50 Fun Facts About Bass Guitar

The bass-like riff of which White Stripes song is really a guitar fed through a pitch-shifting pedal?

Seven Nation Army has no bass on it at all: Jack White played a semi-acoustic guitar through a DigiTech Whammy pedal to drop its pitch.

Which musician's Höfner violin bass, stolen from a van in 1972, was finally returned to him in 2024?

Paul McCartney got the bass back after a volunteer search called the Lost Bass Project traced it to an attic on the south coast of England.

Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby is built on the sampled bassline of which earlier hit single?

Under Pressure, by Queen and David Bowie, earned its writers no credit or royalties for the sample until the rap single had already become a hit.

Composer Jonathan Wolff built the theme tune of which NBC sitcom from edited samples of slap bass?

Seinfeld's theme was never one fixed recording: Wolff reworked the sampled bass for each episode so it fitted around the timing of the dialogue.

Which Nirvana member threw his bass in the air at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards and failed to catch it?

Krist Novoselic misjudged the height of his bass toss at the end of Lithium, and Queen guitarist Brian May ran over to check he was unhurt.

Michael Balzary, the Melbourne-born bassist of Red Hot Chili Peppers, is better known by which stage name?

Flea earned the nickname as a restless teenager who could not sit still, and his first love was the trumpet, not the bass.

A bass guitar's strings sound lower than the matching strings of a regular guitar by which interval?

One octave lower calls for longer, heavier strings, which is why a standard bass has a 34-inch scale and a far longer neck than a guitar.

Which jazz bassist and singer beat Justin Bieber and Drake to the Best New Artist Grammy in 2011?

Esperanza Spalding won after her album Chamber Music Society; she had played oboe and clarinet before discovering the double bass in high school.

Sting, the singing bassist of The Police, took his stage name from which item of clothing?

A striped sweater in black and yellow made young Gordon Sumner look like a wasp, a jazz bandleader joked, and the name Sting stuck.

Which member of Kiss, known on stage as the Demon, plays a bass shaped like an axe?

Gene Simmons's Axe bass is now museum-worthy: the Smithsonian accepted a signed one into its American history collection in 2013.

Which four notes, from lowest to highest, are the open strings of a standard four-string bass guitar?

E-A-D-G are also the four lowest strings of a guitar, so a guitarist who picks up a bass finds every note in a familiar place.

In a typical band, the bassist and the drummer together form the core of which group of players?

The rhythm section supplies a song's pulse and groove, and in reggae or funk a whole tune may be centred on what the bass is playing.

Which 1960s British rock trio teamed bassist Jack Bruce with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker?

Cream made its bassist the frontman: the three agreed early on that Jack Bruce would sing lead, and the band is widely called rock's first supergroup.

Which punk figure replaced Glen Matlock as the bassist of the Sex Pistols?

Sid Vicious had no bass experience when he joined, so guitarist Steve Jones played most of the bass parts on the band's debut album.

Aston 'Family Man' Barrett was the bass-playing bandleader behind which Jamaican reggae star?

Bob Marley left the song arrangements to Barrett, whose nickname came before he had any children; he is reported to have fathered 41.

John McVie's bass break in which Fleetwood Mac song became the BBC's Formula One theme tune?

The Chain was pieced together from rejected fragments, and it is the only song credited to all five members of the Rumours line-up.

Louis Johnson tried every bass he owned before recording the bassline of which Michael Jackson hit?

Billie Jean was finally cut on a Yamaha bass, even though the record's producer disliked the bassline and wanted the long introduction trimmed.

Roger Waters wrote the lopsided bass riff in 7/4 time that drives which Pink Floyd song?

Money got its odd count because Waters felt it suited a bluesy feel, and the track opens with a loop of clinking coins and a ringing cash register.

Fender's first mass-produced electric bass guitar, launched in 1951, carries which model name?

The Precision was aimed at big-band players, yet it only took off once rock and roll and Motown arrived and guitarists found it easy to switch to.

Which member of Led Zeppelin played bass and keyboards after years as a London session arranger?

John Paul Jones had played on hundreds of recording sessions from 1964, and learned piano from his father, a big-band pianist and arranger.

Which Weather Report bassist played a fretless Fender Jazz Bass that he called the Bass of Doom?

Jaco Pastorius got the bass when he was 21, and its bare fingerboard gave him the singing tone of his solos, chords and harmonics.

Which Sly and the Family Stone bassist is credited with inventing the slap technique?

Larry Graham began thumping the strings to stand in for the drummer his mother dropped from her band, and he is the uncle of the rapper Drake.

Which member of The Who, nicknamed the Ox, played one of rock's first bass solos on My Generation?

John Entwistle wanted a Danelectro for the solo, but its thin strings kept breaking, so he switched to his Fender and had to simplify the part.

Which Motown session bassist plucked nearly everything with one index finger, nicknamed the Hook?

James Jamerson carried the one-finger habit over from the upright bass, and his playing on the label's hits went uncredited for most of his career.

Which Los Angeles session player took up bass in 1963 when a bassist missed a Capitol Records date?

Carol Kaye, until then a jazz guitarist, went on to play on an estimated 10,000 recordings as part of the studio circle known as the Wrecking Crew.

