On The Record: Stu Hamm on bass innovation and Alex Skolnick

Stuart Hamm is preparing for the release of his new solo album. He wanted to capture his touring band live in the studio and create a prog rock record. He worked with guitarist Alex Spilnick and singer/guitarist Randy McStein. The album was recorded at Sweetwater Studios and features guest musicians. Stuart faced challenges in creating a bass-centric album, but tried to incorporate new and exciting bass techniques. He primarily used his prototype Warwick basses and Markbass signature head and cabinet. He used minimal effects and experimented with different pedals. Stuart also discussed his approach to writing and arranging songs, including a piece where the bass is the only instrument playing. He shared his experience working with Alex Kolnig, who enjoyed the different style of music on the record. Okay, so we're here with Stuart Hamm, one of the finest bass players alive today, yeah. So basically he's preparing for the release of his new solo album and we'll have a few questions about that and a few other things as well. So can you tell me a little bit about this record, how it came to be, and how was the creative process for this album different compared to your previous albums? First of all, nice to see you, thank you for having me here. The last solo release I did, The Diary of Patrick Xavier, was a completely solo bass record and a very personal record, and it took me a while to come up with the concept of what I wanted my next record to be, record, CD, album, I don't even know what you call them anymore. But going through the two things I wanted to do on this record were, my main touring band has been Alex Spilnick on guitar and Joel Taylor on drums. And surprisingly, Joel and I have recorded a lot on other people's records but I've never had them on one of my records, and Alex and I have crazily never recorded together. So I wanted to capture us live in the studio for some songs, but I also wanted to do more of a prog rock record, so I grew up listening to Yes and all that stuff, and I met another guitar player that did a tour with me, a great singer named Randy McStein, who now plays guitar with Porcupine Tree and has a great, great voice, so I thought I'd write some prog rock songs based on some musical ideas that I'd had floating around for a while. And that was the impetus, and Sweetwater, the mega online music company, also has a recording studio, and I worked out a couple of recording workshops where you can go in and record, and they have people pay to come watch the recording process, and Sean Deeley, the engineer, shows you how to set up the mics and all that stuff, so it's a good payoff for us to get in the studio, easy way to do it. So, did two sessions there, flew there, one I flew Alex and Joel, next time it was Alex and Randy McStein, and then I flew, and those tracks I sent to Gergo Borlai, who I had overdo the drums on them, and just a very few overdubs, guest stars on the record, and then I'm mixing them here in L.A. with Javier Reyes, who's the guitar player for Animals as Leaders, which is really interesting, because number one, he's in a band with no bass player, so he has no idea how to push that bass fader up so he can actually hear it, and like all guitar players, he thinks that all the bass does is double the rhythm of the guitar, so he needed a bit of an education, but we finally reached a point where it's really good, and he has a completely different take sonically, so the record sounds more modern than if I just did like one, you know, made it sound like Keys of Sleep, or some old tired prog rock record, so there are echoes to prog rock, you know, there's some melatrons and some flying in reverb, just to sonically sound like it, but, you know, a lot more present, especially in like the drum mixes, you know, the new, today the drums are just more dry and sort of in your face than, you know, overdubbed things, so the performances are great, the performances are wonderful, had a woman named Andrea Witt, who's also in my live band, played some Pedal Steel, and Steve Ferlasso, playing the Rick Wakeman keys, and I have Bubby Lewis just soloing on a couple tracks, a great, great bass player. Okay, awesome, now, how do you, like, bass is traditionally a backing instrument, but what's it like to make a bass-centric album, since, you know, it's not a lead instrument, how do you create such a record with such an instrument? I mean, it's challenging, certainly, because as a musician and composer who happens to play bass, in sort of a solo bass environment, I'm able to utilize some of the techniques that I'm well known for, or have helped invent or champion, to get it across, but if you're writing a full-on Pink Floyd, you know, UK-ish song, then it's just going to sound stupid, the bass is playing everything all at once, so then it's just an arrangement, and then the bassist needs