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Learn To Play Dynamic bass-lines and boss-level fingerstyle | plus! Stuart Hamm teaches you to tap!
aerosmith's
TOM HAMILTON
Vegas, baby! We walk Aerosmith's way as the ultimate rockers hit 50
interviews Ryan Madora
Nashville blues vibes
Jim Bergantino
Inside the mind of a genius
Mike Hatton
Oscar time with the Green Book bassist
reviewed
Essential new bass gear
GB Guitars, Warwick, Kemper, Maruszczyk
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BASSISTS
Tom Hamilton, Aerosmith
“I LOVE TO LOOK OUT IN THE AUDIENCE AND SEE THE LOOK ON PEOPLE’S FACES WHO MAY BE SEEING US FOR THE FIRST TIME”
TOM TOM CLUB Aerosmith’s Tom Hamilton says hello from Las Vegas, where his multi-platinum-selling band are delivering the most ambitious show of their almost-50-year career. Let’s walk this way one more time! Interview: Mike Brooks Photos: Zack Whitford ormally we ignore press releases that run “Aerosmith – Steven Tyler (vocals), Joe Perry (lead guitar), Brad Whitford (guitar), Tom Hamilton (bass) and Joey Kramer (drums) – are a living piece of American music history” as made-up fluff from an overcaffeinated PR intern. Not this time though; the claim is completely accurate. After all, if you’ve sold 150 million albums, won a stack of Grammys, Billboard and MTV Video Music Awards, nabbed a Soul Train award for Best Rap Single (yep) and produced your biggest show ever after half a century on the road, you’ve earned a few titles here and there. Aerosmith are currently enjoying a residency in Las Vegas, mostly at the city’s Park Theater, while eyeing their 50th anniversary, which is just over the horizon in October 2020. “America’s Greatest Rock’N’Roll Band”, as the press release has it, have come up with a phenomenal technical array for the shows. Without going into too much detail, two companies – THX and L-Acoustics, the former of
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which you may recognise from Star Wars – have partnered with the band to supply the world’s first THX Certified live performance presented in L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound. But how does the bass sound? Let’s ask Tom Hamilton, now 67 years old and, we’re very glad to say, on frisky form despite a brush with cancer a few years back...
How do you stay fit on the road? I could probably spend more time in the gym, but I do have a trainer to keep me in shape. We’re in Vegas for an extended period now, so I have an exercise bike and some weights. I use them regularly. Honest! Seriously, staying in shape definitely shows up when it comes time to hitting the stage or even just practising.
How much fun is the residency in Las Vegas, Tom? I can really feel myself and the band growing into this way of gigging. It’s starting to feel like home. Plus, I love the fact that we can have this monstrous production. I’ve always been into the eye-candy aspect of rock shows. I have absolutely no worries about the production distracting the audience from the music.
Do you warm up pre-show? It’s all calisthenics: getting the muscles warmed up. Lately I’ve been going over all the songs in the set, even the ones we’ve been playing over and over for years. I start to find that there are a lot of parts that I thought I was playing well, and realise that I could play them a lot better. It sounds like it would be boring, but it isn’t. It just shows you that there’s always new ways to get better and as a result have more fun!
Do you still get excited at the prospect of performing? I absolutely get off playing live. You have to look at things from the fan’s point of view. I love to look out in the audience and see the look on people’s faces who may be seeing us for the first time.
What gear are you using these days? Since I’m in a band with two guitar players it’s important that I have a clear, punchy, percussive sound. The Gallien Krueger amps I’ve been using for a long time now make it easy for me to get that sound. I 021
Mike Hatton on upright bass in the hit film Green Book, alongside Dimiter D. Marinov (cello) and Mahershala Ali (piano)
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bassists Mike Hatton
Green Days We meet Mike Hatton, bass-playing actor in the multiple Oscar-winning movie Green Book hicago-born actor, comedian, producer and bassist Mike Hatton pursued a successful career in many areas of creativity, mostly outside the public eye, until last year. All that changed with the 2018 release of Green Book, a Peter Farrelly-directed, Dreamworks coproduced movie in which Hatton played a prominent role as an upright bass player. Set in 1962, the film tells the true story of the late jazz pianist Don Shirley, his equally late bouncer/driver Tony Vallelonga and their travails in America’s Deep South. Green Book amassed takings of $320 million against a budget of $23 million, a mighty return by anyone’s standards, and was nominated for five Oscars – winning three of them – as well as a stack of other awards. That’s quite a coup for Hatton, and indeed having him in our magazine is a coup for us as well. How many other movie actors of this calibre also play bass? (Don’t worry, Keanu, we’ll get you in here sometime.)
