Basscapades, ep. 2: Influences

With my pending foray into the world of bass, I've been thinking a lot about bass players and the ones that I most want to emulate. Just as my guitar playing is influenced by a mix of several guitar players to make my style, such as it is, my bass playing will most likely be the same. Everyone has influences, everyone takes bits and pieces of other players' styles and adds some of their own flavoring to make their individual style.

Here, in a particular order, are my top five bass influences. I'm not saying this is a list of the best bassists of all time (although each one deserves a place on such a list), but it's a list of the players I most want to emulate, starting with number five.

5. Steve Harris - Iron Maiden

Despite my progressive rock tendencies, there's more than a little bit of metal in me, and to me, Steve Harris is the quintessential metal bassist. His playing is authoritative and technical and he does it all on a P Bass, no need for fancy 5- or 6-string basses. Plus he writes most of the band's music.

4. Jonas Reingold - The Flower Kings/Karmakanic

My first introduction to Jonas Reingold was The Flower Kings' epic live album Meet the Flower Kings. I saw the videos on YouTube before buying the CD and Jonas' playing blew me away. He is an extremely versatile player - he can do anything from picked grooves to jazzy fingerstyle to fretless, often in the same song.

3. Dave Meros - Spock's Beard

Throughout the Neal Morse-led Spock's Beard, Dave Meros did his best Chris Squire impersonation, picking his Rickenbacker while the band progged around him. And he did a fantastic job of it. So imagine my shock when I read in an interview him saying that he's really not that good with a pick and he's much more comfortable fingerstyle. He showed glimpses of it during the Morse era - in the bass solo in "Walking on the Wind" and the jazzy organ solo in "The Great Nothing" - but in Spock's Beard 2.0 he has really let his own style shine through, blending Squire-esque picking and fingerstyle playing.

2. Chris Squire - Yes

One of the pioneers of progressive rock bass, Chris Squire has an unmistakable sound, relying almost exclusively on frenetic picking, sounding like a cross between a bassist and a guitarist. His use of the trebly Rickenbacker bass became the definition of the progressive rock bass sound, bringing the instrument forward in the mix instead of thumping away in the background like most of his contemporaries.

1. Geddy Lee - Rush

Geddy Lee is to me the ultimate bassist. He took Chris Squire's lead of using trebly basses to bring his sound to the front - first on Rickenbackers then later on Jazz Basses - but eschewed the pick for a thumping, powerful fingerstyle attack that propels Rush's sound. Being in a power trio, Lee's bass needs to fill the role of bass and rhythm guitar, and many times his playing overshadows Alex Lifeson's guitar, relegating Lifeson to the rhythm while his bass takes the lead. Add to that the fact that he sings all the songs and plays keyboards and bass pedals and you simply have the most amazing bass player of our generation.

So that's the list. I know there are a lot of great bass players missing - guys like John Entwistle, Jaco Pastorius, Les Claypool, John Myung, Paul McCartney, and too many more to add. But if things work out well with my basscapades, the style I develop will be some combination of the five great bassists above, proportional to their place on the list.

At least I hope so.