Heather wasteland: a band with 4 bass players!

[ribbetingfrog]

https://youtu.be/Hu0u0XvvWu0

Saw these guys in bass guitar magazine. Neo medieval folk band from Ukraine who have a drummer and three bass players but the drummer sometimes plays bass too!

Amazing what can be done with only basses.

[dmccombe7]

Don't fancy the gigs tho Watched some of their live vids and a wee bit samey for me.

Dave

[SpondonBassed]

I wonder if this will last longer than SMV? They managed a year from 2008 to 2009.

In the last thirty five years or so, I've seen this a few times. It's one of those band models that is born out of discussions that contain phrases like "wouldn't it be cool if..." and "what's the worst that could happen". I was one of two bass players in a side project to my main thang back in the eighties myself!

That Stanley Clark, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten all thought multiple bassists was a cool enough notion to fly just proves that they aren't infallible either. It can work but perhaps it is best as an intermittent feature rather than the USP for a band. In their defence, SMV isn't always three basses together, sometimes there is a DB in there too.

I did like the "Thunder" tune.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBKJrgdn8oQ

Edited April 16, 2017 by SpondonBassed

[dmccombe7]

Think the difference there is that you have 3 virtuoso bassists and looks like 2 keyboard players to smooth out the boring bits.
This is more like a bass workshop for these 3.

It kinda suits their style a bit more than the OP's posted band. To be honest i couldn't sit through a full concert of either of the bands no matter how famous the bassists are.

Dave

[AndyTravis]

There was a band called Rothko with 3 bass players...

Read an interview with them in Bassist years ago.

Edited April 16, 2017 by AndyTravis

[tony_m]

Another band with four bass players, plus a psychotic pig, and an equally psychotic man with a mop as well...

[media]http://youtu.be/_gjgfQ4yjgM[/media]

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='ribbetingfrog' timestamp='1492283973' post='3279249']
[url="https://youtu.be/Hu0u0XvvWu0"]https://youtu.be/Hu0u0XvvWu0[/url]

Saw these guys in bass guitar magazine. Neo medieval folk band from Ukraine who have a drummer and three bass players but the drummer sometimes plays bass too!

Amazing what can be done with only basses.
[/quote]

If David Brent formed a folk band, it would sound like this.

[Chris2112]

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1492333708' post='3279415']
I wonder if this will last longer than SMV? They managed a year from 2008 to 2009.
[/quote]

SMV was never meant to be a long term thing. Stanley announced to a magazine interviewer that they were going to do it, as before that they'd only kicked the idea around. But once Stan said it was happening, it was on. There was no real chance of it going further as all three of them have other commitments, especially Marcus, I would say. It's a bit like Jeff Berlin, Stuart Hamm and Billy Sheehan doing Bx3, just a bit of good luck with a calendar and a one off project of good, wholesome fun.

[Roland Rock]

The best example I know of is Freebass, a short-lived collaboration between Mani, Peter Hook and, erm, the bassist from the Smiths.

The band in the OP seems very jumbled to me (and the clank/fretnoise does my head in) but here some thought has gone into keeping the roles separate, it's not three basses in the same register, all playing at the same time, all of the time, like three stoned bass players at a rehearsal studio.

Here's a dubby track with the other players noodling a bit over the top:

http://youtu.be/jhRv2xrlCPU

Saying that, most of the album is just mediocre indie rock

My conclusion? Multiple bass player bands tend to be an idea that they try to make work, rather than being a format which is naturally conducive to creating great music. All good fun though

Edited April 17, 2017 by Roland Rock

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='Chris2112' timestamp='1492385049' post='3279864']
SMV was never meant to be a long term thing. Stanley announced to a magazine interviewer that they were going to do it, as before that they'd only kicked the idea around. But once Stan said it was happening, it was on. There was no real chance of it going further as all three of them have other commitments, especially Marcus, I would say. It's a bit like Jeff Berlin, Stuart Hamm and Billy Sheehan doing Bx3, just a bit of good luck with a calendar and a one off project of good, wholesome fun.
[/quote]

I wouldn't like to think of them as being that naive as to look at it that way. If I think about it, it is probably the way for all "supergroups". That the Travelling Wilburys got two albums out was perhaps remarkable.

Many thanks for the pointer to Bx3. I wasn't previously aware of them together. I will enjoy a blast of that later.

[BigRedX]

It's not really 4 "bass Players" though is it? It a band with 4 musicians who happen to play the bass guitar. There is an important difference.

[Nicko]

I'd have thought the "wasteland" in the band name was reference to their gigs.

[jacko]

I tried to do this with a couple of other guys in the 80's when slap was king. 3 bassists all slapping sounded sh*t. gave it up after 1 week.