This is the first contribution from Anders Lundquist, a rock journalist and singing bassist based in Stockholm, Sweden. He will be more formally introduced in an upcoming article.

British gentleman Glenn Hughes – singer, bassist, songwriter and guitarist – is one of the most legendary frontmen in hard rock. He started his career in Trapeze, was asked to join Deep Purple for their legendary Burn album (together with David Coverdale, with whom he shared the vocal duties), and stayed with them until the breakdown of the band after the underrated Come Taste The Band album.

He’s since then collaborated with the likes of Pat Thrall, Gary Moore, Tony Iommi, Tom Galley of Phenomena and countless other musicians. However, the 80’s was a bad time for him. He had started doing cocaine in the 70’s and now drink and drugs ruled his life and he didn’t seem to be part of any long-lasting project.

Having finally battled addiction successfully almost 20 years ago, Hughes entered a new phase of his career, making a string of highly acclaimed solo albums (some with a detectable soul influence) at a high pace. As if that wasn’t enough, he recently formed super group Black Country Communion together with Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian. Hughes also has his own radio show on Planetrock.com, and is currently working on his autobiography.

Somehow Glenn Hughes managed to find time in his busy schedule find to talk to Singingbassist.com.

SingingBassist: What’s your main drive and motivation these days?
Glenn Hughes: Songwriting. The songs are sooo important. We have been trying to write together as well, and that’s something I’d like to do more of. On a personal level, all I want to do is have a family, feel healthy and focus on the music. I wasted too many years on tequila, cocaine and women.

SB: Please give us a brief history as a bass player. When did you start playing and how did it develop?
GH: I started out as a guitarist, as a lot of bass players do. My main motivation was wanting to play with Mel Galley, who was my hero. Which I did. I was 15 at the time.

SB: Did you have formal training, and do you think that’s important?
GH: No I didn’t. But there are no rules. If it works, it works.

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?
GH: I had no ambition to be a lead singer to begin with. I started out as a backing vocalist, which gave me time to work out how to do it, without getting the full attention as a front man. When I switched to lead vocals, I was ready. But I never had any ambition to be a lead singer, people heard me sing, suggested I sing some more. It just happened!

SB: Do you still work on developing your chops, or do you mainly sit down to write and learn new material?
GH: I do practice scales, both as a bassist and a vocalist. I’ll always be a student. I use my iPod for practicing. I also listen look to other types of instrumentalists, like jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, for inspiration.

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?
GH: I don’t think so. I know when to leave space. A lot of bass players want to be lead guitarists, if you know what I mean. I won’t mention names, but I think you know.

SB: What are your main strengths and weaknesss as a bass player?
GH: My strength is grooves. Also, being a former addict, I’m pretty fearless these days.

SB: Which singing bassists do you feel related to?
GH: Jack Bruce , who’s a good friend, has always been very inventive. And Paul McCartney, of course. I think it’s wonderful the way he figured out bass parts when the song was almost finished, and how he’s just kept going instead of looking back.

SB: You’ve played with quite a few different drummers, with very different styles. With whom do you feel most comfortable playing?
GH: Jason Bonham, of course. Chad Smith from The Red Hot Chili Peppers. And Steve Gadd. They’re all different, but they bring out the best in me. It’s as important to listen as it is to play.

SB: Do you write songs on the bass?
GH: Sometimes. I wrote (Deep Purple classic) You Keep On Moving on the bass, obviously. Addiction as well. And Beggarman from the first Black Country Communion album.

SB: What equipment have you used over the years, and what are you using now?
GH: I don’t think there have been any revolutionary changes when it comes to equipment for a bass player. I use the Ampeg SVT amp, and a Bill Nash 57 Precision relic bass . Bill is an American based in Australia. His basses sound as good as originals from the early Sixties. I also love the Fender Jazz Bass. I have one from 1963, and I’ve been playing Fender since 1968. For strings, I use D’addario. I like the sound that’s like a piano string…rounder.

