The musician Geddy Lee called “the great contemporary bass player”
For any legacy rock band, there comes a point where modern groups don’t have any staying power. Regardless of how good some young kids might be able to string together bits and pieces of music, they will never hit the old guard as hard as when they heard their favourite songs when they were kids. Although Geddy Lee could have easily continued listening to outfits like The Who and Genesis for the rest of his life, he thought one contemporary bass player shined above all the rest.
Then again, Lee has always been about pushing music forward in Rush. Although the band started as a cheap play on Led Zeppelin’s brand of rock and roll, Lee made it his mission to keep innovating at every turn, working with Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart to create the most awe-inspiring feats that any had ever dared to dream up on record.
Although Lee was known as the band’s all-star frontman and the one behind most of the keyboard lines, his most significant contributions to the group came down to how hard he was hitting the bass. Following the tradition of artists like Chris Squire, Lee was known to approach his instrument as if it were a lead guitar, playing different lines throughout the band’s tenure that gave Lifeson a run for his money behind the fretboard.
While the band had quickly been turning towards old-school rock and roll towards the early 1990s, a different brand of bass playing was coming out of Los Angeles. Blending every genre under the sun, Red Hot Chili Peppers made music reminiscent of everything California had to offer, from soaring Beach Boys-esque melodies to funk grooves taken from Parliament-Funkadelic records.
Despite the near-incomprehensible musings from Anthony Kiedis, Flea was the standout behind the band, always keeping everything rooted to the ground while almost overtaking John Frusciante’s guitar in places. Like most bass aficionados, Lee thought Flea’s technique was a cut above most modern bass players.
When talking about his favourite players, Lee talked about Flea being one of the best in his field, recalling, “He is a monster player. Flea is one of the great, you know, contemporary bass players. His influences are so funk-driven. Yet, he can do anything.” Although many people tend to think that Flea may have found his strong suit in playing funky basslines, it’s his versatility that has kept things interesting throughout every era of the band’s career.
Even though he heavily emphasised punk ferocity in the group’s early days, the Peppers’ 2000s work saw Flea incorporating more melodies into his playing, often alternating between slapping lines and melodic flourishes on tracks like ‘Can’t Stop’. Outside of slapping, songs like ‘Death of a Martian’ featured Flea delicately picking the bass, creating a massive sonic texture in the low end.
For all of the funk rock tendencies Flea falls back on, the commonalities between him and Lee are much easier to spot than one would think. Although they may both be able to wow audiences with their technique, each of them is concerned with playing every note like it’s the last thing that they will ever do.
