Influences

J. J. Burnel

The first big influence. What Jean-Jacques did with the Stranglers was unique. The most superb bass sound and a bit of Kung Fu for good measure, and not like Elvis' efforts either. This geezer did stuff with a bass I'd not seen or heard before. School Mam off of the second album is basically a six minute improvised solo. Who cares if he regularly fucked up his pentatonics? It sounded good. Of course when pop reached the Stranglers, the bass parts were the first to suffer and Burnel became a plodder with the odd moment of glory. Then he got rid of the Fender Precision, started playing a Steinberger, and thudding toneless cack ensued. Listen to All Live and All of the Night for one of the worst bass sounds ever achieved. Pile of pooh. He plays properly again now, on a proper bass, but the Stranglers are a shadow without Hugh and should have called it a day years ago. Then we could be impressed by an original line-up reunion rather than bored by a mediocre imitation. There's an old adage about never meeting your heroes...I met him a couple of times...he was nice.

Paul Gray

Paul was the best bass player the Damned ever had. Captain may have been first and all that, but listen to Billy Bad Breaks or Therapy or Twisted Nerve and deny that this guy is a four string genius. He sloped off and joined UFO for a while, before returning to both Eddie and the Hot Rods and the Damned. He's played with pretty much everyone. I nicked his job for a while but he nicked it back. Recently seen with the Sisters of Mercy and suffering tinnitus, Paul doesn't play live so much anymore. Check out Paul's site for plenty of good tales from the Doomed. We've had a bit of e-mail contact, seems us ex-Damned bassists have a lot in common.

Youth Martin

Not a pyrotechnic kind of guy initially, but did a lot of top stuff on Killing Joke, What's This For..! and Revelations, before going totally nuts and disappearing. Then along came Brilliant and Martin Glover is a born again slap-meister, uber-producer and session king. Even had the presence of mind to get back with the Joke and do some new stuff. I love the early KJ albums best, there's a certain slick slide around the fretboard to some very unusual discords that he did so well that I had to pinch it totally and call it my own. Paul Raven, who followed on from Youth more than once, never had the same subtlety, and always got Psyche wrong too, but was still a nice geezer whenever I met him. Such a shame to hear about his demise.

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