SB: Back in Purple, you were also famous for playing the Rickenbacker bass. But you stopped?
GH: I got tired of it. The Rick has personality and can be great for straight ahead rock, but it also has obvious limitations and don’t really work for funky things. But most of all, it’s the person who’s playing the instrument. Great players are usually easy to identify, regardless of instrument.

SB: Do you have any general advice for aspiring singing bassists?
GH: Practice as much as you can, play and sing at the same time, and remember that it’s in the notes you don’t play! Also, don’t give up if it’s difficult. When you’ve mastered a new song that once seemed impossible, you’ve reached the next level.

SB: Finally, some words on the second album by Black Country Communion. How do you think ”2” differs from the first one?
GH: Lyrically, it’s a lot darker. I had a lot more time to write the songs. I tried to write songs about the dark times we’re going through, but without losing the swagger. Everyboy in the band was invited to write, but Joe was busy with his solo career and I had the tim, so went for it. I’m very proud of the result. It was actually our producer Kevin Shirley’s idea for us to make two albums within a year, to have more material to choose from live, and it’s working. We are recording a live DVD in July.

SB: A lot of super groups only last for an album and you’ve already made two, with a DVD on the way. Have you taken any steps to avoid the usual mistakes people tend to make?
GH: We take time out to do stuff separately. And you need to understand that there’s a different energy in this band – we actually enjoy each others’ company!

Anders Lundquist, Stockholm, 25 June 2011

Any singer in a Rock-Band who also plays an Instrument is burdened by the task of learning Lyrics. Memorized Lyrics is one of the features which separates Songwriters from Jazz-Musicians. What techniques can be used to squeeze Lyrics into memory? One quote from Mike Watt’s homepage spured me further: actors rehearse – we practice. I got to thinking about actors remembering long scripts and singing-bassists need to remember 90+ minutes of vocals. How do actors memorize their lines, and if they have specific techniques, can these be transposed for use by singers? What is the singing-bassists’ relationship to his lyrics, anyway? Isn’t there enough going on with placing the syllables and the beats at the correct intervals in the song? Are lyrics secondary for Singing Bassists?

Lyrics Are A Pain To Memorize

Messing up a solitary lyric can lead to total breakdown of the singing-bass-playing synchronization. So mastering lyrical content is definitely important for a singing-bassist. Boiling down to a single question:

What are the best ways to memorize lyrics?

I asked a colleague of mine, who has appeared in many plays, how he learns lines from a script. Bill West is his name, and he replied that he often associates lines with either narrative context, or with positions on the stage (or both). Both these associates are helpful to jog the memory. Unless the Singing-Bassist either installs multiple microphones at various locations on the stage or wears a Garth-Brooks-style microphone, location-association is not an option for the singing bassist. But associating the lyrics with narrative context can be used by singer-songwriters, of course.

I then asked some questions about lyrics and memorization to two previous interviewees of Singing Bassist: Steve Kilbey of the four-piece rock band The Church, and Chris Ballew of the three-piece rock band The Presidents. The contrasts in their answers reflect, in my view, the differences in role-assignments between singing-bassist-led trios and quartets. And yet, their replies do exhibit similarities which may be somewhat universal about the songwriting psychology of singing-bassists. I.e., is the singing-bassist more vocalist or more instrumentalist? Is the singing-bassist more lyricist or more fretboard-surfer? The following questions were conceived to find this out.

1. Do you find yourself staring at lyric sheets in order to memorize them?
   Steve Kilbey: I don’t stare at lyrics, I listen (to them).
2. Do lyrics sprout up during group rehearsals or are they more often pre-prepared solo?
   Chris Ballew:
   
3. Do you have lyrics prepared and memorized when you record music with the band?
   

   Chris Ballew:	Steve Kilbey:
   	No…..i read the lyrics off paper when i record usually….i only gradually memorize them over a period of time.

