by Martin Simpson

There are very few, two-bass bands on this planet and most of them are working within the Reggae genre  so we can count ourselves lucky to have a two bass Rock band called16stitch here in South Africa. I eventually managed to track the guys down early in 2005 and we had a good 3-way chat via e-mails during May.  

 

Martin: Guys, it’s great to find a local band that has two bassists. I’m sure there’s a few more but I haven’t come across them yet. I thought it’d be great to have a chat with you two guys about how you interact with each other and how the idea of forming a two-bass band came about. 

 

Warren, first questions first, How long have you been playing? 

 

Warren: I’ve been kind of bouncing between guitar and bass for the past 6 years or so, but I’ve had to change my style of playing since I started playing with Gareth so I’ve only been focused on what I’m doing now for about 2 to 3 years. 

 

Martin: And you Gareth? 

 

Gareth: I’ve been playing bass for about 6 or 7 years now, although only seriously for about 2 in my opinion… 

 

Martin: Do you guys come from musical families? 

 

Warren: My mother played in band when she was younger she was a singer, and my brother used to play violin, but neither of them play anymore. 

 

Gareth: Only my brothers that I know of… 

 

Martin: So how did the idea of forming a, two-bass band come about? 

Gareth and Warren: There was really no idea, it just petty much happened. Warren was in the band first and I would sometimes go and watch them practice. Then one day I was just playing bass in my room and the other guys were there and Andrew was like “why don’t you play bass also, because Warren was doing a lot more effects & experimental stuff at that stage, so it seemed like a good idea. 

 

Martin: Sonic space is a very important thing in any band but in a two-bass band it’s absolutely critical to get things right, otherwise the sound will be like mud. Obviously, you guys work things in such a way that you’re not just duplicating what the other one’s doing but who does what? 

 

Warrem: “Sonic space” what a pain in the ass, this is some thing in the band that’s hard to achieve, well for me anyway. Obviously you cant have Gareth and I both blasting away on our low B-strings without it sounding like muddy crap, so to fix this problem I’ve change my tone, style and setup. I’ve had to EQ my sound in such a way that I have hardly any bass, some low mids and a lot of treble allowing my bass to cut through Paul and Gareth. “Sonic space” this is in fact the reason why I play like I play today, It’s almost forced me to venture down different avenues of playing bass, moving further and further away from the traditional style of bass playing I’ve almost integrated techniques from both guitar and bass, and mostly playing above the 12^th fret allowing me to fill the gap between Paul and Gareth, trust me this isn’t the largest gap in the world! 

 

As far as my setup goes, I play with extremely light gauge strings resulting in less boom, almost taking the mud right out, even when I’m playing the lower strings. The light gauge strings let me have my action really low so that my bass plays almost like an electric guitar but still in standard 6 string bass tuning, in fact I use a 22 gauge electric guitar string as my high C.   

 

Gareth: Well, yeah, the “sonic space” issue is a big one in our band, as not only are there 2 bassists but also a 7-string guitar. Interestingly though we’ve managed to find a good balance between the 3 instruments. While the my brother and I work together in the traditional roles of bassist and guitarist, it’s Warren’s role that is the key factor, working more like a barotone guitar than a bass. He uses primarily the higher registers of his 6-string bass to find a “sonic space” between what Paul and I are doing, which can sometimes be a frustrating place to work in, as everyone is constantly stepping on each other’s toes in a sort of sonic sense… 

 

Martin: I noticed from the pix you sent me that you play a four string bass, Gareth and you Warren, play a five stringed instrument or is there more to it than that. 

 

Warren: Actually Gareth plays a 5 string, I play 6 a string bass and a 6 string guitar and Paul plays a 7 string guitar, that’s right we do have a lot of strings in the band 24 all together. At one stage I was really close to buying a Conklin 7 string bass but I have really small hands and you could imagine that neck would be monstrous.  

 

Gareth: I actually play a 5-string now and Warren plays a 6-string (with very light gauge strings). There is no particular reason for this though. The standard tuning of a 5 or 6 string works perfectly with the 7 string tuning of my brother’s guitar, and when I used to play a 4-string I used to tune to standard B anyway. 

 

Martin: Do you guys work bass solos into your music or do you just leave that kind of stuff up to Paul and Nick? 

Warren: In one of our songs Gareth and I do a slapping piece together but I don’t think you could classify it as a solo.  

 

Gareth: None of us solo actually, we kinda view it as showing off a bit, and bass solos are pretty difficult too. I don’t really think I’m good enough to solo. 

 

Martin: What amps are you guys using? 

 

Warren: At the moment I’m using a 100watt Hughes & kettner for band practice but at gigs, I play straight through my GT6 and into the monitors, I like having my sound in front of me instead of behind me because Nick plays his drums so god damn hard that I would never hear my amp. At the moment I’m looking at getting the Ampeg SVT 4 Pro with a Ampeg 2x10 monitor cab, I’ve always be a big fan of ampeg. 

 

Gareth: I’m currently shopping around for a new amp, but for the moment I’m playing on either an SWR Workingman’s 15 or a Fender Rumble 100, or both sometimes. Until now, a combo amp has worked well for me, mostly for portability reasons, but I find that these smaller amps just don’t give me enough volume/power on stage to hear myself over Paul’s Orange OR120 and nick’s drums so… 

 

Warren owns a small 100watt Hughs & Ketner combo, but he just plays through the monitors at gigs. I know he also has some plans for a new rig, but he can tell you more about that… 

 

Martin: Any effects? 