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It seems that being a bass player has really paid off for you, Mike. Yes! Having that tool in my bag of tricks really did pay dividends. Before, bass was something I enjoyed doing, and I wish I had as much time to play as I had as a teenager and in my 20s, when I was still dealing with bands and things like that, but it finally paid off. I was in bands throughout high school and college. My twin brother is a guitarist and he took it a little more seriously than I did, but for me, it was a hobby. For Green Book, did you audition as an actor or as a bass player? Well, it was a bit of both. I was friendly with two of the writers, Brian Currie and Nick Vallelonga, who are also the producers, so they had a hand in the casting. I was pestering them to get me in front of Peter Farrelly: I just said, ‘Get me in front of him and I’ll read one line. I’ll introduce the band. Let me do whatever.
I’ll be that one guy who has one line.’ They kept saying, ‘There’s nothing for you! There’s no role for you!’ Finally Nick goes, ‘Wait a minute – the band! Oh my God, wait. Don’t you play the bass?’ I said, ‘Yeah’. ‘Well, how good are you?’ I said, ‘I’m pretty good. I don’t play as much as I used to, but I used to be pretty fuckin’ good.’ ‘How good?’ I said, ‘I’ll play for you right now, literally. I’m not being a smartass’. He says, ‘All right, wait a minute, hold on. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. Let me call you back’. He called me back and said, ‘I just got off the phone with Brian Currie. He loves this idea, he can’t believe it’. And I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, you’re talking about George, the bass player. That’s a starring role!’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, they don’t want anybody famous in that role. They want somebody who actually plays the bass, somebody who’s believable. Meet me tomorrow at the music shop on Ventura and Sherman Oaks’. So I did, and I wore a tux, and we went down there and we took pictures of me with a standup bass.
“There were moments when we felt like we were a real band” Were you already a upright bass player? I’d never held an upright in my life! I’ve had electric basses, but never an upright. We took photos with it, and I look at those photos now and I think ‘Oh my God, my form’s terrible’. Nick took some stills with his phone, made them black and white and sent them to Peter Farrelly. Peter said, ‘Get this guy in tomorrow,’ and that was it. I went in the next day and I auditioned. The acting part was easy: the bass part was what he was concerned with the most. How did you get through it? Over that day, I taught myself the intro to
Don Shirley’s ‘Water Boy’ on upright bass, so I played that song in there, and there you go. I got the job. It’s a great film. It is. I read the script way before I had the opportunity to audition for it, and I knew that it was a magical project. I was on a plane coming back from New Orleans from another project, and I read the script, and at the end I actually started to cry. I was really moved. The woman in the seat next to me said, ‘Are you okay?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I just read this script’. I just knew it was going to be awesome. At that time they already had the lead actors cast, but I knew I had to get on that project. I just fought my ass off to do it. Roughly how long did it take for you to shoot your scenes? The film shot for 10 weeks, and I was there for eight of them. For the musical sequences, everything was spread out because we needed different locations, and when you’re shooting a movie in New Orleans that’s representative of the entire South, you can imagine there’s a lot of moving around. In the bass-playing shots, are you actually amplified and playing? The way it worked was we would play some of the songs along with a backing track that they had recorded with session guys. Other times we’d pull the back track and just play the song for the audience, so we were really playing those songs. We would rehearse for a couple of hours for those, which was great. There were moments when we were jamming in front of the producers, and I was so fricking nervous. I was really scared. In fact, I was more nervous about the bass playing than I was about the acting, because I wanted it to be accurate! The character was classically trained and I just didn’t have that in me. I was a rock and roll guy. But I did it, and in the end we had a total blast. There were moments when we felt like we were a real band. 031
GEAR
GB Guitars Merlin Price £4750
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION Price | £4750 Made In | UK Colour | Amber tint, gloss finish Body | Flamed sycamore bodycore with quilted maple front and rear facings Neck | Seven-piece laminate (flamed sycamore, roasted flame maple and black American walnut), 34” scale Neck Joint | Through-neck Nut Width | 40mm / 1.57” Fingerboard | Madagascan rosewood Frets | 24 Pickups | GB Guitars humbucking pickups x 2 Electronics | GB Guitars (John East designed) three-band active 18v preamp Controls | Volume, pickup pan, bass/treble (stacked, push/pull on treble for additional boost), middle/mid-sweep (stacked), LED switch, passive tone control (push/pull for active/passive) Hardware | Black anodised hardware, Hipshot Ultralite (Goodfellow designed) machineheads, Hipshot bridge Weight | 3.9kg / 8.6 lb Case/gig bag included | GB cream Hiscox hardcase Left-hand option available | Yes, as a custom order
WHAT WE THINK Plus | Impeccable build quality and tone range Minus | Expensive Overall | A bass to last a lifetime. Buy with confidence
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GB GUITARS Merlin
GB Guitars’ own wizard, Bernie Goodfellow, brings his singlecut design to town. Read on to see if it cast a spell on us GB Guitars www.gbguitars.co.uk
£4750
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t’s been a while since we looked at a head-turner from GB Guitars, but the inimitable Bernie Goodfellow has been good enough to provide us with a couple of current examples – and who are we to turn them away? After enjoying considerable success with his Spitfire and Rumour models, Bernie has turned his attention to a singlecut model for players who prefer the look and feel of that type of instrument. The Merlin model takes the Spitfire body shape as a starting point and then elaborates on it to create the singlecut design you see before you. Note that Bernie is keen to stress that, as with all GB instruments, all features can be changed to suit the player.
