In two weeks I will be playing two (cover’s) concerts as a Singing Bassist.
I’m playing with a Singing Guitarist and a Singing Drummer.
In case you happen to be in Switzerland or Southern Germany, flock out in droves please:-)

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The British Rock-Band The Police was my first encounter with a singing-bassist-led band, with their thoroughly red, lo-fi video for Roxanne contrasting strongly with the more modern videos preceding it when I first saw it in 1992. Another Rock-trio, Nirvana, were swamping the music channels with their stripped-down sound at the time, and it was interesting to compare Nirvana’s sound to that of the other trio with a BASSIST who SANG lead, and, wait a minute, didn’t I recognize that singer from somewhere else?. Sting plays bass-guitar? Oh, my naive music listening beginnings. Although I’m not a rabid fan of Sting, The Police represented an important bridge between musicians’ music and popular music. And there is really nothing to disrespect about his songwriting, performance. Most of us, fans and non-fans alike, can agree upon that.

Sting’s autobiography, Broken Music, is the first singing-bassist autobiography which I’ve encountered in which concrete tips for playing bass and singing are presented. True, like anything Sting has been involved with, the book is fraught with what seem to be fits of exaggeration towards the end of the book. The further one reads, the more haphazard the language becomes. The time-line contracts towards the time in which the Police were active. But the story of his beginnings and the gradual climb to the top is a good read. Here are some of the anecdotes and milestones in his bass-playing and singing career:

• Starts off during childhood playing around on a piano before picking up an acoustic guitar.
• Uses a record player to closely examine music recordings (a) speeding up the playback to hear the bass-parts revealed and (b) slowing down the playback to deconstruct difficult passages.
• Switches from “Lead Guitar” to Bass at the age of 17 when he befriends a teen who has built his own bass-guitar and who explains its anatomy and function to Sting.
• During college, he joins a band called “Earthrise” with the aspiration of making a living from gigging. Plays bass and sings backing vocals. Gradually assumes the role as lead vocalist.
• Plugs his bass amplifier into the car-battery of his Citroën 2cv in order to play outdoors during his tenor with the “Newcastle Big Band”.
• First series-production bass a Fender Precision bought during college.
• Finally lands his first full-time, well-paid job playing music in a musical at his college theatre, aged 23.
• Explains that viewing a jazz band led by Chick Corea called “Return to Forever” inspired the first band in which he seriously played bass and sang lead, called “Last Exit”. Declares that playing at a level a quarter of that which was played by Stanley Clarke while singing at the same time would ensure that he would remain a contender in the music scene.
• Begins writing songs during his tenure with “Last Exit”, some of which become Police songs (such as “The Bed’s Too Big Without You”).

“Last Exit” began as a quartett but became a trio, about which Sting writes:

Playing as a trio with Last Exit would prepare me for my subsequent role in the Police. By playing as a trio I would learn the value of space and clarity between musical frequencies, which larger bands can’t help but fill. Being limited to just three instruments helps this learning process, where each as more work to do and more responsibility.

Now we’ve long been aware of the utility of slowing down music recordings in order to deconstruct swift, complicated arrangements. Still, speeding up playback in order to bring bass-lines to the forefront is a technique which Sting’s autobiography seems to introduce to the world. And it was inspiring to read that Sting connected his bass amplifier to a car battery in order to play outdoors. Quite a few lightbulbs went off in my head then. Sting is an articulate writer, be it of lyrics or of prose, and his autobiography is a great read for aspiring singing bassists of any genre.

King’s X represents everything that is possible with a band which has a singing-bassist singer. A compact though complete Rock Band! It was with great interest that I was able to interview Singing Bassist Doug Pinnick, on December 7. Doug Pinnick took an interesting path to becoming a Singing-Bassist. He was a singer from his childhood onwards, then he took up bass-guitar before taking up guitar as a songwriting-instrument years later. In certain bands in which he wanted to only play bass-guitar, his band cohorts made him sing, as this was his first calling in music – vocals.

