Session Bassist

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: I have been playing bass and recording bass parts on people's albums for 15 years. I had over 10-12 bands I played in between high school, college and grad school and my brother owned a recording studio in our hometown where people like to come in and make their own records that I got to track a lot of bass parts for. I got my Bachelor's at Berklee, my Master's at Northwestern and my Doctorate at University of Southern California, all in bass performance. I toured with with a rock band and a Muscle Shoals revue band out of Boston and I played with Trisha Yearwood and the Nashville Symphony since I moved to town. Post 2020 I opened up my own school and I have started my own band where we can play a multitude of styles for any performance need and I am also the music director for that as well. Now that I am in Nashville, I like to work in studios around town and I like to make bass parts at home for great artists.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: The most common question I ask is what type of part they are going for in the song. For example I was recording on a blues rock track back in 2015 and I asked the client if they wanted something "busier" like a Tommy Shannon type of part, OR if they want something more straight forward like a Dusty Hill kind of part. Sometimes I will get specific with different styles of different players. Another example is I was recording an overdub session with a Latin/Pop artist and they said they wanted a samba part, so my next question was "Do you want a traditional Samba part? or a more pop oriented part with Samba flare to it?" Then I played a few different examples for him and then they picked the one they liked the best. Things of that nature!

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: If I am working in my home studio: I will listen to the demo multiple times first. I'll usually have a very good idea of what I am going to play on the track just based on 2-3 listens before I even pick up the instrument. Then I will sit down and I will "plug and chug" the part I had in my head on the instrument and then I will quickly determine "should I go to this note or this one" or "Do I like this line or that line?" I work on it a few times just so that it has that "inevitability" factor as Leonard Bernstein would say. Then I will record it a few times until it has just the right feel, the right note lengths and that the part is completely smooth. I may or may not make a chart depending on how active the chord progression is. If I am doing an overdub session with the artist and the producer, the process is the same just expedited faster and those sessions typically tend to be a little bit more collaborative where the artist and the producer will have some ideas and then its my job to synthesize everything and then come up with a hybrid of what I am thinking, and what the producer and artist are thinking and then everyone is excited. Then if I am tracking with a live band in a big recording studio, I'll go through as many different parts as quickly as I can until all the hits are in the pocket and the dynamics sound right and then if everyone is happy you move on to the next song because in a demo type session you don't have time to analyze it as much.

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

A: When I was living in Los Angeles, I had to design and create a live music showcase around a singer songwriter's repertoire. The kicker was none of the songs had been fully realized yet, so I hired a band that could develop the songs from scratch and then we had to play them in a live show a few weeks later. It was really fun and rewarding to do.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Right now I work a lot with this Billy Joel meets Ben Folds signer - songwriter named John Paciga and I believe he has some new tracks coming down the pike that I will record bass for.

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: Michael Arrom for anything keyboard, piano and sound design related. Kyle Frey for any recording and/or production needs.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: I love the raw nature and sound of analog recordings, but I love the speed, immediacy and what's available with digital technology. So for me the goal is get an analog sound with modern/digital equipment.

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

A: I will bring 1000% effort to come up with the best part for the song, and I like to make everyone's life easy through the work process and thats with being readily available to answer any questions and being open to different ideas!

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Playing lots of different styles and seeing the joy on people's faces after a great and solid bass track is recorded.

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: Questions that come up vary from project to project but the most common question between all the clients is when someone very talented asks me: "Do you want to play bass on my song/album?" I feel honored and priviledged to play on every project I am asked to be a part of.

Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

A: A lot of people think playing the bass is super easy and yes while we do focus on one note at a time, no one really considers the importance of note length, phrasing, sound and endurance for playing bass parts. There is so much that goes into analyzing the sound of just one note, where to place it, how long to hold it for and where to place it within the beat. It really is more analytical than people realize.

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: Be very clear about what you are looking for if there are very specific things you want and keep in mind the hard work and energy that goes into creating a great part when working with your provider's.

Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

A: My Fender American Deluxe Precision with roundwounds, my American Vintage II 1960 with flats, my Fender Rumble Neodymium cab, an Ampeg PF-500 and a laptop with all my music loaded on it so I can play along to all my favorite songs.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: It's a hybrid of Steve Harris and John Paul Jones shapes, patterns and energy, mixed with the melodic nature of James Jamerson and Paul McCartney, topped off with some Rocco Prestia, Lee Sklar and Pino Palladino warmth, groove and smoothness.

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: I would say that two artists I always daydream about working with would be either John Mayer or the Tedeschi Trucks Band because both those artists are and/or could be hybrids of every style of music I love. They can do acoustic music, they can be funky, they can sound like a classic rock band, they can be soulful and they can most definitely be bluesy. The best part is they sound like all those styles and they play on the worlds biggest stages and in the greatest venues on the planet.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: I cannot speak from the vantage point of a "producer" per se who records and mixes their own music all the time, BUT one thing I advocate to my students is that they have to learn how to get great sounds for their instrument on their respective DAW's, because learning how to record great parts from home is essential these days. I would also say that while its great if you can afford it, you don't need tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment to get great sounds. You'd be amazed at what you can do with a Fender Bass, a laptop an apogee interface and one plug-in.

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: I typically work on singer-songwriter material or anything that has a "classic" vibe like a Motown type song, Billy Joel or a Led Zeppelin kind of thing. I do some alternative sessions every now and again, but its usually in the Rock, Blues, Funk, Pop, R&B/Soul territories.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: I would say my two strongest skills are that I have a "rolodex" of bass part types and styles that I can access quickly in my mind because I grew up listening to a ton of different styles and music from other era's. The second one is I have the ability to hear pop chord progressions and I know what the progression is without touching the instrument which helps for picking up songs quickly,

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Every song is different, so one part that I come up with could be just straight 8th notes on one song or another song could call for something a little bit busier. The fun part is when I get called in to work on a song I have never heard before and I initially don't know what the final part is going to be. Then when I finally lay down that track and the whole song gets elevated to a higher place and the artist and producer are smiling, thats the best part.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: Like a great pop bass part I like to keep my studio set up simple. My laptop runs either ProTools or Logic & I have between 5-7 basses I like to choose from depending on the sound/style I am going for. One of my favorite bass amp's is Ampeg and they have an amazing Ampeg Suite plug in that I use for everything thats right in the box and they have all their vintage heads and cabinets to choose from and it sounds amazing. I also have some Fender cabinets with Neodymium speakers and a couple of Slate Microphone's if I needed to mic a cab, but other than that everything runs through an Apogee Duet 3 interface and thats the majority of my setup.

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: Steve Harris and John Paul Jones were the bassists that inspired me the most. They were the ones that got me into really playing the instrument. As time went on I eventually did a deep dive into James Jamerson & Francis Rocco Prestia from a "parts & tone" perspective. I am also really into the melodic and lyrical nature of Paul McCartney's bass parts and I am also inspired by players like Will Lee and Lee Sklar just from the amount of bass parts they have recorded across hundreds of different artists.

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: I typically work with artists/singer - songwriter's who need bass tracks for their songs.