early 60′s, a band would often have a rotating “lead vocals” role, and the Beatles were no exception. Even Ringo had at least one song on which he sang in every performance set-list and on every album. These songs were initially written by Lennon/McCartney, but towards the end of the Beatles’ career together it was Ringo who would write songs his own songs himself.
Back to Paul McCartney, one of his first “biggies”, one of his first solo-compositions which made it big was “All My Loving”, a song whose text was written first, and whose melody was subsequently written on piano. Paul was initially a guitarist (or more accurate, initially briefly a trumpeter and then a guitarist), and was early on fluent on the piano too, using it even to write songs from the age of 16 onwards.
Ringo Starkey joined the group at their recording producer’s insistence in 1962. Pete Best had a different attitude than the rest of the group, Ringo was a renown drummer in Liverpool and had filled in for Pete Best in Hamburg, and George Martin found that they needed a more convincing drummer for their studio work. I personally speculate that Ringo and Paul rhythmically clicked better than Pete and Paul because both Ringo and Paul are left-handed.
As mentioned, this creepily-titled biography, Many Years From Now, is rather sparse about Paul’s melody generation strategies. His lyrical authorship is however analyzed in detail. In the directly quoted interview excerpts, Paul divulges some details about his melodic wizardry:

Normally I write on guitar and have full chords, or on the piano and have full chords, but (“You won’t see me”) was written around two little notes, a very slim phrase, a two-note progression that I had very high on the first two strings of the guitar: the E and the B strings. I had it up on the high E position, and I just let the note on the B string descend a semitone at a time, and kept the top note the same, and against that I was playing a descending chromatic scale. Then I wrote the tune for “You won’t see me” against it. I changed it but it was still a two-note thing but instead of it going down I pushed it up and then came down again; just a slight variation. It was 100 per cent me as I recall, but I am always quite happy to give John a credit because there’s always a chance that on the session he might have said, “That’d be better.” To me, it was very Motown-flavored. It’s got a James Jamerson feel. He was the Motown bass player, he was fabulous, the guy who did all those great melodic bass lines. It was him, me, and Brian Wilson who were doing melodic bass lines at the time, all from completely different angles, LA, Detroit and London, all picking up on what each other did.

The book details the growing rivalry between composer/arranger/bassist Brian Wilson and the Beatles. Paul was particularly strong in his praise of the Beach Boys’ response to Rubber Soul – Pet Sounds – because Brian’s bass playing showed that the bass can weave its own melody around a chord, rather than just playing the root note of the chord.
Strangely enough, no mention of the title-phrase is made in the book, so the titling is a bit mysterious. Calling in at 655 pages, Many Years From Now is surprisingly bereft of songwriting strategies or performance anecdotes of any great utility to singing-bassists. This is a void which must be filled. A great many musicographies about Paul McCartney exist, but a Singing-Bassist Analysis on Paul McCartney is not yet existent.

Here we go.