Which American maker built the 4001 bass played by Chris Squire of Yes and Lemmy of Motörhead?

Rickenbacker launched the 4001 in 1961 as a deluxe version of its earlier 4000 bass, whose neck ran the whole length of the body.

Which Music Man bass of 1976, co-designed by Leo Fender, came with an active preamp built in?

The StingRay's circuit was drawn up by engineer Tom Walker to suit Leo Fender's own tastes, and it boosted an oversized humbucking pickup.

Which amp maker launched the 300-watt SVT bass head when few amps went beyond 100 watts?

Ampeg advised running the SVT through two cabinets of eight ten-inch speakers each, because a single cabinet could not take the power.

Which adjustable steel part, hidden inside the neck of a bass, counters the pull of the strings?

A truss rod keeps the neck straight as string tension and the weather try to bend it; a Gibson employee applied for the first patent in 1921.

Ned Steinberger's 1979 basses, moulded from graphite and carbon fibre, did away with which usual part?

The headstock was dropped to shed unbalanced weight, so the tuners moved to the other end, mounted on a tailpiece on the face of the body.

Which Primus frontman, a bassist, appears in the opening titles of South Park performing the theme song?

Les Claypool once auditioned for Metallica, whose frontman later said he was turned down for being too good and needing to do his own thing.

Which Black Sabbath bassist wrote most of the band's lyrics during the Ozzy Osbourne years?

Geezer Butler drew his words from religion, science fiction and horror, and he had been a guitarist before the band, inspired by John Lennon.

Which bassist founded Iron Maiden and was once scouted to train with West Ham United?

Steve Harris kept day jobs as an architectural draughtsman and then a street sweeper until the band signed its record contract in 1979.

Which bassist and singer of Thin Lizzy is remembered with a statue put up in Dublin in 2005?

Phil Lynott fronted earlier bands purely as a singer, among them Skid Row, and only learned the bass before forming his own group in 1969.

Which original Pixies bassist went on to front The Breeders, known for the single Cannonball?

Kim Deal was first credited on record as Mrs. John Murphy, an ironic joke of a stage name, and later brought her twin sister Kelley into the Breeders.

Which member of Rush sings lead, plays bass and triggers synthesizers with foot pedals on stage?

Geddy Lee added synthesizers in 1977, and working them with his feet left both hands free for the bass while he sang.

Which Metallica bassist, killed in a 1986 tour bus accident, played the solo showcase on Kill 'Em All?

Cliff Burton fed his bass through a wah-wah and a fuzz pedal for that solo, effects that guitarists use far more often than bassists.

Which Parliament-Funkadelic bassist, once in James Brown's band, plays a star-shaped Space Bass?

Bootsy Collins had his original Space Bass stolen, and it later turned up in a Cincinnati pawn shop and was handed back to him.

Which jazz and blues accompaniment style moves in steady quarter notes, one note on every beat?

Walking bass is named for its likeness to the regular alternation of feet, and the same steady motion runs through Baroque music and rockabilly.

A five-string bass guitar usually adds one extra string, lower than the rest, tuned to which note?

B is the usual choice: the extra low string arrived in the mid-1970s, and many five-string basses have a longer scale so that it rings clearly.

Which Talking Heads bassist was the band's driver before learning the instrument to fill the gap?

Tina Weymouth later co-founded Tom Tom Club with her husband, the drummer Chris Frantz, whom she met at the Rhode Island School of Design.

The cover of The Clash's London Calling shows which band member smashing his bass on a New York stage?

Paul Simonon had planned to be an artist before he joined the band, and Pennie Smith's 1979 photograph became a signature image of punk.

The Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight borrows the Bernard Edwards bass line from which Chic disco hit?

Good Times brought a threat of legal action from Chic's two writers, and the settlement gave them both songwriting credits on the rap record.

At Live Earth in 2007, Spinal Tap played which song with members of Metallica and Foo Fighters all on bass?

Big Bottom filled the Wembley stage with bassists that day, members of the Beastie Boys among them, and Soundgarden covered the song at early shows.

In bluegrass and traditional country, bass lines lean on the fifth of each chord and which other note?

The root is the note a chord is named after, and bass lines that stress chord tones like it help to define the key of a song.

Peter Hook played high, melodic bass lines in Joy Division and in which successor band?

New Order formed after the death of singer Ian Curtis in 1980, and Hook often treated the bass as a lead instrument, playing tunes on its top strings.

Fender's Bassman, built as a bass amplifier, was the model for the first amp from which British company?

Marshall copied the Bassman's circuit for its JTM45, by which time rock and roll guitarists had adopted the bass amp as their own.

Which Gibson bass of the 1960s was styled by the car designer Raymond Dietrich?

The Thunderbird began with a so-called reverse body, which Gibson changed after Fender complained that it resembled the Jazzmaster guitar.

Which six-string instrument of Mexican mariachi bands inspired Ernie Ball's Earthwood acoustic bass?

The guitarrón that Ball worked from was one he bought in Tijuana and tinkered with, reasoning that acoustic guitars deserved an acoustic bass to match.

Which Seattle inventor developed the first electric bass guitar of the modern kind in the 1930s?

Paul Tutmarc designed his fretted four-string to be held across the body like a guitar, and his company Audiovox listed it in a 1935 sales catalog.