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 SingingBassist.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 & Work, which was released 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 encounter 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 ’63 Fender 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 sometimes have to bring only one bass, and then I end up using a Duesenberg bass . It’s very light, and versatile – 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, they’re all working guitars. I never bought anything as an investment, only instruments I can use. One guy I’m 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 changed 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

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.