Quotes & Sayings About Bass Guitar

Actually, there was another band where we were three girls, around '84 when I met John Zorn, called Sunset Chorus. It was just bass and drums and guitar- we didn't make any records but we played a lot of different clubs in New York. — Ikue Mori

I was an original Elvis fan. He was the voice of my generation. I was listening to him on the radio when he released his great Sun records with Scotty Moore on electric guitar and Bill Black on bass. — Ronnie Milsap

A lot of times, I played bass on songs. Gene plays guitar on some songs. — Ace Frehley

I know melody. I know rhythm; I know bass guitar; I know the piano. I know everything about music that helps build the music that go along with creating the whole art form, you know what I'm saying? — Nayvadius Cash

I played guitar and bass. I didn't do much vocals, although I did have one band where I was the lead singer. But that was when I was in college. — Oscar Isaac

Nothing beats 2 guitars, drum and bass. — Lou Reed

I've never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I've always played with other musicians. It's how I play, there's no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play. — Ringo Starr

There was this big skiffle craze happening for a while in England ... Everybody was in a skiffle group..All you needed was an acoustic Guitar, a washboard with thimbles for percussion, and a tea-chest- you know, the ones they used to ship tea from India- and you just put a broom handle on it and a bit of string, and you had a bass..you only needed two chords; Jing-jinga-jing jing-jinga-jing jing-jinga-jing jing-jinga-jing. And I think that's basically where i've always been at. I'm just a skiffler, you know. Now I do posh skiffle, that's all it is. — George Harrison

I like guitar. It just turned out that it's the instrument I learned to play. I have a lot of respect for it, and I'm learning more and more every day. For me, the classic band setup - guitars, drums, bass - will stay fresh forever. I don't know. I'm still into it. — Mac DeMarco

The bass should be the note of the bass drum, and then you've got the engine of the band that everything else builds on. Everything else, the guitar, the keyboards, is a colour. — Suzi Quatro

Bass is for people who can't play guitar — Eddie Van Halen

I'm not a real musician. If you give me a bass guitar and you ask me to improvise something, or even be with some musicians and follow them, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I want to change that. I want to be able to be in a group and take my guitar and play with them, without someone showing me, "Okay, you're going to do this and that," because music has always been a big part of my life. — Marion Cotillard

I like the guitar better these days. I like the bass, too, but it's hard to fit a bass amp in a small car. — Dee Dee Ramone

We decided to do some of Merle's things with modern instrumentation. We used a flute, a bass clarinet, a trumpet, a clarinet, drums, a guitar, vibes and a piano. — Tennessee Ernie Ford

There are a lot of people who can do it on the guitar and sing at the same time, but I think what is harder is bass players that can play the bass and sing. — Graham Coxon

I started playing with a group of young people when I was 13. I turned professional when I was 15 and I played dance halls, this on bass guitar. — Dave Holland

I've been in a band, so I understand the politics. Sometimes the bass player doesn't like what the guitar player is doing, and you have to sort of even that out. — Ric Ocasek

Bass guitar is the engine of the band. — Suzi Quatro

I didn't know anything about music when I started a band. I barely knew how to play a guitar. I didn't know how to produce records. I learned how to play bass guitar and keyboards in Rilo Kiley. I picked up a lot from my collaborators. — Jenny Lewis

I'm interested in creating a little sound world for songs, really crafting it, building it, and making it like a little doll's house with little things inside it, staircases and rooms and everything kind of relates to everything else. I've never seen it as drums, bass, guitar and vocals in very separate spaces. — Imogen Heap

I play bass. I play a bit of guitar. I've never been to a lesson, so my theory of music is non-existent in any instrument, but we always had guitars around. My dad taught me to play drums for 'Love Actually,' and I still play drums now. But I'm not a 'drummer.' I'm not a 'guitarist.' I'm trying to be a bassist. — Thomas Sangster

Around age 11 or 12, I started playing jazz bass. From there, I went to electric bass and then guitar, which I kept up for a long time. — Joshua Roman

I wrote all my songs on my main instruments, and the songs I would record in my bedroom were just acoustic guitar, mandolin, and sometimes bass. I really like the texture the mandolin added to my music, but my fingers were too big to play it ... I could only do little riffs and whatever. — Shamir

How remote we were too from the crazy musicians who arrived on a blustery fall day with the idea that, since this was a financial center, there would be a rain of coins from the tall buildings in response to their trumpet, guitar, and bass fiddle. The wind swirled their jazz among the canyons. I saw that no one was paying them the slightest attention. Feeling guilty, I threw them a quarter, but they didn't see it. They danced and made jazz in the cold, while upstairs we went on with our work, and they didn't exist, and it was nobody's fault. — Alan Harrington