to hit a big open E and put your hands up in the air and let it ring, so that comes down to arrangement, certainly I feel a little bit of, I wouldn't say pressure, but I think that the very selective audience that will be listening to Vine and music expects some sort of new, exciting bass thing, so I try to put that in there, as long as it serves the composition of the song. Yeah, absolutely. Now, as far as the gear goes, what did you use on this record, and you know, was there anything new in there, can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yeah, well, my main basses are these Warwicks, these prototype Warwicks that Marcus Spangler, who's the main guy, the wood guy at Warwick, built for me. On one track, when this is over, I had my old Sender Urge one, the short scale that I have strung up as a piccolo bass, that I doubled the funky bass on. Those are the main axes, I think I have, some of the others make a little bit of a guest appearance, but those, this is the one, this and the Redmond like it are the ones that I can really get around the most on. You know, I have my STU Markbass signature head and cabinet that we had delivered to Sweetwater when we recorded. My sound is primarily direct, right, and you use some of the amp for thickening, but more in like solo bass pieces, you really want the clarity. If I'm doing, you said, big low notes in a Pink Floyd section, then we'll put in some of the amp. Don't use a lot of effects because, again, tone comes from here, and what an amplifier should do is amplify the sound you create with the fingers. What a pedal should do would be to color the sound you get, not create a tone, in my opinion. So, you know, I have a few of my TC pedals I use, a Verve and Delay, and on one song, there's one song called Infinite that's a choir bass, piccolo, five string, regular bass, all just, you know, layers of basses, and that I use a bit of a tremolo for one of the tracks. And the main thing is for, in the song When This Is Over, I trade off eight bar phrases with Bubby Lewis. It's a really funky song, so I've been using a pedal from Seamoon called the Funk Machine. Are you familiar with that? I know it. It's great. It recreates the old, like, Neutron biphases by Neil Jason. He's a bass player, you know, the Brecker Brothers and big New York guy. It's his company, Seamoon, and that just gets a really nice end slope. I mean, it's great. It's a great pedal in that you really have to work it, man. You got to do the touch and the way you set it up. Micro increments make a big difference. So, you know, I try to experiment with some different things. I'm always trying to do something new with my records, and I already have an idea of what my next record will be like, which hopefully will be completely different. Now, yesterday I was listening to your Charlotte song. I think it's from the Outbound album from 2010. It's basically just you playing your bass with some reverb on there, maybe chorus, I'm not sure. And how do you approach, you know, writing and arranging such a piece where bass is the only instrument playing and, you know, no layering whatsoever? Just how do you approach writing such a piece and making it sound full and covering the chord progression and melody and everything at the same time? You know, home demos and if, you know, I have, you know, guitars here, but with my piccolo bass and with an octave pedal that can go, you know, a whammy pedal that can go up the octave and a really long delay and a really heavy chorus for a big sustain, I can approximate a guitar sound because my hands are too big to play guitar. If I pick up a guitar with those little strings and those little frets, the tone I get is just loathsome and vile. So, for that song particularly, again, for me, a song becomes a song when I name it or I know what the song is about or I have an idea. It's not just a chord progression, the melody has to be about something. And actually, the demo I did on that, I did in San Rafael, California at Daniel Polselli's little studio. I was running out of room on my little Tascam four-track cassette machine. I swore that demo sounds better than the record. It just, I had a really good idea, which was just this fast groove. That particular song was inspired by the time I was living in the Castro, San Francisco, which is the gayest section. So, I would always hear these disco beats from the gay nightclubs wafting up the hill towards my house. And the melody was just meant to be, you know, sort of a Middle Eastern dual melodies that sort of wove in and out of each other. And from there, when I had a firm idea, it was easy to write the two interwoven melodies. I sort of did that as a demo and then I'm very particular about the way my melodies are played and I couldn't get any guitar player to play it to the composer's satisfaction. So, I just decided to go ahead and, you know, plus if you're playing the melody