Could I Play Bass with John Mayer?

4-strings and 4 chords

There were two main challenges when recording this song today:

1. I’d heard it so many times that Sean’s bass part was ingrained in my head, making it pretty challenging to get away from it and do something original

2. In stark contrast to the past few songs I’ve posted, there was absolutely nowhere to hide. Every single note is completely exposed and is an integral part of moving the song forward and supporting the vocal.

If I’m honest about this particular video I’ve actually played with John before, so the “Could I Play With” concept is is really only still in play because we were both sidemen on a Bob Reynolds album.

I think it’s very interesting what comes to mind when I play music like this that I’ve listened to for so long. There’s a whole lineage of incredible bass playing on John’s records, and it’s hard to avoid the feeling of Pino or Sean looking over your shoulder and scrutinizing what you’re doing.

In reality they’ll most likely never hear this, but that was certainly a distraction for a second when I first extracted the bass from the original track and started playing the song for real.

I’ve had the great fortune to play with several of the drummers that have done the gig before, including Aaron Sterling who plays on this whole record. It feels like a combination of the continued listening for two decades, and the familiarity of having played with a lot of the people on these records, that made it super fun to play.

You’re hearing take two of two. No fixes, no punches, just one full take. I used an early 2000’s American P bass with decade-old tape wound flats played through the new Venture V3 head from Ampeg. I did one take with and one take without the B15 emulation. I ended up going with the B15 in the end as it seemed to fill out the track a little better.

Had I been on the session for this song and had the luxury of using an amp for more of a live sound, I would have tried to source an old B15 for sure. It’s a deadly combo with a P bass.

More soon,

Janek

P. S. we have just two days left of our Black Friday (40% off all digital products) and Cyber Monday (50% off all bass courses) sale. Signed books (yes actual physical books!) are also flying off my shelves to the point where I had to make an emergency restock order, so thank you for the support there. It makes it highly motivating to continue doing physical products and streamlining the shipping situation so I can give more of a personal touch to you all.