Turn Up The Bass

Neville Marten reveals a little-known love of his playing life, and something that forms a thread throughout it – the joy of bass

Something I’ve loved doing since I was old enough to work in bands, was to play bass. A lot of us guitarists do, especially with home recording so prevalent and easy these days.

In my 20s I played in a successful Top 40 band in Essex. We gigged all over East Anglia and I earned more from that than in my job repairing guitars at Gibson/Norlin/Selmer in Braintree, Essex. The gigs allowed me to buy nice gear and, one day, a mate had a bass for sale. It was a Blue Sparkle Fender Mustang with ‘competition’ stripes. Even though I didn’t really want a short scale – it was 30 inches compared with a P-Bass’s 34 inches – I grabbed it. I loved messing around on it, playing along to Beatles, James Taylor and Motown records, the Mustang’s small neck allowing me to access those intricate McCartney, Leland Sklar and James Jamerson licks. It taught me how bass works in a song, and to this day it’s the bass line that I hear first in any tune.

As it happens, our bass player left the group and, since we had two guitarists, I offered to move across (more dosh for all). I played bass with them for about two years and it was one of the most satisfying eras of my gigging life.

I then bought a matching Metallic Red Mustang, and, soon after, a white Precision bass. One time, I was working in Rotterdam for Gibson and we all went out one evening for a meal, with the UK bosses also in attendance. Over conversation our playing lives came up – one of the bigwigs had been a professional horn player. When I revealed that I owned a Precision he went apoplectic: “A Fendeeerrr?” he blurted. He nearly sacked me on the spot for ‘treachery’.

Years later I was playing with Marty Wilde up in Yorkshire. We were a two guitars, bass and drums quartet with Marty singing and playing acoustic. One night the bassist fell ill and couldn’t play, so with no rehearsal I picked up his beautiful white 1962 P-Bass, and breezed through the set two nights running. All that playing along to the bass on the hits of the day had stood me in great stead.

Even later I played with a country singer in Essex. He was popular and paid well, but sometimes wanted a bigger line-up than just the two of us on guitars. To that end, I drafted in one of my mates – who played in a female singer’s band – to do the guitar work while I went on to bass (a white Jazz Bass by now). Again, it was so satisfying, to the point where I’d love to do it again today.

Back To Bass-ics

Then, just a few years ago I was again playing with Marty, and in the set we did Diamonds by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, late of The Shadows. Our bassist, also a fine guitarist and huge Shadows fan, took the lead and I played Jet’s bass part. I loved it.

On two nights of a big tour, I invited two of my superb guitarist friends (Robbie Gladwell – Dr Robert, ex of this parish – and Snails Pace Slim of that great band The Hamsters) to two consecutive gigs. I kid you not, after the shows had finished they both came up to me and said I was a ‘natural’ bassist – not one mention of my guitar playing!

And, to bring it more bang up to date, I’ve recently been doing a bit of home recording and have borrowed an AVR P-Bass to lay down the lines. Of course, being me, I don’t just want to borrow one, I want to own one. So I’ve been trawling the websites and am torn between a Squier Mustang bass at one end of the scale, and a faded Fiesta Red Custom Shop P-Bass (which perfectly matches my Strat) at the other. I’ve not fully made up my mind whether to go bonkers or stay sensible. But I’ll let you know. Until then…

“The Mustang’s small neck allowed me to access intricate licks. It taught me how bass works, and, to this day, I hear the bass line first in any tune”