Influences

Arthur Barrow

A couple of minor influences here. Arthur Barrow and, to some extent, Scott Thunes. When I was trying to get to grips with four strings, I heard a lot of Zappa, courtesy of Nick Harper and John Smith. Two albums stood out from the crowd as Zappa faves of mine. Apostrophe and the mini-album Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch. Anyway, I believe it was Arthur who played on Valley Girl, which has one of the most impressive bass lines around, played with a brilliant bass sound. I sat and muddled my way through it, and in later years when I began teaching bass, I used to force people to learn it verbatim, whether they wanted to or not. It was for their own good. I don't think I need to comment on the quality of musicianship required to perform regularly with FZ, it speaks for itself. Have a listen to St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast, Nanook of the North, I Come from Nowhere, No Not Now, Stinkfoot or any of that era of stuff before it got so clever I couldn't listen anymore. Both blindingly good players who I pinched little ideas off of.

Billy Sheehan

'Wibbly Wobbly' king of the two hands on the neck approach. His best stuff, for me, was coupled with Steve Vai on the pair of David Lee Roth albums they did together. Also did a stint with UFO, Mr. Big, Tallas and many other sessions. I think he's done some more work with Vai recently. Billy farts about a lot with routed out frets at the top of the neck and other gizmos but is best when just going for it in a big way. He's a clever bastard and no denying it. Anyone who has their own range of Rotosound strings and a series of Yamaha basses named after him and built to his specification must be quite good in a small way. Anyway, he had some useful hints on finger playing and inspired me to move the right hand slightly further to the left of the bass for a bit of two handed tapping on the fretboard. A nasty habit I used to piss people off whenever I could. I've mostly stopped doing it now.

John Entwistle

Not an influence through choice. I like the Who, but I'm not a massive fan. Anyway, whilst recording Thunder and Consolation, I was having a creative block. Back then I wasn't as good as I thought I was. Pentatonic wasn't even a word, scales and modes meant nothing. You were lucky if I acknowledged majors and minors. I came up with some bass lines I liked, as the first thing that comes into your head is usually the right one, but pleasing the other two wasn't always possible. Fortunately, I could play almost anything they could sing at me straight away, and then dismiss it as it didn't work. Justin said something about not playing structured and planned parts, but to just have some vague idea of a riff and improvise around it for the whole song, like John Entwistle would. Anyway, some time later I had a bit of a better listen to the Who and discovered that Entwistle was indeed the trailblazer for the pyrotechnic approach to bass, and knocked Burnel from his pedestal. So a big salute to the late master, whom I only discovered relatively late on, and apologies to Justin because I should have listened...