Build Quality
There’s no disputing the fine aesthetic on show here. With front and rear quilted maple facings, purpleheart, black American walnut, sycamore and flame maple timbers used for the body and neck, there’s no lack of natural beauty on show. The headstock with GB Guitars logo, pickup covers and control cavity plate also feature matched timber and with the gloss body coat, the timber figuring is shown off to the max. The neck finish, on the other hand, is described as a ‘super-tactile non-gloss sheen finish’, which certainly feels impressive. The body is chambered to improve weight and balance, and both are very effective, with minimal headstock bias on show. There is no contouring to the front upper body bout, but the rear features a deep contour for player comfort. The lower cutaway offers unhindered access to the upper frets of the 24-fret rosewood fingerboard, while the amber side LEDs will guide your way despite no front-facing position markers. Hipshot hardware has been used throughout, a graphite nut has been installed and a Neutrik locking jack socket is featured on the lower side of the bass. The neck profile is quite wonderful – non-intrusive, but with enough shape and curvature so that you can work with it rather than against it. With no sharp frets, a neck finish that helps your fretting hand move freely, 19mm/0.75” string spacing and an action with very little fret buzz despite being relatively low, this is an instrument demanding to be played.
Sounds And Playability
With a full GB electronics package onboard, the tonal possibilities are enough to make your mouth water. Before plugging in, the bass has a clear sounding organic tone – it’s quite woody, with a guttural 052
thump in the low-mid region and a strong resonance. The natural sustain is noticeable. Plugged in, the bass’s full tonal performance comes to life. With around 20dB of cut and boost across the three-band 18-volt EQ, one thing this bass doesn’t lack is punch and power. The fundamental tone is strong with a great deal of clarity, and running between the two pickups highlights a wide choice of tones from both of the GB soapbar. Simultaneously, sweeping across the mid-EQ gives the expected ‘wah’ effect, and the mid-EQ is pronounced, accentuating the woody character of the bass. The handy, push/pull-operated passive tone control is functional in both active and passive modes. There is also an additional treble boost for percussive techniques, accessed via the push/pull feature of the treble control. It will take some time to become familiar with how each EQ control interacts with the others, of course.
Conclusion
A GB Guitars instrument has long been a desirable commodity and the Merlin continues that tradition with aplomb. The pricetag is hefty but so are equally hand-crafted basses from the US and placed side by side, maybe the differences aren’t so great. The Merlin covers a lot of tonal ground, as it should at this price. The level of craftsmanship is such that the player can’t help but enjoy the playing experience. Playability and comfort have been addressed admirably. Bernie is to be congratulated on another fine specimen from his excellent stable.