 

Warren: I use the Boss guitar GT6, these days I’m using a bit of distortion to back Paul up I also use phaser and this weird kind of ambient synth shit. I used to be very effects driven but not so much anymore. 

 

Gareth: Until very recently I didn’t use any effects at all, but I’ve started adding a bit of distortion here and there to fatten up a chorus piece or a bit of flanger, phaser or synth… Just a personal preferance but I prefer to let Paul and Warren deal with the effects, as they seem to come out more with their higher registers. I have a Boss GT6 which I use sometimes on stage and in studio, but its not a necessity. 

 

Martin: I’ve heard you guys playing plenty of times on Barney Simon’s show and I really enjoy what you guys are doing. What bands and artists do you listen to? 

 

Warren: I listen to a lot different stuff, big influence come from bands like blindside and 36 crazy fists but  I also listen to some weird shit like Bjork I just get really good ideas from listening to her music, and of course huge respect for the pro’s like Victor wooten.  

 

Gareth: Everything really… From really heavy stuff like Slipknot or Soulfly to Enya, Bjork and personally quite a bit of jazz. As a bassist, I really look up to Ryan Martinie from Mudvayne, Victor Wooten (obviously) as well as Marcus Miller. I also really like the stuff Dirk Lance did while he was with Incubus. 

 

Martin: What instruments would you guys like to have if money were no object? 

 

Warren: At the moment I’m looking at getting the Ibanez SDGR prestige six string those bartollini pick ups kick ass, but that’s more a reality. Ultimately I would want to get a custom made bass with a shorter scale neck and closer string spacing maybe done by a company like Conklin.  

 

Gareth: I’m very happy with my Warwick thumb at the moment, but I think I’d like to look at a frettless bass soon, and maybe a 4-string Fender Jazz bass too. 

 

Martin: Gareth, you’ve visited the South African Bassists website, what do you think of it? 

 

Gareth: I’m actually a web designer myself, so take this as constructive critisism… I think content wise it is getting there, but design wise it could be cleaner and a bit more organised. A search function would be a nice addition also. 

 

Martin: And you Warren? 

 

Warren: I just think it’s so awesome that there’s a web site that’s just dedicated to bass players and not those drummer and guitarist bastards. 

 

Martin: Warren, you also do some acoustic guitar stuff in the band. Do you write on this instrument? 

 

Warren: Ya, I do a lot of writing on acoustic it also gives me a lot of good ideas for bass but the acoustic I play live isn’t that easy to write on coz the tuning is so screwed up, it’s tuned to B-F#-B-B-B-B which limits you in a lot of ways.  

 

Martin: What have you both been doing for the last five years or so other than playing in 16 Stitch? 

 

Warren: I’ve been in school and after school I studied sound engineering. I also started studying contempory bass but it wasn’t for me and now I work in the bicycle industry. 

 

Gareth: Everyone in the band has a “day job”, and as I said, I’m a web designer/graphic designer, but I’ve only been working for about 3 years now... 

 

Martin: What recordings that you’ve played on would you recommend for listening? 

Gareth & Warren: The only recording we have published so far is our First Album called Beautiful Angelic Parasite.

 

We have been working on a DVD featuring our Woodstock 6 performance and a cover song of Depeche Mode’s Policy of Truth which will feature on an upcomimg Depech Mode tribute CD. Our new album is due out later this year also. 

 

Martin: What’s been the low points in each of your careers  so far? 

 

Warren: I think one of the lowest points ever was when Mark Gillman from 5fm decided to announce to the country that we where going to open for Limp Bizkit (which wasn’t true) and we got to see how jealous and pathetic the music industry can be. We also get a bit down when we play crap shows and have technical problems but I guess it’s all character building. 

 

Gareth: Finding out just how much politics there is in such a small music industry in this country. 

 

Martin: And what have been the high points? 

 

Warren: Woodstock 6 was one of the most life changing gigs for me, something I’ll never forget.  

 

Gareth: Our Woodstock 6 performance and the shooting of our DVD – including our acoustic set at back2basix. 

 

Martin: What are each of your goals currently? 

 

Warren: I think my main goal at the moment  is to get out of this patch I’m going through, I’m battling to write new music (well music that I’m happy with anyway) and then we must write our new album. Secondly we wanna go check out the international music scene and show them that there’s some amazing bands in South Africa.  

 

Gareth: To improve my own playing firstly, and secondly we (16Stitch) would like to be able to represent South Africa overseas. I haven’t really travelled much, so being able to tour overseas would be an amazing experience I think…and who better to do it with than my band! 

 

Martin: What do you guys think of the support you get from Radio. I know Barney is an ardent supporter of S.A. bands and he gives you regular airplay but I don’t hear you anywhere else!!!! 

Gareth and Warren: Well, it’s actually a bit of a problem at the moment. Barney has now moved to Tuks, which is the only radio station that actually wants to support the SA Rock scene. We’ve submitted stuff to other stations, but even our softest stuff gets rejected with some kind of stupid excuse like: “The drums sound too South African” or something similar. 

 

The big stations will just do the bare minimum to show they are “supporting local artists”, but we don’t have the target market that Danny K or TKZ, so we just get sidelined pretty much. 

Martin: Thanks for the chat guys – hope to see you at future S.A.B.P.C. bass evenings!!!!!