Singing Bassist: Tell us about your musical beginnings.
Doug Pinnick: I first started out just singing as a kid. Relatives, family, cousins, aunts and uncles had a lot of music in their homes, so I was always listening. I didn’t have much music where I lived. My great-grandmother raised me, and she didn’t believe in rock music….because she was Christian, so the music that I got to listen to was outside of the house. But as I was going to school the teachers found out that I could sing, so they put me in choir and band, so the first thing that I started playing was Saxophone. The teachers taught me how to sing harmonies as I was about the only kid who could sing harmonies for some reason. I think that introduced me to the technical side of music. I don’t read music very well but I can read it, I know what a C is, D is, Staff is, what whole-notes are, stuff like that. I was in choir all through grade-school, high-school and college.
SB: When did you pick up a guitar?
DP: I picked up bass when I was 23, and I used to pick up the guitars from all my guitar-playing friends, they’d loan me their guitars, I’d switch the strings around (SB: Doug is left-handed) and play them for a month or two, write songs on them, and then give them back. I bought a guitar probably ten years later, probably around 1980. I continued to write music with my guitar. That’s how I learned guitar, I never actually practiced, I just started writing songs on it.
SB: Interesting, bass before guitar. Who are your favorite singing bassists?
DP: I would say Chris Squire from Yes, he wasn’t the lead singer, he sang background harmonies. Another guy was Glenn Hughes who sang and played bass at the same time, and well.
SB: I read in your online biography that you started off in a band playing covers. Which covers were most difficult to play and sing simultaneously?
DP: In the first few bands I started out in I only sang. When I turned 23 and started playing bass it was a couple years later before I got into a band and started to play and sing. People wouldn’t let me play bass because I wasn’t good enough at the time, but as I got better I started to do that. But honestly, when I first started my band as a bass player, I did nothing but original music. For about 8 years, we had a little band and didn’t really go anywhere. But then, when I joined up with King’s X, in about 1980, we started doing cover music. I think, I had no problem with playing and singing, except for one song:
One Thing Leads to Another by The Fixx.
I could not play and sing that song to save my life. I tried and tried. I don’t know why, I just had a mental block. Its a very difficult bass-line and so the counter-points with bass and voice were very complicated, way more complicated then I could then do. I think, nowadays I’ve written even more complicated things and sung even more complicated things over top of it, but then I just couldn’t do it.
SB: When you record, do you ever play and sing and the same time?
DP: No. I should because I think I have more abandonment when I’m singing and playing. I don’t think as much, and I can actually sing what I am really feeling. But in the studio I like to separate the two so that I can focus on each of them.
SB: Do you always play bass-guitar with a pick?
DP: Yes I do. I started out playing with my fingers, and when I first heard Yes in 1971, I was very interested in that pick-sound that Chris Squire had. But I loved Jamie Jamerson and Chuck Rainy, the old soul bass-players, and so I tried to play like them. Later on, when I really got into Yes, I got into Chris Squire’s bass-playing, and I’ve been playing with a pick ever since.
SB: Which elements of the band or sounds do you like to have in your monitors?
DP: I have everything in my monitors, it is sort of like a recording studio in my in-ears, literally. I have 16 tracks/channels. I have vocals, Jerry’s vocal on the left, Ty’s on the right, mine is in the middle. Bass is in the middle. Guitar is anywhere I want to put it, left or right, sometimes I put it in stereo because he has two microphones. But he doesn’t play in stereo unless he is playing with effects, so the separation is sort of in the middle for me. Drums are arrayed across my head. Kick and snare are in the middle, hi-hat is on my left, and the toms go across my head, same with the cymbals.
SB: Did you evolve to this setup or does your monitoring setup change from album to album?
DP: No, its pretty much set, I’ve been using in-ears for about five years now, and I’m fairly stuck on them. Before, I used to use monitor speakers, and I had to have guitar, all vocals and kick and snare really loud in the side-fills and fronts, because I had 3000 Watts of bass going at the time, so I needed everything really loud. But when I started using in-ears I turned everything down, which made our sound-man really happy.
SB: In which ways have drummers influenced your bass-playing?
DP: I don’t think any drummers have really influenced my bass-playing. I never payed attention to drums a lot until way later in my life. I played with drums but I never gave them any thought. Because, I think it is just a common thing for me, it was drums and bass, growing up with soul music, that was all that I remembered. So I just played with the drums and had fun with them.
….Buddy Miles was one of my favorite drummers because he played real simple four on the floor stuff, which I really liked when I first started playing bass.
SB: Why do you continue to play bass when you could have recruited a bassist years back?
DP: Every band in which I ever played bass made me sing. Because they said, “You’re the only one that can sing, Doug!”. And so I go, “Ok, I’ll do it!”, though I never planned to be a singer, I just wanted to be a bass-player. But singing is my strength, so I’ve kind of given in to it.
SB: After recording a new song (two individual tracks) then you presumably have to learn to play and sing the new song. Is it more like learning a new instrument every time or do you have similarities which you can take from other songs which you perform?
DP: At this point in my life after playing bass for over thirty years, its not even a thought, I just play my bass and sing. I could talk to you and play my bass and not miss a beat. At so many years of doing, its not even a problem anymore.
SB: Do you improvise while playing the bass, like introduce the band while playing the bass guitar?
DP: There is a song called “Over my Head” where I do a long rap like a preacher. It lasts probably five minutes or longer, and the whole time I am playing the bass-line to “Over My Head”. Sometimes if I really get into the sermon then I forget what I’m playing, my hands just do what they are supposed to do.
SB: Do you have any techniques which helped you practice to play tight bass-lines while singing freely flowing vocals?
DP: Yeah, listening to Yes! The biggest thing which changed my life was their song “Roundabout”. In the middle of “Roundabout” there is a bridge, where the band plays a riff which is really interesting, and its a bit complicated. And they do these harmonies. And I thought it was awesome, and I would sit in my room for hours. And I worked it out and I got it down. That was the beginning of singing and playing bass for, that gave me the coordination.

Doug Pinnick: It took a while, mathematically, I had to remember what syllable went with which beat. It took me a little while to get used to it. But after that its not a thought any more.