yourself and you can double it, you can use your own phrasing. And that song came out very well. Low Live, I have to use on that particular song, a guitar player playing slide and then Andrea plays the second melody on pedal steel and it sounds pretty good. Oh, okay. Now, your record, of course, also features Alex Kolnig, who's a, you know, very versatile guitar player. Now, what was it like to work with Alex on this record and, you know, knowing that he's generally known as a metal guitar player, was there anything, what can you expect to hear on this record from him and what was it like to work with him? I think he enjoyed this record because it's different than what he does in Testament. It's different than what he does in the Alex Kolnig Trio. But, you know, Alex, I've known Alex since probably 1990, which is, what, 33 years now. And he was the original guitar player in the Urge Tour. You know, I had this record called The Urge where I sang and I had a quasi-hit called Lone Star that featured Eric Johnson on it. And at the time, I was, you know, and at the time, I was, you know, I was the bass guy. I was winning all these Reader's Bowls and stuff. So, I auditioned every hair band guitar player person you can think of for that gig. I'm not going to name any names. And I auditioned them on the song Lone Star and they all showed up and played Eric Johnson's solo, Note for Note, right? And then Alex showed up and played the melody and when it was time for the solo, he played his own solo. And I'm like, you're hired, right? Which is one thing that I never really understood. Well, I do. What about Satriani and Vi is that, you know, their solos are composed and they play the same solos every night, right? Which is cool. But the improvisation is pretty interesting. So, Alex was just a young kid back then. I think that I helped turn him on to, I think I played him One Report for the first time and I bought him a copy of Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. And, you know, I'm not going to say I'm responsible for his renaissance as an intellectual and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, we've just known each other for a long time and we're good friends and I respect what he does. I'd never seen Testament play. I'd never been to a metal show until last year. And I saw Testament and Exodus and some of their loud band. But, so, you know, we've done all these tours where, you know, he likes to play my music and in this sort of music, it's improvisational music where hopefully we're listening to each other and playing differently every time. So, it was great to finally get him and Joel in the studio. We did a couple songs for that quick track that we do a version of We Will Rock You, a reggae version that we've been playing live forever. So, we just knocked it off the studio. And I think I'm pretty good in the studio. Sometimes in the studio you kind of have to get people pissed off or angry to get a good take, you know. You can't be, you have to play good cop, bad cop. And I'm fortunate to know enough musicians where I think I can write songs that exemplify their strengths, right? And instead of me imagining a guitar solo, I say, well, Alex would be perfect for this song. So, it's one song called Flotsam and Jetsam has this B section that is possibly lifted directly from a Vic Kinger Olson transcription of a Bach organ concerto. Maybe, maybe pretty close to the exact same lift that he just sounds great on. So, yeah, he's wonderful. I think I know how to get a good performance out of him. And, you know, we've just played a lot and he's a super, one of my best friends and I just have a lot of love and respect for the dude. Awesome. Now, without giving us too much like spoilers of your album or anything, can you tell us what is the most challenging piece to record for this album and can you tell us a little bit more about it? The mixing process has been a challenge, again, because I want, you have to have a producer because there's a phrase, I don't know how it translates, but you can't see the forest because you're concentrating on the trees, right? So, sometimes I'll get caught up in minutiae when someone needs to say, dude, it sounds fine, move on, right? So, and I wanted a different sound and I wanted someone, the last like seven records I've done, I did with a friend of mine, James Boblak, up in San Francisco. He wasn't available, so I know Javier and I just thought, you know, I like the sound of those records, of the Animals records and some of the solo stuff. So, just getting it right and, man, I'm I'm pretty hard on myself, I have to say. I have to keep reminding myself that playing bass will never sound like Glenn Gould playing the piano and that when you lift your hands off the strings and move into a different position, there's just a sound created and it sounds like, and there are days when that's all I can hear and so we spend