4. What types of lyrics were most time-intensive to memorize?
   Chris Ballew:
   
5. Do any songs’ lyrics pose persistent memorization problems? What makes them so difficult?
   Chris Ballew:
   
6. Do you find it beneficial for the memory to take breaks from memorization?
   Steve Kilbey: No….constant repetition needed for words or they get rusty.
   Chris Ballew:
   
7. Do you ever note the initial lyrics of songs next to their entries in a set-list?
   Steve Kilbey: Very rarely do i ever have lyrics on stage…but sometimes i may have a few key words if doing a lot of new material
   Chris Ballew:
   
8. Do you ever have lyrical black-out and does it ever affect your bass-playing?
   Steve Kilbey: Yes I do…if it creeps into bass playing you gotta disaster on your hands…..luckily it only happens very rarely that both bass n lyrics break down at once.
   Chris Ballew:
   
9. How do you recover from lyrical blackout?
   Steve Kilbey: I just sing the 1st thing that comes into my head until I get back on the right track.
   Chris Ballew:
   

I had one last question for Chris Ballew about times in the performance when he improvises vocals while holding down a groove on his basitar. For instance, introducing the band while playing the verse riff of a song. I’ve only heard one other singing-bassist do this: Sting introduces the band during performances of “So Lonely” by The Police. Its a feat which seems so banal to the lay-spectator but it requires extensive rewriting of instinctual toe-tapping urges. Anyway, I’ve seen Chris do this in concert and so I had to ask:

Ok., maybe I should have asked HOW he woodshedded that routine, but hey, the artist must keep some things mysterious, so I won’t ask it, I’ll just watch it concert in awe and wonder about it.
So, we see from the graciously provided replies that, lyrics are memorized in context or, interestingly enough, by listening to them. that lyrical black out might be more stressful for singers in larger bands (who react slower to performance detours), and that, unfortunately, there is no single silver-bullet mnemonic artifice for remembering songs’ lyrics. Mastering the lyrics is an integral part of the performance of live music. Lyrics separate us from Jazz Music. Time must be allocated to lyric preparation if we want to make performances in front of paying audience members!

Thanks to Steve Kilbey, Chris Ballew, and Bill West for sharing their insight.

Spacehog is an English rock band active in the USA (particularly in New York) since the 1990′s. Spacehog is one of the ever-increasingly rare bands led by multiple band-members who write songs, as the Langdon brothers Antony and Royston share songwriting, and Spacehog is one of the even more rare bands (co-) led by a true Singing-Bassist, Royston Langdon. SB had the fortune to talk with Royston via Skype on two occasions. The first occasion was unfortunately not recordable due to technical issues, but some still images were salvageable, and the audio was salvaged and the dictation has been transcribed. Here, the first conversation between SingingBassist.com and Spacehog’s Royston Langdon.

This interview was recorded on June 17, 2009.

Royston Langdon, L.A.	Will Anderson, CH

Singing Bassist: So, you are recording at the moment with the band. Do you record as a band in the same room together live?
Royston Langdon: Preferably, yes we do.

SB: Do you sing and play at the same time when you’re recording? I.e. you’ve already practiced the songs enough to sing and play bass together?
RL: Yep. Sometimes I do.

SB: Do you have to practice a lot at home first, with a metronome, to get that steady first, before bringing it to the band?
RL: I don’t really. I guess for me its a bit like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. I like to imagine the music in my mind first and then just recreate it with my voice and the bass, in terms of my part. Playing with Johnny (Cragg, Drummer) in Spacehog is pretty crucial to figuring all that out.

SB: When you bring a new demo to the band, are you already able to play it and sing it?
RL: Yeah, to some extent. Its probably not fully formulated, but for the most part, yeah, I think I do. I think the bass-line, depending on the song, is obviously really important. Even if (the bassist) is not really doing very much, its an important part of the song for sure, and I think that’s particularly true for Spacehog.

