by Dennis Alstrand

He can sing as if he were in a very good choir and that’s how he began his musical journey, singing in the St. Andrew’s church choir, London, when he was young. His clear voice and ability to sing extremely difficult passages reflects those origins. He was musically inspired by the Beatles (and who wasn’t?) and by Paul McCartney to take up the bass.

What was it that made him so good at playing and singing? We can only speculate. We know that we have a bad acid trip to thank for his amazing technique on the bass. He ended up in a hospital and then holed up at his girlfriend’s house wood shedding and developing his unique bass style. By the time he was ready to re-emerge into the world, he was probably able to play extremely well without having to concentrate on it, opening himself up for playing and singing with the best of them. It would appear highly likely that he could already sing at that point and that he was a fan of the vocal groups of the sixties (Simon and Garfunkel, the Byrds, etc).

It may be that by the time he re-emerged into the world that he had the singing/playing gift intact. It may be that his endless practicing got him to the point that he was so good at playing that he did not have to concentrate on it.

He gained a reputation around London with the group Syn and stepped it up a few notches when Yes formed in 1968.

Right from the start, from what we have available to us recording-wise, Squire was incredible at playing hot bass lines while singing beautiful harmonies. Even then he was more than an emerging bass player. He had emerged.

I’ve never heard or read what his techniques are for singing and playing simultaneously but it appears to be a gift that comes naturally to him. I once saw a snippet of him in the studio playing a complicated bass line and singing his harmony part with the appearance that he was working his part out on the spot and it was already spot on. But that’s how Yes worked, at least in the 1970s. A simple version of a song might be brought in and the group would whip it into something other. The musicians had to be able to respond to changing musical tides and play them well without a lot of time wasted. From comments I’ve read, Squire feels that he and his cohorts should be able to play about anything at any time. And so they can.

photo credit: Lorri37

How did he become good at playing and singing? I would hazard a guess, but I’ll bet I’m right. If you asked Chris Squire what he did to become a great singing/player, he’d respond like most seasoned pros who say that they just did it. They had to do it or they would not have made it. They play in bands so many nights, so many gigs for so long that they just become good at it. In Chris Squire’s case, I think you’ll agree that he became damn good at it.

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“, available from Amazon here. 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.

Dennis Alstrand is our most experienced writer at Singing Bassist. He has graciously contributed a video which complements his article about how he plays bass-guitar and sings.. The full video is located in the Subscribers’ Section. What follows is an excerpt from that video and a biographical interview with Dennis.