These are things like Michael Jackson's Thriller, an album that was (1) produced by Quincy Jones, (2) features guitar playing by Eddie Van Halen, (3) includes at least three singles that ooze awesomeness, and (4) has the single best bass line from the entire 1980s (i.e., the opening of "Billie Jean"). It is a "guilty pleasure," presumably, because 45 million people liked it, and because Jackson is quite possibly a pedophile, a d because two dancers had a really unfair knife fight in the video for "Beat It." This is akin to considering Thomas Jefferson a "guilty pleasure" among presidents because he briefly owned a pet bear. I mean, he still wrote the fucking Declaration of Independence, you know? — Chuck Klosterman

Ridley Pearson also plays bass guitar and sings with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band made up of such successful authors as Amy Tan, Stephen King, and Dave Barry-a band that, according to Barry, "plays music as well as Metallica writes novels". — Otto Penzler

I drive my family nuts because when I watch something on TV, I'm likely to watch it with a bass guitar. But I don't plug it in! — Steve Capus

A bass player has to think and play like a bass player. A drummer has to play and think like a drummer, and stay out of the way of the vocalist. The guitar player has to respect everybody else. — Hunter Hayes

I played recorder in assembly, then I became passionate about the guitar, I don't know why. I started on electric then moved to acoustic - my brother was playing bass in the next room. — Ellie Goulding

You know, I only claim to play three instruments. My dad is a banker, but a drummer at heart; and my mom used to teach piano lessons when she was younger. So I can play some piano, play a little drums, and fake the bass - but banjo, mandolin, and guitar are my thing. — Charlie Worsham

The idea is: You played to 100 people this week in Europe, and then next week you can play to 200. It's an investment in that territory. But it can lose money because it's very expensive to go to Europe. You can't really just say, like, "Oh, we're gonna take our van and drive to California tomorrow." It's more like, "Oh, we have to fly to London and rent three guitar amps, a bass amp, drums; buy all these flights for four people; hire a driver." — Zachary Cole Smith

The ukulele was the first of many instruments they had bought for me. They got me a guitar when I was eleven, which my son Morgan uses until this day. They paid for 3 years of guitar lessons; they bought me a bass fiddle, which I still play. — Tony Visconti

Kat: You can't just buy me a guitar every time you mess up, you know.
Pat: I know, but there's still drums, and a bass, and maybe even someday a tambourine. — David Levithan

When I was 14 I would pick up my brother's bass guitar, and I would just pound on it, having no idea how to play it. — Steve Burns

Music has always been in my family, but it was mainly keyboards. I learned to play classical piano, but when I first heard the amazing bass guitar of James Jamerson, who played on all the big Motown hits of the '60s and '70s, I knew bass guitar was my instrument. — Suzi Quatro

The bass is just the crayon that I picked out of the box. I'd probably be writing similar stuff if I played guitar or trumpet. The pictures I want to draw I do with this crayon I chose, which is the bass. — Les Claypool

Most records, you build from the drums and bass up. This one, we started with the vocals in Nashville and recorded them live with just the guitars and tried to make that complete and lovely-sounding without any adornment at all. I really wanted to get something with the vocal that I've never gotten before Armchair Apocrypha. — Andrew Bird

I'm a bass player from way back and Paul is a guitar player and we've been in many bands. — Adam Jones

You have to understand that the bass guitar is the party instrument. It only has four strings. If you see a bass player playing five strings, take your shoe off and throw it at him. — Keith Morris

The first song I wrote, in fifth grade, was totally ripped from Jeffrey Lewis. My aunt's boyfriend gave me bass lessons, and I played drums for a year in sixth grade. Around seventh grade, I got a guitar and forgot everything else. — Frankie Cosmos

During college I realized I had a music predisposition and really got involved in it. I started playing bass guitar. That was how I began to fit in. — Ronnie Dunn

I own a guitar, a piano, a bass. — Adam Driver

The first reason why I started to use the [electric] keyboard is because I really like the bending sound of the guitar and bass player. I can't bend the piano sound. I really like the feel behind it. I feel it adds flavour and character to my music. — Hiromi

Later in high school, I met Hillel Slovak, who was the original guitar player of the Chili Peppers, and we became really close. We had a band, and we didn't like the bass player, so I started playing bass, and I got a bass two weeks later. — Flea

I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing. — Dan Hicks

I play a bunch of instruments, like piano, drums, guitar and bass. And the kazoo every now and then. I'm trying to learn how to play the trumpet and the saxophone. That's what I'm learning how to play. — Mac Miller