SB: It’s however not very intuitive to play some of those bass-lines and sing at the same time. Like you said, its like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach. I imagine that it is important to hear yourself well. When you’re performing, what do you have in your monitors?
RL: (That) depends on the room. If its a small club, probably not a lot. I prefer to turn up my amplifier and hear that from way back there, just because it sounds better. If we’re playing on a big stage, its impossible to hear (my amplifier), so then I have a bit in the monitors. It really depends on the place. Our tours like the one with Oasis, big shows, necessitated quite a lot in the monitors, pretty much everything. But if I’m playing a little club I’ll probably just have a little bit of Rich (Richard Steel, Guitarist), his guitar, that would be about it, to keep it to the minimum. Usually because playing in a small club, its usually not good anyway, so I prefer to just listen to it. I have a pretty good sense of pitch, so I can hear myself. It would be nice to get to a place whereby, it all sounded great. But I never really had much choice with that.

SB: Alright. Do you always play with a pick?
RL: No, I play some songs with my fingers. Those songs are usually more laid back. For the most part I play with a pick. I was never really a bass-player. I never really wanted to play the bass. Nobody else wanted to do it in the band, in Spacehog, and so I ended up doing it out of necessity. I never played bass until I was 21 or 22.

SB: Was it possible for you to play and sing simultaneously right from the start?
RL: No, its never not a problem. It always requires practice, quite a lot of practice. What is particularly difficult for me is that my main bass, the Rickenbacher, is quite a heavy one. I’m not a big guy. Physically its always been a challenge for me to sing, the way that I sing, and to play the instrument the way i play it, for an hour and a half a night. That has been as much of a reason to rehearse as anything else, to build up stamina while playing. That’s a bit dull, but that’s the reality. Its quite a difficult thing to do, both physically and mentally. (Mentally, ) I break it all down into bars and beats, and (find) where the voice and the bass connect with each other. Once I have that map figured out, and then coordinate with the drums, then I’m pretty good to go. It becomes instinctive. I don’t need to think about it any longer.

SB: Do you slow down the parts where the overlaps exist, and you work on those individually, until it becomes automatic in your head?
RL: Possibly, yeah. If it is really difficult, then yeah. But for me as a bass-player, it is important not to always do too much. For me, its about dancing around the beat, holding out at times, leaving it bare, leaving space, because that gives the groove of the song. So it is kind of important for me to do that.

SB: Its surprising that you say that you hold back a bit on the bass-lines, because, if i may go back to the song, ‘In the Meantime’, its like a constant solo in the verse, its a lot of notes for a verse progression.
RL: That’s just the way that song went in my mind. Figuring out how to do that was a necessity. That comes first. Its more important for me to have it right in my head as a songwriter, than it is to be brilliant as a bass-player. I happened to have had a conversation with Paul McCartney and he was the same way, he didn’t want to play bass at the beginning in the Beatles. It was the same deal, that nobody else wanted to do it. But, having said that, I love the bass now as an instrument. Particularly for me, because I always think of all the parts in a piece of music. Its all happening at the same time for me. Its not that difficult, and its not that unnatural for me, its quite natural.

SB: Do you write songs on the bass?
RL: I wouldn’t write a song on the bass, I’ve never written a song on the bass. I normally write on the guitar or the piano.

SB: Since the Rickenbacker is so heavy, do you ever consider changing to a hohner violin bass?
RL: No. i’ve tried other basses, but I can’t get the sound that I like, other than from my Rickenbacker bass. I’ve played a hohner, those tend to feedback a bit, and feel like they’re going to explode in your hands.

SB: You often play very close to the bridge, is there a reason for that? Is playing down there a monitoring measure that you take? Is playing down there to avoid muting the strings with the cusp of your palm?
RL: I like that sound. I like to get the high-end frequencies from the bass itself, and playing that way allows me to get those. When I play with my fingers, I play nearer to the pickups. Playing with the pick feels better near the end, I prefer the tension of the strings there, it just feels comfortable. It allows me to get more bass out of the bass and still have more definition. No (it is not a monitoring measure), but from that position I can dampen the strings easier, to provide small gaps where needed.

SB: Is the action of your bass-strings set really low?
RL: (My strings’ action) is set pretty low, yes. The low action makes its easier to play my Rickenbacker. I tend to do a lot of sliding around, which is also further enabled by the low action of my strings. I’ll take any measure to reduce the physical burden of playing the bass. I have other basses, for instance, a Gibson EB-O, which is easy to play. But the Rickenbacker for me is quite a hand-full.