about a day trying to like, you know, edit them out or duck them down and then it just sounds awful awful and you just have to let it go. The song, the title track called Hold Fast has a pretty tricky bass intro and the beat is sort of displaced, so it's meant to sort of mess with your ear when what you think is the downbeat is really the and or for, but it's been really, it's really, I hired the right people to do this record, so, yeah, I had to replace some drum parts, I have to say, but in the end they came out better, so that was a bit of a challenge politically and just economically and financially, but it's all really come out good. We just have one song left to mix and it's sort of a real prog rock epic, there's about 17 keyboard parts and three bass parts and it's just taking us forever to mix it. Okay, hope you'll hear it soon. So, why did you decide to crowdfund this album? Because I needed the money and no one else is giving me any, how's that? I mean, we don't have to go on a depressing rant about the changes in the music industry and the recording industry and the fact that, like, the only people making music, money off downloadable music are people who've never practiced a scale in their life and just mental men and we're not going to be cynical today or anything, so you just have to roll with the tides, because those are things I can't change, right, on a big level. A small level, maybe I can. So, I just, you know, spent some of my own money, you know, getting it going and hiring a lot of guys and then it came down to, well, you know, if I really want to make the packaging good and hire someone good to master it and, you know, since I'm still going to press up some physical CDs to sell on tour, I'll be touring with Greg Howe later this year and I think my fans are older, they still have CD players, number one, and don't mind supporting someone by buying a CD and being able to look at it, so we're going to do, like, a big fold-out booklet, like the... I was talking with Alex, like, for metal dudes, like, the packaging is really important, right, and my girlfriend is a heavy metal photographer, she did all the photography in the last Exodus record and stuff, so, you know, we're going to have a fold-out with a big folder of me and my bases and so that just allowed me to sort of not have to dip too deep into my savings and to have a little money to play with again to... it's good to pay people that are working on your record, it makes them happier. So, I try to make it fun, you know, try to, you know, try to say just, you know, if you're going to wait and download it, you know, for $10 off Apple, I'm, you know, I mean, let's say, in fact, I'm going to see maybe, what, you know, seven cents of that, right, by the time, or a dollar and a half or whatever. So, if you want to spend a little more and have the money go directly to me, great, I have these perks where, you know, you can have your name in the credits, you can have lessons, you can have access to the files, the demos, and just, you know, fun stuff, lessons, me recording, just ways to get people involved, and again, just to help pay for it. Yeah, I get it. So, in the past, you also worked with some of the, like, biggest names in the world of guitars, so two of them were Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, of course. How would you compare working with them, like, what makes them similar, what makes them different? Man, you know, I mean, I met Steve in 1978 when we were freshening up Berklee, that's 45 years, that's kind of scary, and obviously, through him, I met Joe, you know, Steve's very adventurous, I like that, he's always ambitious, he's also coming from a Zappa world, right, and Joe is maybe a bit more melodic, and Joe, like me, and like people that weren't, had other influences other than Zappa, spent time playing in Top 40 bands, spent time in her band, studied some jazz harmony, understand the A-A-B-A form, the more traditional, you know, pop, rock, jazz music forms and sensibilities, right? So, that, you know, I mean, obviously, recording with Steve is a challenge, because he's a perfectionist and very demanding, and recording with Joe, he, again, man, both those guys, especially Joe's stuff, you know, I mean, most of the bass is just eighth notes, doublings, rhythm guitar, so early on, he would sort of just call me, like in playing with the Blue Dream for Bells of Wall Park 2, when he wanted something else, and, you know, slap or whatever, but, you know, the albums that we did sort of, I would say, collaborate, you know, where I had a little more input were Crystal Planet and Time Machine, and that was a fun process, actually getting to, you know, lend, try to lend a voice, he's the ultimate authority, obviously, but no, they're both, they're both great, I would, you know, I keep in contact, and, you know, Steve helped with the, some of the, the campaign, the financial