1. What was the first musical instrument you played?
   I played the piano first, starting at around 8 years old. I suggest all bass players learn to play one of the melodic instruments and piano is probably the best. You get a much more rounded view of playing music than from just playing bass. I think you have to know music, chords. I used to be dumfounded when, say, a guitar player would tell me the chords of a song just saying “It’s A D B E” and I would say “major or minor?” They would say “It doesn’t matter, you’re just the bass player”. But I’m just the bass player who knows that I’ll play different notes depending on whether it’s minor or major. I get irritated just thinking about those jerks.
2. when did you first pick up a bass-guitar?
   In the video I made for your site, I incorrectly said I’ve been playing bass for 30 years. But I got my first bass in 1969 when I was 14. I think I skipped a decade and it was probably the 80s that I skipped. It was a red hollow body Kent bass with a sort of violin shape. I wish I still had that beloved old bass.
3. Why did you play with fingers first and then with pick?
   Because the bass player idols for me in those days were Jack Bruce and Billy Cox from the Band of Gypsies. And it seemed that most bass players I would go and see at the Fillmore or whereever played with their fingers. It seemed natural. But it wasn’t long, just a year or two, before I was using a pick as well (thanks Chris Squire).
4. Do you prefer fingers or pick and why?
   I play both ways now. I like the subtle nuances of playing with fingers. There is so much you can do. If you pull up on the string in the normal style, you get one sound. If you turn your index finger to the side and play off the side of your finger you can get a string bass sound especially if you pluck away from the bridge a ways. Then sometimes if the night is long I’ll try different things that I think are awesome but no one notices. One is to play all four strings with a different finger. Index on the low E and on down. It really gives my pinky a workout. The pick is used more for when I’m outnumbered soundwise by the guitar and need to get louder. Or when I want to play more precisely, aka Chris Squire basslines. Or, finally, if I grow blisters on my fingers and they break and it finally gets too uncomfortable, then it’s back to the pick. One problem I had for years was that I would get excited and play too hard with my fingers and my wrist would start to lock up after a few hours.
5. Who are your favorite singing bassists?
   Jack Bruce, Paul McCartney, Greg Lake. Jack Bruce is an amazing bass player/singer; I’ve never seen anyone that good. Well, maybe Greg Lake. He was incredible too. He can’t sing no mo’. Paul McCartney is funny. He was and is one of my bass playing idols but if you watch him he used to have these weird habits. Not any more but I don’t see how he played SO damn good back in the 60s. Watch the mimed performance of I Am the Walrus. His fingers keep looking like they’re going to trip over each other. Maybe I should give him this: I’ll bet a lot of money he was seriously stoned when they filmed that. I will never knock him; he was THE FIRST singing bass player in the pop world. He was the guy who made it cool to sing and play bass: heck to play bass in the first place. It was him that generated bass sales. I remember going into a guitar shop in the mid 60s and there was always a lot of guitars and just one bass hanging on the wall. A few years later the balance was swinging towards the basses.
6. in what types of bands have you played?
   I started off in a Blood Sweat and Tears type horn band, early 1970s. Boy did I learn from them how to listen to everyone in the band. They would NOT let me just listen to myself and I’m grateful forever to them for that.
   I was in a jazz-rock band that got well known around the biker bars in Fremont California. That was interesting considering the lead singer was a very good looking woman.
   I spent about 5 years in (if I may say so) the best wedding band in the SF Bay Area. Those were the disco days and hate it if you will, but the bass player always had fun parts.
   I got into a country band that I felt had a good shot of making it famous but the usual band politics interfered. From that, I had a good dose of what the music industry was like towards the higher levels and had no desire to go there again. I’ve since been very happy in the club scene, thank you.
   I played in country western clubs for some years, and made a lot of friends there. It was during this time that I started switching to being a keyboard player, a real rock and roller type. Jerry Lee Lewis, stand aside. I got into an Elvis Presley imitation band. I hear you laughing, but it was the best band I’d ever been in. You have to be SHARP to play that 1970s Las Vegas stuff. He had top musicians and so we had to be tops too.
   After moving from California to Hawaii, I’ve been playing both bass and keyboards. The musicians here on the big island are very friendly, different than Calfornia. I got right into recording heavily here for local bands and love that. I was in a dance band here on bass for about 7 years. That was big fun.
   Then I got into ANOTHER Elvis band here. It was going great for a while but politics got in the way as usual.
   Right now I’m the keyboard/bass/guitarist in a band that is finishing up an album of songs written by the lead singer and me.
7. in what types of bands have you sung and played?
   Just about all of those bands. Excepting, of course, the Elvis band where I did sing but it was those cool background vocals.
8. which song posed the greatest difficulty for you to sing and play, and why?
   Let’s see……We Gotta Get Out of this Place because the bass is SO different than the vocal. Addicted to Love, same thing….Those were difficult, but I would guess that The Story In Your Eyes by the Moody Blues was the most difficult. John Lodge played bass on that and since Justin Hayward sang it, he could make up a killer bass line. Playing that line caused you to run around the neck in a wild fashion but the vocal has to be soothing, with expression.
   If you listen to the vocals, he slides into most of his notes. The bass part is not “slud”. I was always a bit proud doing that song but I doubt if anybody noticed the absolute difficulty of it. I’d even announce it saying “This song is a BITCH to play and sing” and who cares?

Anything Else?

