MARK MENGHI
BPMD
What was your way into bass? Cliff Burton. Hearing his song ‘Orion’ and the bass as a prominent instrument made me wanna pursue playing bass. Also, back in those days I was also equally into the new wave of 90s music – Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and so on – so the musicianship of Cliff and the flannels of grunge are what got me in to bass.
What bass gear do you currently use?
My red Fender P-Bass Special doesn’t leave my side. My mom, who recently passed, bought me that bass on lay-away and surprised me with it for Christmas. I have the photos of me opening it up and playing it for the first time. However, I’ve made many modifications to old Red over the years: the first thing I did was take off the gold pickguard and replace it with a black one. I also replaced the tuners for Schallers and had a Hipshot D-Tuner attached to the E-string tuning peg, as I’ve always used a lot of drop tunings. I also went through at least 20 different pickup configurations, but I’ve settled with DiMarzio Ultra Jazz units in place of the P pickup and keeping the stock J pickup on the bridge. I’ve also had this bass re-fretted twice over the years. With that, Red has been with me every step of the way. I used it to record all the Metal Allegiance records, as did David Ellefson, every single live MA show, the BPMD record... It’s now an extension of my body and near and dear to my heart. I used IK AXE I/O to record my bass for the BPMD American Made record. It’s by far the best bass DI signal I’ve ever gotten. Our mix engineer Mark Lewis told me it’s the cleanest DI signal he ever received for bass. As I do more and more records, I’ve learned that the signal of the DI tone is probably the most important aspect of recording bass.
What’s the best advice you can give us about playing bass?
My dear friend Billy Sheehan recently told me to ‘continually practise and find your own voice within the instrument’. In fact, Mr. Sheehan has even been kind enough to give me weekly guidance. He’s like my Yoda.
Who is, or was, the greatest bass player ever?
Easy. Cliff Burton. Why, you ask? The dude revolutionised the instrument. Up until that point, thrash metal didn’t exist. Cliff helped create the genre and showed that you can play with crazy speed, proficiency and technical prowess, all while keeping a groove. He was the first, at least in my book.
What are your current projects?
Metal Allegiance, where I am the primary songwriter, lyricist and producer; and my newly formed project, BPMD, which is Bobby Blitz, Mike Portnoy and Phil Demmel. I’m the M in the band name. Our debut album, American Made, is out on Napalm Records.
www.markmenghi.com