Singing Bassist: Which Bass Players and Singers would you consider to be your influences?
Suzi Quatro: Bass Players would be Jamerson from Motown and the bassist from Canned Heat (Larry Taylor), he was really good. Those are about the only two, really. Among Singers it was Elvis Presley, Otis Reading and Billy Holiday.
SB: You’re presently promoting a single which you have recorded and released in time for Elvis’ 75th birthday…
SQ: Its a tribute to Elvis called “Singing With Angels”. It came out for download on January 11. I recorded it in Nashville with James Burton on guitar and the Jordanaires on Backing Vocals.
SB: Very cool. You more or less began your career as a singing bassist. Did you ever have any apprehension about fulfilling that role?
SQ: No, not a moment’s concern. It came very naturally to me. Maybe because I am ambidexterous. I played bongo, then I played piano, also two hands. Then I played proper drums on a kit. So I didn’t even think about singing and playing bass.
SB: When you went to London to stake out a solo career, did you ever consider recruiting a bassist and just continuing on as a singer?
SQ: Oh God no. Never. The only time I ever used a bass-guitarist was when I had a broken arm and I had a sold-out Australian tour, booked, and I had to go, so I had to take a bass-player.
SB: Why do you continue to enjoy playing bass and singing? Is there a certain band-dynamic which you particularly enjoy?
SQ: Well its what I do. I am a bass-player singer. It would be like Paul McCartney going up there without his bass… I am a bass-player singer-songwriter.
SB: What do you like to have in your monitors?
SQ: Well, I’ve got in-ears. I like a blanket mix, naturally, of everything. Quite a bit of drums, because the drums and the bass have to be identical together. I like to have my bass slightly higher so that I don’t over-play. And of course my voice right up there. A blanket-mix underneath.
SB: You mention in your autobiography that your song, “She’s in Love with You” was rare in that it was the only song on which you had to practice in order to bring the playing and singing together.
SQ: Yeah, its the only song I ever had to do that with, and the reason being is, its a “machine type” bass-riff. It doesn’t move, just like a machine, its relentless. And the vocal is behind that, the vocal goes behind the beat, and the bass-riff is exactly on the beat. I don’t think about it anymore while performing, but when we first did the song, I had to go over it a few times. Eventually it just slots in.
SB: Was that practice solo, or with the band, in order to get that syncopation down?
SQ: No I just practiced it on my own, just played it and singed it until it just felt right, until it slotted in. Once you get those types of things down you wonder why it was ever a problem.
SB: Do you find yourself slowing down the playback and then gradually speeding it up?
SQ: No I don’t slow it down, no. You should do it as it, but like I said, its the only song that I ever had to put any thought into singing and playing that I ever did.
SB: Do you play bass at home on your own or do you play more piano on your own?
SQ: I play bass all the time at home, especially when I am getting ready for a gig. I put on one of my live CDs and play along with that. I’ll go through the whole show like that in my front room. When I’m writing I tend to sit with the guitar or the piano.
SB: You never play the bass-guitar with a pick. Why not?
SQ: I am not natural with a pick. Even when I play guitar, I don’t use the pick. I’ve always been a plucker, that’s the way I am. I don’t like the sound of the pick on the bass-guitar. I like the thump of the fingers on the strings, that’s how I like it to sound.
SB: You rarely look at your fretboard. Do you have any specific techniques for avoiding looking at that?
SQ: No techniques. I play piano without looking at it either. I think you just get to know your instrument. Once you’ve learned piano, that’s your basis for everything. You can then play any instrument, the piano is for learning.
SB: Do you record in the studio as a band in the room, every member playing simultaneously?
SQ: We try to, yes. I prefer that. You’ll put down a scratch vocal, which will do as a guideline for everything. Usually the vocal does go down separately.
SB: Which is more important for singing and playing, group rehearsal or solo practicing?
SQ: I do it all together, you have to play all the time, in fact I will do some playing today. You have to keep playing all the time to keep your fingers calloused.
SB: Do you have any general recommendations for bass-playing singer-songwriters?
SQ: I don’t like to hear somebody play the bass as if its a guitar, as if they’re a frustrated, failed guitar-player. The bass is the musical note of the bass-drum. You got to work with the drums to make it sound right. The bass and the drums drive the band, that’s the engine.

What I learned from this interview was that, singing bassists who start off by playing piano are already equipped with an internal sense of syncopation. Even between the two hands on the piano, there is a large requirement of muscle memory. Singing pianists are especially capable of picking up the bass guitar and playing and singing.
This personal discovery has made it apparent that the material of this web resource is meant primarily for singing, band-leading guitarists who want to switch to bass guitar and sing lead. It is primarily for these types of performers and songwriters that I am researching and publishing this material. Alas, the one-sentence version is:

“Syncopation for Strummers”

A very large “Thank You” goes to Suzi Quatro for her time and insight for this article, and for the inspiration leading to the discovery of the niche which I am looking to reach. This interview really helped refine the overall aims of this project. For this, I am truely grateful.

It is a great honor to be named by Bass Guitar Magazine in the UK, as “Website of the Month“, February 2010. I must admit I didn’t see this coming when work started in summer 2009. Many thanks to the interviewees and readers who have continually given their input and feedback. Without their kind contributions there would have been nothing to post at all.

Keep on pluckin’ and singin’,

Will Anderson