SB: King’s X performs lush vocal arrangements as a trio. Does King’s X occasionally rehearse a capella?
DP: No never. Whichever background vocals are made up by me or by Ty are then, in the studio, prepared by Ty and Jerry together. When it comes time to record their parts, they record them separately. When it comes time to perform live, they learn their parts individually in order to perform them with the instruments.
SB: Do you record at home sometimes?
DP: I record all my demos at home, as well as my first three solo-records I recorded at home too. I have a full-blown home studio. I have a drum-room which I built in my garage, and a separate room with all my recording equipment in it. I have also brought people in to record.
SB: And finally, any general recommendations for musicians who want to play bass and sing?
DP: Practice makes perfect. I know that a lot of people say that they can’t sing and play bass, but you can learn anything if you just sit down and try, don’t give up. It will be difficult at first. You will feel like you can’t do it. But if you keep trying, the next thing you know, it will be second nature.

Mike Watt offered some of the most quotable and most articulated descriptions of the roles and techniques of singing bassists in our first interview, and there was a major in-flux of subscriptions and feedback to our first interview. I enjoy discussing these topics with Watt, he is simultaneously creative like a good artist is and interpretive like a good engineer is. So I decided to ask him some more questions in a subsequent interview last week, recorded on December 7, 2009. Topics included Mike’s Songwriting, Demo Communication to his Bands, Individual versus Band Practice, Stage Layouts, Audio Ingredients in the Monitors, and which fundamental Bass-Guitar Techniques were and are of greatest usefulness and importance for singing bassists like himself.

Mike Watt with his bass-guitar during our Video Interview.

If you would like to see the 19 minute video of this interview, please subscribe (if not already subscribed) get the password, and then log in to the subscribers’ section here.

Lemmy from Motörhead wrote his autobiography entitled White Line Fever . Lemmy doesn’t Skype and doesn’t really “do” computers in general, so its unlikely there will be a Lemmy interview with Singing Bassist any time soon. However, I have read his tome and can now happily present a book review of his autobiography from the aspiring singing bassist’s perspective! Lemmy first acquired a guitar from his mom during high-school and initially used it for decorative purposes at school (who didn’t start out with guitar that way?). He proceeded to play guitar in a band eventually called the DeeJays. He includes some very interesting anecdotes about the nascient music scene in middle Britain in the 1960’s. For instance, according to Lemmy, all bands were cover bands prior to 1963 they always played through the house PA – however pathetic the system might have been bass, guitars, vocals, all played through the same PA – sometimes as small as 30 Watts!

photo credit: Timm Williams

Reading those stories now really reminds me of how dependent rock musicians are on equipment nowadays, and how much the music shops have thrust products upon amateur musicians to the point that it seems indispensable for a bass-player to play through a 100 W stack, even if the concert is being held in a small pub! When really good music was and still is possible to be made through a tiny 30 W amplifier with mixer. I suppose that the drum sets were small and the drummers more subtle players back then. Nowadays, snobbish kids scoff at the thought of playing through an amplifier whose name isn’t Marshall, Ampeg or Orange. What they lack in talent they compensate for in Wattage!
Lemmy started singing for the Motown Sect, as a singing guitarist, and explains that he was and always will be a reluctant singer. In what seems to be quite common for singing bassists, Lemmy accidentally became a bassist as an opening in the band Hawkwind called for a bassist. He occasionally sang lead with Hawkwind, as their singer was of variable consistency. It was in Hawkwind that Lemmy emerged from his shell, stage-wise, and in that period, Lemmy began to write songs. And then Lemmy left, or was ejected from Hawkwind.

It was pretty easy getting the band (Motörhead) together – too easy, in fact. Within a very short period of time, I’d recruited guitarist Larry Wallis and Lucas Fox as the drummer…

And this, dear readers, is a very good formulation of the very quintessence of a singing songwriting bassist. A songwriter with his own repertoire and vision for a band can implement his music in the most expedient fashion possible by playing the bass guitar and singing lead vocals. Also, concerning Motörhead, Lemmy writes the following funny anecdote:

I didn’t want to sing, I wanted somebody else to do it. But the problem with that, of course, is you get stuck with a fucking singer!

Well said. What is a singer who doesn’t play any instrument, aside from a prima-donna wannabe intellectual???
I digress, but mainly because White Line Fever is so chock-full of digressions.
Lemmy expresses a clear preference to play in a trio, as two guitarists pose coordination problems. Playing in a trio opens the door to improvisational playing as a band, which is about as exciting as rock performance can get, if you ask me. Lemmy states plainly that having two guitarists means that there is never true consensus within the band. This internal conflict must injure the performance, no?
Anyway, White Line Fever is an entertaining enough read, although there is very little mention of singing and playing bass. However, the picture above says alot about his style. He plays bass-guitar like a guitar, with a pick, in almost strumming patterns, and his microphone is perched way up so as to prohibit him from looking at his bass-guitar while singing. This probably makes it easier to sing in general, once the bass-guitar positions are learned in muscle memory. Its very cool that a Rock Bassist continues to play bass and sing 30 years after starting.