campaign for putting this record out, and I, you know, speak to Joe every now and then, and he helped to advertise it, too, and, you know, it's been fun, they're super big parts of my career, and it was just a great time in my life. Another recording that you participated in was the cover of Iron Smith's Dream On, and it featured Ingvi Malmsteen and Ronnie James Dio, and I really wanted to ask you, I mean, because, obviously, I'm a huge Black Sabbath fan, and everything, I really have to, I promised myself that I'm going to ask you, did you get the chance to work directly with Dio, or, you know, how did that go? I wish, and again, my girlfriend's a, you know, more into heavy metal, and through Alex, so, I had some more street trends saying I could play with, you know, I played with, I recorded with Ronnie, and then we actually, just in L.A., about a month ago, had a big Cancer Awareness Concert tribute to Ronnie James Dio out in the park, and Rudy Sarza was there, and Vandenberg, and, you know, I get to play a couple Die Young, and, you know, some of these metal songs, it was fun, it was super good, and then, you know, I've done a lot of those sort of tribute records, and some of them sound good, and have better performances than that one, that version of Dream On is, like, just really stands out as a quality recording, and I think that it's because whoever recorded and produced it did well, it was, you know, I just went in the studio with Vinnie Calagutta, it was just he and I to lay down the basics, and, you know, again, Vinnie, you know, was not, I think we both know enough that in that song, I'm not going to be tapping or slapping, I'm just laying down a part, right, a good bass part, and Vinnie's laying it down, you know, so number one, you've got a really good rhythm section playing a supportive groove behind it, instead of people trying to show off or whatever, right, there's your bass, and then I think the way that Ronnie Dio sings, that he makes it his own, he sticks, he doesn't stick too traditionally to the melody, and I think that the reason that it works so well, and that Yngwie, I mean, it's funny, because Yngwie starts playing fast in the intro, and it's like, oh my god, that's fast, and then it just keeps getting faster and faster, it's just, it's so Yngwie, you know, I love it, it's awful, I love it, you know, it's just Yngwie Yngwie, but I think what really works is that whoever was mixing the record, I think, turned Yngwie down every eight bars at the end, so it sounds like he's listening and trading off with Ronnie, when you know that he just blew over the whole thing. I'm insulting anybody, I'm just saying, that's why it sounds so cool, because they're trading off, you know. Yeah, one thing that I always love to ask, you know, well, musicians who have many years of experience behind them, how much do you practice at this point in your career, or do you, like, effectively practice at all? Oh, this is on my music stand right here, bass duets, what else do I have on here, I'm working on some Shpiegel and Spiegel by Arvo Part, man, I'm practicing all the time, because I love to practice, I have a lot of things that I can improve on, and I'm motivated to get better, and also just, man, if I'm really warmed up, the way my fingers are on the strings, it really improves the sound, and my happiness makes me play better, so I, yeah, I practice all the time. Yeah, well, one thing that I also wanted to ask you, do you perhaps remember what was your first bass that you ever had, you know, and does it have, do you still own it, and does it have any emotional value to you? I do remember it, because I got it for Christmas in 1973, and I've been playing upright bass for a few years, and using the school's electric bass, and played music all my life, different instruments, when I started playing bass, it was pretty apparent that I had a feel for it, and so it was the only time I searched around my parents' bedroom when they were at work to see if I was going to get a bass, and I found my Christmas present before Christmas, it was a, it was called Alvarez, I think my parents bought it at a pawn shop in Champaign, Illinois, and it was a copy of a Gibson SG double cutaway, you know, with the little horns on the side, and the funny thing was, of course, the first thing I did when I got it was put a silver surfer sticker on the head, on the headset, so it sort of pre-shadowed my surfing with the alien days, so, no, I sold that long ago to, I think the guy who was the number two bass player in the jazz band, the school band I was in, when my parents bought me my first jazz bass in 74, so I don't have either of those two basses, sadly. Okay, okay, one thing, there's the, was it recently, earlier this year, you, and was it Jeff Berlin, that you commented on a post online, and it was this common misconception shared by Dave Mustaine, saying that all the bass players