Bassists We Have Met

Not a bassist, but one of the times I actually had the star struck feeling. Back when I worked on shows where my job responsibility mostly consisted of pushing the play button on a cassette deck, I met a similarly tasked individual who went on to go on tour with Ringo and his All Starr Band. Sometimes when the show passed through my city, we would meet up at the venue to shoot the breeze. I did one time have the good fortune of being at dinner services when Ringo came to eat his baked potato with broccoli. He didn’t have a separate “star” meal location. He would eat with the crew. He’s the sort of person that just makes an impression by his mere presence. Such a soft, gentle, loving and powerful soul.

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Ringo might not be a bassist, but he sure was half of a badass rhythm section. He has always been a genuinely humble, unassuming guy. And God knows he’s played along to a ton of groundbreakingly great bass lines in his time.

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I met this guy a few times! He plays in a little known band called “British Lion”, I think he has at least one other project going on!



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Poor guy can only afford one pair of shorts :joy:

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Still rocking the West Ham sticker though :rofl:

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Yesterday I met a bass player so well liked that he had a solo in the opening number! The solo and the entire show was a lot of fun. It’s hard to get the camera going fast enough to catch exactly the best bass face. It was definitely during the saxophone solo. @JoshFossgreen

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@DaveT It’s too bad you didn’t get to meet him. I’ve heard he’s pretty good to the fans, but you never know with musicians. :rofl:

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LOL, we actually did get to meet him. We were there after sound check before the show started and had a chance to chat offstage for bit.

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When is his Australian tour?

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Not a bassist, but I did meet Kei Kobayashi, aka Kobametal. The guy who dreamed up and produces Babymetal. Before it all started, he was producing teenage idols for Amuse Inc, and ran across Suzuka Nakamoto in another group. He thought she had a lot of power and attitude on stage and was wasted on pop, and dreamed of her singing metal flanked by a pair of twins, shobijin, like the faeries out of myth (and Mothra movies).

Couple years later he made it happen.

Anyway, as it turns out he is the road manager for the band too. In 2019 in Portland I was in the disabled section as usual, which was just to the right of the stage with a curtain next to me separating me from backstage. No guard, which I thought was odd. Anyway, Koba popped out a few times to size up the crowd. He was a nice guy, down to earth.

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I met Paul Simonon of The Clash backstage at a Clash show. He’d just played and was nice but wasn’t into socializing so after I introduced myself I left him sitting on the stairs.

The odd chance meeting was Stu Cook from Creedence who was playing in a band called Southern Pacific in the late 80s. I, a young record store employee, was invited to a listening party followed by an after party in a small hotel suite. There were two beds in each room and my girlfriend and I found a bed to sit on when Stu Cook sat across from us on the other bed. Our knees may have touched it was so close. I had no idea who Stu Cook was or who he’d played with prior to Southern Pacific we talked a while then he told me that he’d been in CCR, then I was star struck. I didn’t have any thoughts to form sentences. I did drink their whiskey.

Who have you met? What happened?
Thanks! EL

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I met Peter Hook backstage at a New Order show, hung out for a bit. I was like 20.

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He was/is a hero of mine.

It’s a pity that we are not drummers, as I met Alfredo Hernández from Queens of the Stone Age several years ago.

As I - and especially my girlfriend - love the story, I tell it anyway. Ignore it if you hate drummers :slight_smile:

So, we were on vacation in the US of A, specifically a road trip that passed through Palm Springs.
We were in quite a funny hotel. Typical American, I think it was a Travelodge?!
It was full of young dudes with goatees and tattoos and they had a great party, so I thought “cool, a gay party - let’s rock!”
My girlfriend and me mingled right in, cause: nothing is cooler for Americans than meeting the real thing – Europeans ^^
After a few drinks it became clear that this was not a gay party but an event, organized by a skate board company.
Same same but different ^^
Across the pool some dude was DJing, and he played really cool, eclectic 80s sound. I really liked it and I went over for a little chat. So he played music while we were talking about this and that – and boy he did know his music! Almost as good as me :slight_smile:
Somewhere in our chat he mentioned that he was in a band called “Queens of the Stone Age” previously, as a drummer.
I was unimpressed as I never heard of them.
When I returned I asked my girlfriend if she knows them. She is a guitar chick, after all…
She almost fainted. GOTS is one of their favourite bands!
So I went over and asked if he would mind if I took a picture of him and that good looking blond groupie, hiding behind the bar!?
He couldn’t be any nicer, so below is the result (both are not drunk yet and kind of shy…)
So … fast forward … the party came to an early end (Americans do not seem to party for days) and he came over and asked us what our plans were for the night.
No plans.
He invited us to his favourite Mexican restaurant first (which was really great) and then we went to his very humble home, where he and my girlfriend got really drunk by means of his home grown alcoholic beverage, while we kept talking about the history of music since the late 70s. Never ever mentioning GOTS…
It was a long and very chilled night!
Later, he invited us to join him to Mexico the next day to visit his family, but though he was a really nice bloke, I found it kind of a Narcos situation, so I politely declined.
Of course, I was stupid. So off we went to boring Vegas instead…

My girlfriend and Alfredo at the beginning of the epic night:

Me, after realizing who we met and what really happened:

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I was living in Austin in the mid 90’s and went to a St. Patrick’s day celebration at the old Dog and Duck pub. It was there that I met Ian McLagan of the Small Faces. I know he was not the bass player, but the keyboardist. He was with the Irish guy from Real World Los Angeles. Can’t remember his name. Nice couple of guys.

Andrew.

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Way back in the 90s I was on the road with a band ( I didn’t play, I was a roadie selling gear and driving to gigs) that did the SE circuit with some forays into Texas/Oklahoma and the mid-Atlantic region. During that time I was lucky enough to meet the Oteil Burbridge from Aquarium Rescue Unit, Allen Woody (R.I.P., he’s the reason I have wanted to learn to play bass) from the Allman Brothers/Gov’t Mule, and David Schools from Widespread Panic. Have to say, all of them were amazing players and even better people.

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Me too :slight_smile:

Did you ask him if he regretted not getting that stack pots 61 from Norman’s Rare Guitars before Bobby Vega got it?

Wow, some interesting experiences and tales told here. I’m afraid some of my connections back in the '60s would be largely unrecognizable now and even the rest are from bands whose hey day was in the '70s but; Larry Sims/Loggains and Messina Band, Randy Meisner/Poco, Eagles, Mark Andes/Jo Jo Gunne, Firefall, Heart and quite a few other less known guys.

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