You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass. — Douglas Adams

Lying on her side, the warm fire at her feet, Helen's laughter died away as Lucas suddenly went from tuning to playing.
It was like an orchestra in an instrument.
He played with both hands-not one hand picking and the other holding down strings-but with both hands so that it sounded like more than one guitar was playing. Sometimes he hit the strings to make them hum like a harp, and sometimes he hit the body of the guitar like a drum to add bass and keep time. It was the most fascinating thing Helen had ever watched, like Lucas had a dozen voices in his head, all singing the same song, and he'd figured a way to make them come out of ten fingers.
Helen looked at his face and could tell why he loved it. It was like thinking for him, only this was a puzzle that he could share with her as he solved it.
He'd walked into her head when he'd come to her world. And she'd walked into his when she finally heard him play.
It was heaven. — Josephine Angelini

I'm writing new songs for a Broadway version of Tarzan, which is very interesting. I think what I learned from the Brother Bear score side of things, I've brought into the new Tarzan songs. Thinking outside just guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. — Phil Collins

I've been into music for a long time. I started playing drums when I was 8 and piano when I was 10, then bass and guitar when I was 18. — Lukas Haas

My mom always told me I should have a Plan B. I said that if I'm not going to play guitar I'm going to play drums. And if I'm not going to play drums, I'm going to play bass. I always just wanted to play music. I was completely obsessed. — Gary Clark Jr.

I have always been drawn to percussion and drums, to bass and piano, in music much more then I am drawn to the guitar and the other lead instruments. — Dave Matthews

This isn't a mass-produced ... instrument. Mike Lull Custom Guitars makes each bass right here in the NW. Over 20 years of collaborating, designing, and building basses has gone into my model. — Jeff Ament

I play guitar, piano, bass and percussion. — Teena Marie

As Mick Jagger will tell you, performing is an aerobic work-out. I've got the bass guitar, which is the heaviest of all the instruments, and I'm a little girl, in boiling-hot leather under the lights. You have to keep the fitness level up if you want to look good up there. — Suzi Quatro

bass line and the cry of a pedal steel guitar, which always sounded to him like chrome teardrops. Even in happy songs. She — Stephen King

Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that's not what I call rock. — Little Richard

The flukey part of it is, back in the early days, I had that guitar decorated with all kinds of crap wallpaper, 'Flower Power' - then that got all shaved off. And during the course of cleaning the bass up again, some of the wood got shaved down, and it probably became a lighter body than the stock factory model. — Chris Squire

I heard the Beatles and the Stones, and Mom bought me an electric guitar. I played lead for four years and then switched to bass. One day someone suggested that I should sing, so I sheepishly stepped up to the microphone and the rest is rock history. — Glenn Hughes

I tried the guitar, but it had two strings too many. It was just too complicated, man! Plus, I grew up with Steve Cropper. There were so many good guitar players, another one wasn't needed. What was needed was a bass. — Donald Dunn

Obviously, a bass sounds like a bass and a guitar sounds like a guitar, but the way you play the guitar reflects your personality. — Paul Simonon

Dorsey played the upright bass and steel guitar, as well as acoustic guitar. Johnny played acoustic guitar and together they were fabulous songwriters and singers. — Jimmy Griffin

I got my first real bass guitar in my hands when I was 14 - a 1957 Fender Precision, which is still hanging on the wall in my front room. I loved the heaviness of it and the feel of the wood. I still do. — Suzi Quatro

So I go to the studio, and just say, 'Hi Paul, it's me, Rusty.' I think I kept it together pretty well, although I was pretty nervous. And before the day is over I'm playing guitar, and there's Paul McCartney over there, playing his Hofner bass and singing. All I can do is think, 'This life is so so bizarre.' — Rusty Anderson

James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they're fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together. — Vonda Shepard

In general, we like to play as a band - guitar, piano, and voice. We also tour with a bass player, a drummer, and somebody who plays keyboard and guitar. We try to play all of our parts and flesh it out to get a lush sound, while also keeping the energy of a three-piece punk act. We want to be the best of all possible worlds. — Andrew Dost

I even played bass for a while. Besides playing electric guitar, I'd also get asked to play some acoustic stuff. But, since I didn't have an acoustic guitar at the time, I used to borrow one from a friend so I could play folk joints. — Mark Knopfler

I used to be a session musician before I was a wrestler. I played bass guitar. I was big pals with Lars Ulrich and he asked me if I wanted to play bass with Metallica in their early days but it didn't work out. — Hulk Hogan

Hendrix was the bass player for Little Richard. We were both left-handed, but we would use a right-handed guitar held upside down and backwards. He developed my slides and my riffs. In fact he used to say, and this is documented, 'I patterned my style after Dick Dale.' — Dick Dale

Age isn't a barrier to playing the bass, and I've definitely improved over the years, although maybe I'm not as flash as I once was. But looking back, I can't imagine a life without a guitar. — Suzi Quatro

Rhythms, beats, etc., are fundamentally central to my creative drive: my first instrument was the drums, nearly every band I have been involved in or at the helm of, is driven by rhythm, my band is driven entirely by rhythm, machine rhythm, and the purpose of the rock instrumentation is literally to speak the beats, to emulate the rhythms with guitars and bass, with very little articulation, and without being 'progressive'. — Justin Broadrick