do is just double what the guitar is doing. Now, do you think that after all these years, bass is still, you know, underappreciated instrument in any way? Personally, I don't care. I mean, no, I mean, personalities, I mean, there's a reason why Dave Mustaine is a guitar player and not a bass player, because no bass player would say that. Well, no, I rip on guitar players nonstop, so I take that back. No, I think a mature bass player, just that, and if you're playing in Megadeth, that's what you're going to be doing. Again, it's like, you know, people are like, could you imagine how, and I, you know, I love Billy, Billy's one of the most incredible forces of nature, but it would have sounded awful in Van Halen, right? That band needed Michael Anthony to just lay it down, and the sound of his voice, and if you've got someone trying to sort of compete, or double Eddie, then it's going to sound more like You Didn't Smile, which is a completely different animal, right? So, yeah, I mean, Mustaine's right for his music, that's what he wants, and, you know, there are musicians who can, not everyone can do everything, I mean, you hear, like, Rudy Sarzo play, you know, that old classic rock stuff, and he just knows how to play it correctly, where someone with a lot of Berklee knowledge can say, oh, that music is easy. It just sounds boring and inappropriate, right? There's an art and a skill to be able to play each style of music authentically. I will say that there's, obviously, the whole, like, solo bass playing thing has become a thing, and I think now it's good that it's sort of separated itself from traditional bass playing, where there aren't, a lot of the younger players seem to decide early, okay, I'm going to play, you know, two eight string double neck tapping things, and they're not even going to try to play, you know, Ain't Talkin' About Love, right? That's a different aesthetic musically. Yeah, absolutely. Now, just one more final question. Besides this new album, do you have anything else planned in your near future? I do, you know, last weekend was great. The weekend before I was up in San Francisco doing a Jetpack Tribute concert with a bunch of Bay Area musicians, right, Gretchen Mann, Eric Barnett, all the Bay Area good guys. Then Friday I was in the studio with Chad Wackerman and Toshi Inagi playing some songs for my new record for Roswell Pro Audio. And then Saturday I was in the studio with George Pahoma on guitar, who plays with the Black Eyed Peas and has a band called Cairo Knife Fight. So Dave Lombardo and I came in to lay down some, maybe an Ozzy song, maybe we did a version of War Pig, a different version, and an original tune. So that was fun. What am I doing? This record comes out, and then starting in July I'll be going on the tour with Greg Howe. He hasn't toured for a while, so it's going to be Greg and I, his band, and I got my drummer, Joel Taylor, on the gig, so he and I just have a thing. So that's going to be super, super fun, playing Greg's music with my brother Narnia, his favorite drummer. And then, of course, in August it's the second annual Estonian Bass Oasis. It's my own bass camp that I go to, that I've been running, and this year Alex is coming, Mohini Day, Dan Patlansky, blues player from South Africa, Craig Blundell on drums. So the idea of that camp is just to let bass players show up and see what it's like to play with professionals. It's not a bass camp where there's going to be eight bass players on stage playing Stratus. It's going to be like, hey, you want to play prog rock? Okay, let's hear you play YYZ, and you've got me or Mohini there, and you get to play with Craig Blundell, who's played the song a million times. Play some Testament songs with Alex, play some Fusion with Alex and I. And then rumors are abounding that we're going to be hitting Europe next year with Michael E. Ferkens and doing Drummer To Be Determined. We're still working that out. And I just keep plugging away, man. You know, teach online and enjoy just living my life. Got a lot of books to read, a lot of practicing to do, and already sort of thinking about my next musical project. And yeah, life is good. Yeah, awesome, awesome. Okay, Stu, this has been an absolute honor talking to you, and I'm sure that, you know, everyone else that augmented art, including myself, and they all can't wait to hear what you have to show us on this new record. Well, depending on when it comes out, you can go to indiegogo.com, Stu Hamm, hold fast, help out. And then after that, you can just go to stuhamm.com, and there will be ways for, obviously, you'll eventually be able to download the record from all the usual sources. But if you want to order a physical copy, if you want to order an autographed copy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you can get all that from my website. Okay, thank you, Stu, and I wish to see you again. Okay, cheers, hold fast.