1. Bass players are generally background musicians on stage. But, I suggest that every time you play, do your best and be sharp. Let your musical spirit shine every time on every song. You may be “just the bass player” but you never know who is watching you. It might be a guy or a friend of a person who is at the next level up and is looking for a bass player…or will remember you down the road.
2. Never look at the audience like they’re a bunch of assholes because they’ll be able to tell. A lead singer I played with gave me great advice many years ago. I asked him how he stayed so UP when there were just a few people there watching. He said he always acts like there are thousands in the room. “Thank you thank you!” he would say even as we were finishing a song. We would end up having a party and the few people would usually stay and have a good time with us. What a great piece of advice that has been through the years.
   The counter to this is, have you ever gone and seen a band and you immediately got the feeling that the musicians felt like they were above it all. That they were cool and you all were fools? You remember that stuff with a sneer and tell other people about it and so will your audience.
3. Never play drunk or stoned. If you already follow this rule, then no need to read further. If not, I know you’re arguing about this you bastards. But I’m asking you, PLEASE don’t get into that habit. What? It’s too late? Stop now. Said with gut wrenching emphasis: How many good musicians have I seen who ruined a good career because they felt they could play better after a few drinks? One night a guitar player came into the club and started drinking straight shots. During the first set he fell over his amplifier and went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet and puked into his underwear. We dressed that unconsioucs jerk and put him in his car. He told me the next week he woke up about three AM, underwear caked with the stuff and had to drive home. That story sucks but it could be you my friend. And there is nothing worse than playing with people who smoke pot. They’re real good the first set, go get stoned and then they just think they’re good. Pot smoking/lousy perception of one’s own playing has been known for years. Gene Krupa learned it. Max Geldray learned it.
   I really hope there’s someone who reads this and decides to knock that crap off. I’d be able to die happy.

Be sure to check out Dennis’ entire video of his singing-bassist lessons in the Subscribers’ Section. If not already a subscriber, submit your email address to receive the password for the exclusive content.

Mike Watt is a Singing-Bassist who played in/with The Minutemen, fiREHOSE, Porno for Pyros, and plenty of Projects.

Here are some of my favorite anecdotes from my conversation with Mike Watt, which you can find here in the subscriber’s section:

If the bass-player knows the song well enough, then any musician can jump in.

Most people look at the tiles in a bathroom, but I look at the grout. That’s the role of the bass-player, like the grout, he holds it all together.

A bass-player leads by promoting and supporting his own band-members.

(Woodshedding as a singing-bassist) is like skateboard school. You stumble and stumble until you get it right.

Both the singing and the playing can’t be in the ‘wonder’ or the ‘dream’ or the consciousness or the decision-making part of the brain, it has to go right into the hardware. It has to be hardwired.

We’re all really jealous of the drummer, (because he’s in true control), and so we make fun of him, put him way in the back. I’ve stopped that, I put my drummers way up front now.

A bassist-songwriter who writes on a bass-guitar outlines a song enough to give the rest of the band enough room to be all the guitar they can be, be all the drums they can be.

The bass-player has a lot of power because he’s little bit of drummer, a little bit of guitar, a lot about mystery.”

I like to record with full-scale basses and perform on 3/4 scale basses.

In performance, eye-contact is very important for us. I have the organ-guitar player across from me, the drummer is 30-40 degrees to my left, and I am angled in towards them. I like the way it looks like a prac more. That way, we only need to have the vocals in the monitors.

Keeping time during pauses is the hardest thing to keeping a groove.

Do You Find Yourself Glaring at the Fretboard, Because The Bass-Line you’re playing has a humongous Slide of Five or even more Frets?

The Bass-Aid, an adjustable Fretboard Anchor, can help you play these Slides without looking at the Guitar, an Essential Aspect to Playing Bass while Singing.

In my quest for not looking at the fretboard when I play bass-guitar, I have devised a fabric devise which is sturdy enough to withstand sliding yet movable and reversible (unlike a notch in the neck of the bass-guitar).

The Bass-Aid wraps around the neck of a guitar, underneath the strings, at a fret location of the bassist’s choosing. It is tightly wound around the neck to be sturdily affixed to that fret-location. Like a driver can feel when his car goes over a speed-bump without seeing the bump, a bass-player can feel when his hand is at a certain fret because the bass-aid slightly protrudes out the back.

Are you tired of needing to look at your Bass-Guitar while playing?

Tired of making too many boo-boos on the Fretboard?

Then get yourself a Bass-Aid!

Some further food for thought:

• Bass-Aid is only usable on Fretted Bass-Guitars.
• the prototype is designed for Fender Precision Bass Guitar necks
• For use beyond Fret number 6.
• I found that frets 1-4 are within reach of a stationary hand, and that fret number 5 is generally reachable by playing the next thinner string.

If you would like to try out a Bass-Aid, then please get in contact.