INCOMING!
We meet four up-and-coming bassists, Bohte ‘Boh’ Daisuke, formerly of Babymetal and now of Kari-Band; Mikey Coltun of Mdou Moctar; solo bass player Isobella Burnham; and Ryan Lerner of Tetrarch. Keep an eye out for them
Four new, cool or otherwise notable bassists.
What was your way into bass? It all started when I was in junior high school and saw some seniors play in a band during a school festival. I thought, ‘Wow, maybe if I join a band I can be popular!’ So I thought I’d start with guitar, but I was having trouble handling so many strings so I decided to focus on just four by playing bass. Now I’m a six-string bassist...
I grew up in a musical family. My dad is a guitarist. When my siblings and I were young we started in kindermusik classes, followed by piano lessons, then I moved to cello. In middle school I started playing both upright and electric bass in jazz bands and orchestras. I started playing the bass out of spite – my childhood friend took up the bass guitar and I wanted to be better than him, so I started playing, too. He played for a few months while I kept going.
My way into bass was through records my mum and dad used to play. Earth, Wind And Fire, Parliament-Funkadelic, Jamiroquai and St Germain were frequently played in the house from an early age. I started my musical journey playing piano, and then in summer 2012 I asked my uncle Ozzy for a bass lesson, as he is a session bass player. My auntie Michelle bought me a bass guitar for my birthday, and that was the beginning of my beautiful bass journey.
My intro into bass was kind of unusual. I didn’t grow up playing music, much less listening to it, but in high school that all changed when a few of my friends had an idea to start a band. For some reason, this idea just spoke to me, so I asked my mom for a guitar for my birthday and she actually got one for me. I was stoked! Unfortunately, I had not the slightest clue what I was doing. I was told to tune the guitar to E standard so I literally tuned all the strings to E. I tried to make this thing work for about a week, when I gave up and had my mom take it back. I was really devastated about my failure, until one day I watched Back To The Future and the scene came on where Marty McFly’s band tried out for the school dance. I noticed the guy in the back holding down the bass while Marty was up front shredding, and thought, ‘I could definitely do that!’
What was your first bass guitar?
It was a GrassRoots Forest Bass. I picked it purely because of how it looks.
A short-scale Gretsch Electromatic, the one-pickup version.
It was a Stagg four-string P-Bass.
It was one of those starter packs with a Squier bass and a little 38W practice amp.
Which other basses have you played?
“I started playing bass out of spite. My childhood friend took up bass and I wanted to be better than him!”
Since then I’ve been using a Fender Japan Jazz bass, a Fender USA DX Precision, a Tune TWB six-string bass, and my own signature model, Atelier-Z Boh Custom 6. As well as those, I use quite a bit of Markbass and TC Electronic equipment.
A Fender Jazz, a Sadowsky five-string, a Skjold fretless. I realised early on that short-scale basses felt the best to me and were my calling. Currently I’m playing a 1977 Fender Mustang, a 1975 Musicmaster and a 1960s Kay K5915. My amps are Traynor, Aguilar, Ampeg and Fender.
Since picking up the bass in 2012, I’ve been lucky enough to play Sire and Fender basses. I’m currently endorsed by Sire, Rotosound strings, Boss pedals and Cosmic Ears IEMs.
I’ve had an LTD F Series four-string and a five-string Schecter Elite, but over the years I’ve switched entirely to exclusively using Ernie Ball Stingray five-strings. My other gear includes a Seymour Duncan Powerstage 700, a Darkglass X7 Ultra pedal, a Comp 66 Compression pedal, a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor and an Ampeg SVT 810 amp.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given about playing bass?
Take in the good parts of other people’s performances and use them in your own playing style.
Don’t worry about the price of the instrument – you should be able to make it work on any bass. You don’t need an expensive five-string with a bunch of knobs to be a good bass player. It’s about the player rather than the bass, and there’s no right way to play. Make it work for you and your sound – just don’t hurt yourself.
Stay rooted in the pocket. Both my bass teachers, Bill Evans and Gary Crosby, also implored me to work on a signature sound, so that people hire me not because I am a bassist, but for my sound.
“I watched Marty’s band in Back To The Future and thought, ‘I could do that’” - Ryan Lerner
The best advice I’ve ever been given is just to keep it simple. I still struggle with it because my natural tendency is to fit as many notes into a measure as possible – but just knowing when to lay back, locking in with the drums and letting the guitars do their thing will make your time to shine even brighter.
Which bass player do you most admire, and why?
Billy Sheehan. He’s the bassist who made me want to become a professional. He introduced light hand playing and threefinger playing into rock bass, and had a great influence on bass kids all over the world.
Eyadou Ag Leche, who is the bass player and musical director for the Malian Tuareg group Tinariwen. He invented the sound of Tuareg bass, which has been a big inspiration for me since I first heard Tinariwen. His lines are funky, super syncopated and are played with a lot of force. Eyadou knows how to play the groove, stick to a part with discipline and hold down a band.
It changes as I grow, but right now I most admire Oteil Burbridge for his chordal harmony solos and the killer syncopated lines he plays.
Cliff Burton for his creativity,
Steve Harris for his speed and technique, James Jamerson for his melodies that inspired a whole different playing style in the rock world, Chris Wolstenholme for his catchy hooks and Paolo Gregoletto for his ability to combine old-school influences with modern metal... Just to name a few.
Where can we hear you play?
You can hear us live on our new double live album Kari-Band With Friends – Live At Streaming. It’s available on CD outside of Japan from JPU Records, and also available to download and stream. So please check it out. We invited some of our favourite musicians in Japan to join us for this live session, as well as our students. You could say it’s like the masters with their apprentices, as well as their apprentices’ apprentices! You can also hear us on our two EPs, Nimaime and Kari Ongen. Other than that, if you search for me on YouTube you’ll come across many things that I’m involved with.
I’m currently touring with Mdou Moctar and Steve Gunn. The new Mdou Moctar album Afrique Victime is out now.
You can hear my bass and background vocals on Steamdown’s single ‘Etcetera’ on Blue Note Reimagined, and on my debut EP Dancin’ Garuda.
Go check out our new record, Unstable!