SB: Do you have any recommendations for bass-playing singer-songwriters?
RL: If you’re just starting off, just keep it simple, until you have a better understanding. I highly recommend it, I think it can be really rewarding. I don’t have many specifics I can give, other than, that singing-bassplaying comes from the desire to achieve the end result. My choosing the bass was driven by the desire to convey my song ideas to the band. The most important thing is to really listen to music and visualize the direction in which its going. Often, the bass and the tune can go in opposite directions. I mentioned this project last night, and I ended up doing something I don’t do very often, (that being,) I ended up playing my bass and just singing, and I ended up getting really into it. Bass affords a large amount of creativity for inclusion into the band. You can create a whole other tune or a groove for the song. The grooves of the bass-lines for some of our new material has been very important.

SB: Do you consider the bass-guitar to be a good instrument to control the way in which the band is going, to be sort of the ringleader of the circus of the band?
RL: I don’t think (the bassist) is the ringleader, no, though I wish it were. The drums have much more of a controlling role, and the bass is the foundation of the tune. More chordal instruments such as guitars and pianos can have more influence on the performance. The bassist can control the completion of the song, by suspending his playing and resuming (completing the sound).

SB: Thanks a lot, Royston, have a good morning!
RL: Thank you for the interview, Will, and Good morning!

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It may well be that listening to the Presidents of the United States of America and subsequently realizing that their very complex melodic structures are played by THREE people convinced this Singing-Bassist to dare to pick up the bass, to sing and to write songs. So you might well imagine the thrill it was to obtain this interview with the mastermind of the Presidents of the United States of America, Chris Ballew. It was my first interview ever. To talk about his songwriting, his recording, his singing, his band-formations and his bass-playing. Until he informed me that “He really doesn’t play bass!” in his first response!

This interview was recorded on June 4, 2009.

Singing Bassist: When the presidents were performing as a duo in the beginning, what instrument did you play?
Chris Ballew: I played the two-string back then, just like I do now in the band. Two-stringed guitar. I’m technically not really a bass player, although, I play as if I’m playing bass lines, a lot of times I strum like (on a) guitar and make chords. I play a two-stringed instrument, so, yes, I’ve been playing that instrument since then.

SB: (So far so good!) In your view, does it make sense to play bass without a drummer?
CB: Yes, it makes a lot of sense, the way I do it, as its like a strummy instrument, like a guitar almost, or sort of a hybrid between the two, and I can get a lot of rhythm out of that. In fact in the children’s music thing (Caspar Babypants) I’m doing now, I do a three-stringed guitar and I play a lot of bass-lines on it, and it kind of holds down the rhythm section as well, because sometimes I play without a drummer, so yeah, I think it does make sense.

SB: Bass-guitar is not the most intuitive singalong instrument. So when did you decide that bass was the instrument for you?
CB: I really haven’t decided that actually. I’ve decided that bass is one of the instruments I love to play, piano is the other. It’s really the two-string and the three-string that I’ve decided are my instruments. Six-stringed guitar, four-stringed bass, doesn’t really excite me, I find myself doing all sorts of typical things that I’ve done for a long long time and I get bored of those instruments pretty quickly.

SB: Why do you prefer playing bass and singing?
CB:

SB: Do you prefer a small band size?
CB: Absolutely! Three is the most, that’s it. No more than three! Too many phone calls, too many personalities. Its difficult to get three people who want to do the same thing, on any given day, at all, let alone be in a band and tour all over the world. So three is it. I have a lot of side-projects that are duos, just two people, and that’s awesome, one phone-call to make practice happen, and all that kind of good stuff. But I love three: its the magic number!

SB: Do you only release songs which are performable live?
CB: Absolutely not! I release a lot of songs which will never see the stage, or might mutate to see the stage in some future version. No, I think it is really important to release yourself from thinking of live and recording as needing to be the same sound. They can be very different…..

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