That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar. — Tom Araya

So I'll set a cycle in motion and pop it into record and I'll lay down a drum pattern, a bass line, a keyboard and guitar part, and once the groove is going I launch into the song and sing my song over the top. — Thomas Dolby

Where I grew up, I could be a punk rocker and a jock. But in college, it became apparent that those two worlds didn't mix. When I brought my guitar back to school after Thanksgiving break, a friend handed me his bass and said, 'Listen to the Ramones.' — Jeff Ament

Eventually as a teenager, I was pulled up on stage by James Brown's saxophone player, Maceo Parker, during one of his concerts and scatted on his stage for 20 minutes. After I was done, Maceo's bass player got down on one knee as if he were proposing, took a string off of his bass guitar and coiled it up around my ring finger. He hushed the crowd and said into the microphone, "Wendy, from this day forward you are married to music. You have a gift from God. You must devote your life to using this gift or else you will deprive the world of something so special." I got the chills. — Wendy Starland

To be a great band it's like you have that telepathy. You know when the bass player's in back of you without even looking. You know when your guitar player's coming up to you to lean up to you and sing into your microphone. You just know these things. You feel it. You feel the energy of it. — Scott Weiland

But yeah, I played bass guitar in high school and in college and then I actually fractured my thumb, so my bass career went bye-bye. — Colin Hanks

I've always said the bass just happens to be the crayon I picked out of the box. I'd still be drawing the same pictures ... should I have picked trumpet or accordion or guitar, whatever it may be. The sounds in my head are still the same. — Les Claypool

My favorite guitar now is my Martin HD-7 because it's got everything. It's got the jingle-jangle thing from the twelve string, it's got the flexibility of the six string, and the bass notes where you can do bass runs and that sort of thing. — Roger McGuinn

I'm a pretty good drummer. I'm pretty good at guitar, bass and piano. I can play accordion; I'm not virtuoso. I've played cello before. My sister played it, and I know how to play it, but I'm not the best. Violin is kind of the same thing. — Brendon Urie

Drums, bass, guitar, keys, I play a little of each of those. — Mayer Hawthorne

Without the Fender bass, there'd be no rock n' roll or no Motown. The electric guitar had been waiting 'round since 1939 for a nice partner to come along. It became an electric rhythm section, and that changed everything. — Quincy Jones

I feel my spot is somewhere between a bass player and a rhythm guitar player. I play with a pick. I play very aggressively. I always have a distortion pedal in line, and I play less melodies and do more stuff against the guitars that create melodies. — Nikki Sixx

Heaven to me is percussion and bass, a screaming guitar and a burbling Hammond B-3 organ. It's a soup I love being immersed in. — Dan Aykroyd

I wasn't originally a bass player. I just found out I was needed, because everyone wants to play guitar. — Tina Weymouth

My favorite moments are when the bass falls in the pocket with the drums, the guitar is on top just slicing it, and the melody is scraping across like a sidewinder shattering through the monitor. It's just, ahhh, I love it! That's the jones, the hit, the buzz right there. It gets me off. — Nikki Sixx

So by the time I taught myself the bass guitar at the age of 14, my hands were already pretty nimble. — John Entwistle

I don't really know why I chose bass except that it was different than guitar. — Trevor Dunn

I just naturally started to play music. My whole family played-my daddy played, my mother played. My daddy played bass, my cousin played banjo, guitar and mandolin. We played at root beer stands, like the .Drive-ins they have now, making $2.50 a night, and we had a cigar box for the kitty that we passed around, sometimes making fifty or sixty dollars a night. Of course we didn't get none of it, we kids. — T-Bone Walker

Like, when we did Parliament and Funkadelic and Bootsy, it was actually one thing. But there were so many people that you could split them up into different groups. And then, when we went out on tour and they [the record companies] would see us all up there together - we had five, six guitars playing at one time, not including the bass! -, they said: "Wait a minute, that's just one whole group, selling different names!" But it wasn't - we had enough people in the group that each member would have a section to be another group. So now we're finally starting to get them to understand that. — Gary Snyder

I'm starting to play all the melodies with kind of keyboard sound but playing it from the bass guitar. — Tom Jenkinson

I can't remember the first song I learned to play on bass, but the first song I learned to play on guitar was 'For Your Love' by the Yardbirds. That kind of was the beginning for me. I thought it was a great song and I loved the open chord progression at the beginning of that song. — Geddy Lee

Yes, I love to play drums and bass and guitar and piano. Those are the main instruments I play. That is it. — Jeff Lynne

Guitar is for the head, drums are for the chest, but bass gets you in the groin — Suzi Quatro