gear
Kemper Profiling Amp PowerHead Price £1485.74
Initially, your instrument connects to the PowerHead via a standard ¼” input which, due to its variable gain, is ideal for both active and passive instruments. From here the signal crosses into the ‘pre’ amplifier effects section, identified by four colourcoded LED buttons. Essentially, each of these buttons emulates the placement of a stompbox, so the next step is assign the sounds you’re likely to employ. In ‘Stomp Presets’ you’ll find a comprehensive list of everything from modulation effects to autowahs and compressors. All of the stock preset sounds seem well Kemper PowerHead tailored, yet easy to edit should Price | £1485.74 your personal specifications not Made in | Germany be met. The combination of realPower Output | 600W at 8 ohms, time EQ and an array of editable 300W at 16 ohms Features | Input ¼ inch TS unbalanced, features makes altering any of XLR L&R balanced output, USB 2.0 (FS) the characteristics quick and compatible, 5-pin DIN connectors for efficient. In/Out/Thru MIDI, dedicated headphone The ‘Stack’ section of the front output, class-D power amp, panel is the next stop for your Profiler Remote, Rig Manager signal chain. Now, it doesn’t take Weight | 6.5kg (14.3 lbs) a genius to recognise that this is where the virtual amplifiers Plus | An almost flawless reproduction reside, but trying to fully comprehend what happens here of an unlimited number of sounds Minus | Takes some time to understand is humbling. Essentially, every Overall | A spectacular addition to any single amplifier and speaker performance scenario configuration ever envisioned is suddenly at your fingertips. Colour-coded LED buttons, Build quality identical to the one that’s used to Sound quality assign the stompboxes, are once Value again employed, allowing you
Technical Specification
What We Think
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to browse through limitless amplification possibilities. If it’s been Profiled you can access it. Finally, your signal chain passes through a further four potential effect modules, where stereo delay and reverbs can be assigned post-amplifier and speaker configuration. At this stage, the Kemper has done nothing but mimic a traditional stage setup; the only difference is that it’s happened digitally. Once you’ve constructed your optimum Rig, the entire thing can be labelled, stored as a single preset and then accessed in seconds via the front panel, or with the optional Profiler Remote footswitch. Now for the real witchcraft of this unit: Profiling, the Kemper’s seminal feature. This radical technology allows you to record, and use, the sonic footprint of any amplifier on the planet. This incredible feat of engineering is simple to use. First, select a 057
Kemper
Profiling Amp PowerHead We finally review a Kemper Profiler and ask the ultimate question: does it match up to a traditional amp? Phil Mann hooks up a cab and delivers the verdict Kemper www.kemper-amps.com
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emper’s seminal Profiler preamp has been hailed for some time as one of the world’s leading all-in-one digital guitar effects processors, but as that well-known double-thumbing expert Bob Dylan said, the times they are a-changing, and in recent years bassists have also started to take interest, headed up by veterans such as Billy Sheehan, Tony Levin and Pino Palladino. As the era of the traditional backline begins to evolve more towards silent stages, how many of us choose to step away from traditional amps and into the digital light remains to be seen. For those who are unaware, the Kemper Profiler is essentially the Swiss army knife of guitar and bass processors. Imagine a single box that can emulate every element of your signal chain – from stompboxes to preamps and multi-effects to amp heads and speaker enclosures. All of this digital wizardry is made possible by Kemper’s patented ‘Profiling’ technology, which essentially allows the unit to take a flawless snapshot of the user’s chosen sound, and then store it digitally in one handy 6.5kg (14 lbs) box.
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£1485.74
“Imagine a single box that can emulate every element of your signal chain” The original Profiler was a revelation, but progress stops for nobody and these days you can find all of the original unit’s specifications included in a 600-watt, class D power amp, named the PowerHead. It’s available as a head or rackmount unit, as these pictures reveal. Let’s plug in. I admit that the PowerHead can be an intimidating unit to interact with for the first time, especially if you’re a bassist comfortable with a simple equipment list. I felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of buttons, switches and colour coding that populates the Profiler’s digital display. However, once you become acquainted with the layout and acknowledge that all of these controls basically appear in the order of a comprehensive signal chain, all of a sudden the air of trepidation begins to lift. Kemper refer to a complete signal chain as a ‘Rig’. In principle, your instrument’s signal passes through the input, before virtual representations of stompboxes, amplification and effects, before the output stage. This outline shows how a signal path travels through a traditional pedalboard and amplifier, the only difference being that you’re not restricted by what happens to be lying on the floor in front of you. Once you’ve completed designing your Rig, you can save it as a single patch – and then repeat the entire process a virtually limitless number of times.
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phil mann
Intermediate Tutorial
Ready for the next step? Phil Mann introduces us to the most manic minors since The Brady Bunch
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he world of minor tonality can be a pretty perplexing place to explore. In contrast to major harmony, where musicians find themselves abiding by one set of rules and regulations, minor harmony finds it far more amusing to generate an array of complexities so advanced, that they commonly overwhelm the majority of contemporary musicians. How does it do this? Simple. Minor tonality is essentially three completely different
perspectives, each of which has its own individual set of melodic and harmonic vocabulary. There is a lot to say about harmonic and melodic minors, but this month’s focus will be on the third version of minor harmony, the natural. Thankfully, this type of minor harmony should carry a familiar feel to it, as it’s essentially the major scale, starting from a different note.
Example 1 When harmonised to fournote 7th chords, the natural minor scale produces a minor 7th structure on all of its primary intervals (I, IV, and V). This gives a somewhat sombre tonality to this month’s studies. Before we dive back into compound time, let’s take a moment to familiarise ourselves with the order of the 7th arpeggios produced via the harmonisation process.
“this type of minor harmony should carry a familiar feel to it, as it’s essentially the major scale, starting from a different note” 070